My Daugher

#1 oof
#2 oof
#3 oof
#4 Much better
#5 oof
 
The last on was close to being 'really' good in that it captures a nice moment. Still a keeper though ;)
Are you using focus recompose method (i do) amd moving forward/backwards maybe?
Try on a teddy bear etc?
 
...meant to say some will say focus/recompose is bad (if you are using it that is), as you will pretty much always (even by a mm) move the focal plain....but imo it works best for me (it does take practice as well), i get a few binners but you will with kids around the house anyway ;)
 
u8myufo said:
#1 oof
#2 oof
#3 oof
#4 Much better
#5 oof
Click to expand...

Oh, I thought I did better than that. :-(

I struggle to see that the are out of focus to be honest. I think I was fighting with a shallow depth of field but could have increased it given the use of the flash
 
They are a nice collection however as previously said pretty much all of them are out of focus, it seems focus has been locked onto her jumper, mostly her shoulder, taking pictures of children can be difficult, especially if they're anything like mine and move every second.

As they say, practice makes perfect, keep at it.
 
Paul, (I'm on a monitor now rather than iphone :) )...they arent as OOF as I first thought.

#2 and #3 have appear the softest around the eyes (could be uploading maybe?)

Do like the last one though, great expressions.

I used to pixel peep with a lot of my stuff with my daughters, but looking back some of the my favourites actually have a slightly soft eye, for example - really though, sometimes it just matter that much (I'm just tyrying to document my 2 as best I can, not doing it for cash etc), just depends what your goals are, and you've captured some nice family images IMO.:cool:
 
I like these. The colour and lighting are really nice. Yes, they are slightly soft but I think sometimes that can be just fine, especially with young children. I know from personal experience how hard it is with a low aperture setting and shallo dof to keep a child still. Impossible usually. :)
 
Cheers for the comments. Looks like I new storey and work on my focus points at low apertures then!

Practice practice! :)
 
Paul, what sort of apertures are you using? The last does look quite wide, guessing at the distance between the 2 people not being that much, but dof seems shallow still (it works good btw i think it's just thrown it enough).

I use wide a lot around the house, but sometimes just stopping to somewhere ~ the f2's rather than 1.8 helps a little bit (tha's general for a lot of lenses anyway, but my 35mm 1.8 is still just as sharp at 1.8 tbh). There isn't 'that' much difference (your talking third of stops etc) in the scheme of things if you are looking at it from a light/shutter speed pov around the house (you have flash anyway so should be fine?)

If it's to avoid/throw out cluttered backgrounds, i'd just be more inclined to simply watch your angles and backgrounds and stay in the f2's (i know, tricky in the house, believe me!) and dont be scared of bumping your iso up a little bit for your natural light stuff (appreciate you have a flash as well, and you may know about the best ways of controlling this anyway with ambient light/shutter/flash etc). It depends on your technique (can always be improved), but also your subject speed which gets harder to manage!! :)
 
I was using 1.8 for these (50mm 1.8). I guess I should have not been quite so open really...

I plan to mess about a bit more if my flash (off camera) to see if I can improve things..

I think I always try and keep my lens wide when indoors to keep the shutter speed nice and fast, but looks like I struggle to get the focus point correct...
 
Yeah, I know what you mean(y)
See, I use a 35mm (did have a 50m 1.8D (loved the lens) but just found it fractionally too long indoors).

With the 35m, I have a little bit more room to crop slightly as well, just another option and might help you a small amount if looking at the centre point and doing minimum recompose?

From a few feet away, it should still be faiiiirly easy (with a bit of luck:)) to get your focus achieved, without flash 1/60th ish is very achievable for me indoors and easy for me to handle if they are sitting around (jumping etc forget it :) ), can handhold lower, but I find this OK a lot of the time if they are still! (forgetting flash here). If I want a bit faster (still natural light talking here), i'll go to iso400 or 800 from iso200...again...big deal in this day and age(y)

Got to pick your moments as well(y)

Try even 2.8 and put your iso up a stop see if you notice such a difference between apertures around the house. Also look at the distance between your background and subject, will will help if you are looking for subject isolation. It's a lot of little things making a big difference.

I'll miss maybe 1 in 10 from spot on focus on their eyes (noticeable if I pixel peep and got their eyebrow instead of eye etc - gets silly tbh).

My methods are not the best for some, but it works a lot for ME. It's all practice though, not really any shortcuts are there?:shrug: and finding what works for YOU. Some will never advocate focus/recompose fro example, and fair enough what works for them.

Also, centre point focus is supposedly the most realiable, again, i dont have that much experience using other points tbh, just what i've heard.
 
Aside from the out of focus issues previously identified, I think theres a lot of good to be said about the set. The tones are great, and the bokeh is lovely. Subject matter is good as is the composition and exposure. It really is just the focus. At f1.8 your have a really shallow depth of field a different f-stop and you'd have got away with it, but then i suspect you'd have lost some of the other really nice elements. Focus on the eye and recompose... on balance i really like what you were going for.
 
Chrispix said:
Aside from the out of focus issues previously identified, I think theres a lot of good to be said about the set. The tones are great, and the bokeh is lovely. Subject matter is good as is the composition and exposure. It really is just the focus. At f1.8 your have a really shallow depth of field a different f-stop and you'd have got away with it, but then i suspect you'd have lost some of the other really nice elements. Focus on the eye and recompose... on balance i really like what you were going for.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the commnet... I will try the focus and recompose method as well, but getting my daughter to stay in the same place long enough is a bigger challenge!!!
 
Slicker said:
Oh, I thought I did better than that. :-(

I struggle to see that the are out of focus to be honest. I think I was fighting with a shallow depth of field but could have increased it given the use of the flash
Click to expand...

I think you did great! The captures are lovely, but at the risk of beating a dead horse, focusing I think is the biggest problem you've got. With my own portraits, I'm quite picky and tough on myself and very selective when I go through my snaps... first thing I do is zoom in on the eyes... if they're not in focus, it's normally straight to the recycle bin.

Just my two cents/pence... :)
 
Slicker said:
Thanks for the commnet... I will try the focus and recompose method as well, but getting my daughter to stay in the same place long enough is a bigger challenge!!!
Click to expand...

Yep, i'm with you on that one. Photographing children with such a shallow depth of field is a massive challenge all of it's own. They move around too much. slightest movement of the head and all your focusing efforts are out the window. Every other element of the shots is so nice though it's worth pursuing that shot.

Also, they aren't majorly oof, it certainly wasn't the first thing that struck me when i saw them. Photographers will always take an image and scrutinise it closely, they bring it up close to the eye and look at pixels, everyone else looks at it from a distance and see's the whole thing.
 
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