Beginner blurry images

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Stupot25

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Martyn
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hi all and thanks allowing me on this forum I am new to this I have a d7000 (nikon) but I can never get a good image I have 4 lenses. tamron 17-50 2/8 a nikon 18-105mm a nikon 70-300 and a sigma 50mm macro but as I said I cannot get a sharp image any advice would be greatly received thanks in advance
 
maybe post a few examples, this could be a few different things.

oh and by the way:wave:, welcome
 
do you use a photo site or anything, like Flickr?

if not, below (when replying) is a little button called "attach file" but you may need to re-size
 
Welcome - it's a bit fiddly adding images but as advised the easiest way is to host somewhere else and link to it.

There a few things which could cause a blurry image:
- missed focus (if manual focus, are you focussing correctly? If using auto make sure you are using the "correct" focus mode - subject to situation)
- moving subject (use a faster shutter speed)
- moving camera (use a tripod/use a faster shutter speed)
- not enough light (results in too slow a shutter speed - up the ISO/open the aperture/use a flash)
- too high an ISO (results in unsharp, mushy photos)
- noise reduction in post processing (also results in unsharp, mushy photos)
- and finally, and almost certaintly not the issue - a crappy lens/camera :)

The fastest way to knowing which of these it is is to post images with exif data.
Cheers
 
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Andy Into The Wild said:
Welcome - it's a bit fiddly adding images but as advised the easiest way is to host somewhere else and link to it.

There a few things which could cause a blurry image:
- missed focus (if manual focus, are you focussing correctly? If using auto make sure you are using the "correct" focus mode - subject to situation)
- moving subject (use a faster shutter speed)
- moving camera (use a tripod/use a faster shutter speed)
- not enough light (results in too slow a shutter speed - up the ISO/open the aperture/use a flash)
- too high an ISO (results in unsharp, mushy photos)
- noise reduction in post processing (also results in unsharp, mushy photos)
- and finally, and almost certaintly not the issue - a crappy lens/camera :)

The fastest way to knowing which of these it is is to post images with exif data.
Cheers
Click to expand...

This :) great advice

Les
 
They look sharp enough to me...I do notice that you have a lot of lens flare in the first shot due to shooting into the sun which is reducing the contrast in the image.

Note that shooting at a wide aperture increases the risk of missed focus due to such a shallow depth of field. It also means that you may get parts of the plant stem in focus and parts out of focus. In addition, some lenses perform a bit worse wide open as well...but like I said these look fine to me :)
 
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The goose shots look fine they just need processing in something like Lightroom to look their best. Bear in mind most lenses don't perform at their best at the widest aperture either.
 
Understand Focus and Depth of field; up shutter speed for the drop-shots, add light too. Read your manual on focus schemes and/or go manual focus, esp if shooting wide pertures / shallow DoF.
At a guess you are just pointing the camera and expecting IT to do all the work in Auto-Foc us and then grumbling when it doesn't do the best it could without some help from you... give it some help, / a better chance or three!
 
Could it just be down to a bit of camera shake? Do you have any example shots when camera is tripod mounted, live view on and using self timer to reduce pretty much all vibration and movement. Then compare to other shots.
 
OK several comments could be made about the apparent lack of sharpness.

Generally, some of the images are shot using high ISO settings on a crop sensor camera. If the output files are jpg format then the camera will be applying some fairly agressive noise reduction to compensate, and this will definitely take the edge off sharpness. Also in some cases the lenses used have been stopped down much too far to give a sharp image due to diffraction: for a typical prime you'll get peak sharpness around f5.6 to f8 and for a zoom around f8 to f11. Shooting at f25 will result in an image without critical sharpness.

The following image has both these problems:
DSC_4143 by martyn Slater, on Flickr

The goose images are suffering a little from higher ISO, but much more because the pictures were taken with a longer zoom (70-300?) wide open at f5.6 and 240 or as below 300mm, where it's not going to be critically sharp either (it may never be especially sharp at any aperture depending on the quality of the lens itself). As suggested, post-processing through Lightroom or similar will help images like this.

DSC_3974 by martyn Slater, on Flickr

In the case of the image below, the aperture is OK, the ISO is a bit high, but most important is that focus has been missed on the bits that needed to be sharp - the flowers at the front - and instead is on the stems behind.

DSC_4140 by martyn Slater, on Flickr

But sometimes it all comes together - ISO 100, f8, focus nailed. The key part of this image is sharp, with excellent detail.

DSC_4726 by martyn Slater, on Flickr

I won't comment on the waterdrop images because it's not my area. Hope this is useful.
 
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