Educate a beginner please.

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Matty723

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Name
Matthew Davies
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Looking at the picture below can anybody point out to me why the butterfly is out of focus in the upper corners? Seems to be sharp in the centre and not so muchabove?

taken with a Canon 7D2,Manual mode, centre point focus plus surround, Ai Servo back button, F4.0, 1/1000 shutter speed and iso 1250 using Evaluative metering.
Thanks in advance.

013A1273 by Matthew Davies, on Flickr
 
Nothing wrong with your shot
Just shallow depth of field. (Dof)
At f4 your dof is going to be fairly small or shallow.
F8 would have had more of the butterfly in focus.
The butterfly is not shot straight on, it's facing at a diagonal to the right of the camera, as such it's left and right wings are behind the point of focus and in front of the point of focus respectively.

Nice shot.
 
Thank you Derek,
Im slowly learning! Off to the zoo tomorrow so will try a higher aperture!
Thanks again :)
 
It would be worth your while reading a few books or watching some tutorials, to help understand some of the terminology, as particularly with aperture it can seem counterintuitive around f stops and larger or smaller numbers.
It will all make sense though once you get used to it.
Have a read through the beginners threads on here. There's lots of advice and tips and answers to questions you probably have.
 
Hi @Matty723 Where abouts are you based. Best thing I can suggest is to join a club. It'll get you out, and meeting likeminded people.
 
twhite87 said:
Hi @Matty723 Where abouts are you based. Best thing I can suggest is to join a club. It'll get you out, and meeting likeminded people.
Click to expand...

He could also look at the meeting section on here, chances are there will be other members not too far from him.
 
Assuming you want to go on learning: IMHO for this type of shot where the body and wings are virtually in the same plane of focus, i.e. parallel to the sensor, all the same distance from the camera, you could use a wider aperture (smaller number) which will reduce the depth of field and throw the background out of focus. Your first image had body and wing tips at different distances from the camera which is why you needed a smaller aperture (larger number) to gain a sufficient depth of field to get everything in focus.

I'd suggest that, while you are learning about aperture and shutter speed, you take a range of photos at different settings and compare them. There are also loads of YouTube videos on this subject.
 
Both images are correct depending on the look you are going for.

Notice in the first image that the background is blurred out which helps to keep the viewers eye on the subject. As long as the eye, head and body are in focus it doesn't really matter that the wings area bit blurry. You could stop down the aperture a bit to get a bit more of the butterfly in focus but then you will also sharpen the background as you can see in the second image. This can make for a messy background causing the viewers eye to wander around the frame instead of looking at the intended subject.

In the second image, because the wings are folded flat along the same focal plane you could have used a larger aperture and still got the entire butterfly in focus but at the same time blurring the background.
 
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