Beginner Where am I going wrong?

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Hello,

I’m in the middle of doing a short photography course and this week is all about action. We are currently working in shutter priority mode. I went out and took some pics but I’m not happy with the results.

They seemed to look ok on my camera screen but as soon as I get home they are dark and blurry on the laptop / iPad. There was no sunshine whatsoever (was around 4pm) and it was dark and rainy. I used servo with servo+face tracking. I focused on his face from far away, half presssed the shutter then followed him, then clicked the shutter when he was in the puddle.

I set my shutter speed to 800 then set the iso to 3200. The camera chose f/2. Should I have increased the iso even more? I was worried about grain. Should I not have focused on him and just waitied until he was in front of me? should I have slowed the shutter speed to allow more light in? If I had done that would I have frozen the moment?

How do you know of you’ve got a ‘sharp’ image when out shooting? I feel like my camera screen is deceptive?

I was using a Canon M50 and a 22mm pancake. I have attached a screen shot of one of the images as it wouldn’t let me upload the larger file.

Thanks.
 

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why shutter speed of 1/800th a lot slower speed would have coped and help get a correct exposure

You camera screen is not deceptive - its allowing you to see the subject, the exposure however- is wrong I would not have selected f2 - maybe f5.6 f6.3 or even f8 - set the ISO to auto and use either aperture priority or shutter speed priority

Here's an edit - adjusting to a slower exposure in theory - by lifting the levels in Photoshop

yours

58co542.jpg


mine

Nw0n9pf.jpg


Les :)
 
Everything Les said above :D

I'd have guessed at 1/200 to 1/250 to freeze action and f5.6 or even f8 if the light level was good enough to stop the ISO rising too high. If the light levels are lower and the ISO starts to rise and you have to think about slowing the shutter speed it's a compromise between image noise and motion blur. There looks to be quite a bit of vignetting in the original picture too? I suppose there are two ways of avoiding this, post capture processing or use a smaller aperture.

Maybe the problem with the screen is that it's quite small and you're seeing things on your pc that weren't very obvious on the camera screen?

Anyway. Onwards and upwards and I'm sure you'll do better next time and see what settings work best for you, the gear and the subject and light at the time.
 
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I guess F2 is as wide as your camera goes and so in shutter priority the image is under exposed because there was no room for manoeuvre. As has been said slower shutter speed is probably the best option, also check the histogram on the camera to see if the exposure is about right

How do you know of you’ve got a ‘sharp’ image when out shooting?
Most cameras allow you to zoom in on the captured image so you can get a better look at the details.
 
That's a terrible combination of settings.

As others have said why start at 1/800?
F/2 too shallow. Iso3200 too high.

It's all pushed to extremes.

Flash would help a lot
 
As a side note, the camera lcd's are great for reviewing an image at capture, but they're very small and can be misleading. It maybe an idea to turn the brightness down on the lcd. I find the factory setting to be to bright for a true representation. That's where the histogram can help.
 
Thank you so much for all the feedback. For some reason I thought I had to go high on the shutter speed to capture the ‘freeze’ moment. It makes complete sense that a slower speed would have allowed more light. ‍♀️

In terms of tracking him, was I right to lock him in before he started running or would I have been better to have just waited until he was in front of me then tried?

Thanks
 
In terms of tracking him, was I right to lock him in before he started running or would I have been better to have just waited until he was in front of me then tried?
If you haven't already, put the camera AF into, AI servo AF. Keep the shutter button half pressed. The camera AF will track the subject and keep it in focus until you fully press the shutter button.
 
If you haven't already, put the camera AF into, AI servo AF. Keep the shutter button half pressed. The camera AF will track the subject and keep it in focus until you fully press the shutter button.

Fab, yes I had it set to servo and then the servo with face tracking option on top.
 
It's only a person wiggling about, so just normal autofocus should be ok.

I very rarely use any of the servo focus modes and when i do, I'm working with something very fast like polo horses.

Flash would freeze the action.

And the image is grainy and lacks punch because of using iso3200. Of course flash would also allow you to use a much lower iso.
 
It's only a person wiggling about, so just normal autofocus should be ok.

I very rarely use any of the servo focus modes and when i do, I'm working with something very fast like polo horses.

Flash would freeze the action.

And the image is grainy and lacks punch because of using iso3200. Of course flash would also allow you to use a much lower iso.

Thank you. We haven’t moved onto using flash or external lighting yet. The assignment was to free movement choosing the iso and as settings only but hopefully once we move into using manual etc it will make more sense to me. I’m going to try again this week using a lower shutter speed and iso. ☺
 
It's not the best time of year TBH, if at all possible try to shoot around mid day.
 
People are banging on about settings, but your basic problem is that there wasn't enough light for action shots and there is not much you can do about that unless you add artificial light. Your instinct was right to chose a high shutter speed to freeze the action, leading to the requirement for a big aperture and high ISO to compensate but still, just not enough damned light. You can push the settings but image quality will degrade. Sometimes you just have to accept this and wait for another day. If it had been brighter, it would all have been different.

Gloomy weather is the time I like to experiment with long exposures, which of course is another way of playing with shutter priority. :)
 
The 22mm lens should give you plenty of depth of field at f2 for a shot like this, but it will vignette (darker corners) which can be corrected either in camera or in post processing.

To correct in camera go into Menu, first section, fourth line down "Lens Aberration Correction" select then first item "Peripheral Illum Corr" enable, that will correct the darkened corners.

Also worth enabling "Digital lens Optimiser" third item down if you are shooting in jpg rather than raw files.

Hope this helps.
 
Having reread your post about telling if your image is sharp at the time, the only way is to zoom in and check on the screen. The higher the ISO, the grainier the shot, the less sharp it will look. You should also get in the habit of checking the exposure on the histogram rather than the LCD image, which often looks brighter than the reality. The more you use your camera, the more you will get used to interpreting the displays.
 
i dont have that camera but there was probably something in the viewfinder info telling you correct exposure has not been achieved.

try to look it up in the manual, maybe something blinks or whatever, that shot is underexposed for sure
 
i dont have that camera but there was probably something in the viewfinder info telling you correct exposure has not been achieved.

try to look it up in the manual, maybe something blinks or whatever, that shot is underexposed for sure

Yes in shutter priority mode, if underexposed the aperture value will flash to indicate there is not enough light.
 
People are banging on about settings, but your basic problem is that there wasn't enough light for action shots and there is not much you can do about that unless you add artificial light. Your instinct was right to chose a high shutter speed to freeze the action, leading to the requirement for a big aperture and high ISO to compensate but still, just not enough damned light. You can push the settings but image quality will degrade. Sometimes you just have to accept this and wait for another day. If it had been brighter, it would all have been different.

Gloomy weather is the time I like to experiment with long exposures, which of course is another way of playing with shutter priority. :)

In this instance IMHO one of the issues is that the shutter speed is very probably too fast as you very likely don't need 1/800 for that. Lowering the shutter speed and closing the aperture and lowering the ISO is a possibility here... hence the advice on settings.

Balancing the exposure can involve compromises and as one setting alters so does another but maybe there's a better set than 1/800, f2 and ISO 3200 here. Hence the banging on about settings.
 
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The 22mm lens should give you plenty of depth of field at f2 for a shot like this, but it will vignette (darker corners) which can be corrected either in camera or in post processing.

To correct in camera go into Menu, first section, fourth line down "Lens Aberration Correction" select then first item "Peripheral Illum Corr" enable, that will correct the darkened corners.

Also worth enabling "Digital lens Optimiser" third item down if you are shooting in jpg rather than raw files.

Hope this helps.

Thank you :)
 
Having reread your post about telling if your image is sharp at the time, the only way is to zoom in and check on the screen. The higher the ISO, the grainier the shot, the less sharp it will look. You should also get in the habit of checking the exposure on the histogram rather than the LCD image, which often looks brighter than the reality. The more you use your camera, the more you will get used to interpreting the displays.

Thanks, i’ll have a look on YouTube about how to read the histogram.
 
Thanks, i’ll have a look on YouTube about how to read the histogram.
You should also be able to see an exposure meter at the bottom of the viewfinder (if not, you can turn it on with the 'info' button) that tells you whether the exposure is correct - it will probably have a range from -3 to +3 if it's like other Canons. In automatic modes, the camera will try to keep the exposure in the middle of the range, but in semi-automatic modes it can only do this until you 'run out' of available aperture or shutter speed settings. With your ISO and shutter speed settings, the aperture had already opened up to its widest setting and because it could go no further, the meter would have moved into the negative range, warning you of underexposure. You can also use the meter to guide you if you use fully manual mode. Canon have a nice simulator that demonstrates how aperture, shutter speed and ISO need to be balanced to give a correct exposure, and what the meter shows when a shot is over- or under- exposed. It also shows how shutter speed controls motion blur, how aperture controls depth of field, and how ISO affects noise:
 
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