There is nothing more frustrating than thinking you’ve just captured the most perfect moment on camera only to find out it’s not in focus when you load it on your computer. It used to happen to me a lot. I would get so angry looking through my images, trying to figure out why so many were soft (out of focus). I read everything I could online trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I wanted so badly to blame it on my camera. Surely it couldn’t be me! Well, more often than not, it WAS me. After a lot of trial and error (and more error) I figured out a few reasons why my images were blurry.
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1. Your shutter speed is too low. Depending on what your other camera settings are how low you can go without getting motion blur will vary, but it’s a good rule of thumb to keep it over at least 100. I can’t go below 1/250 because my hands are super shaky. When I know there’s going to be a lot of activity, I’ll bump it up even higher just to be safe.
2. You have the wrong focal point selected on your camera and your camera is focusing on another area of the photo instead of where you want. This is especially true when you shoot in auto.
3. Your equipment. The higher quality your equipment and lenses the sharper your images will be. Unfortunately not all of us can run out and buy the best their is, and it’s still easy to get a nice sharp photo with starter DSLR equipment. Once I upgraded my equipment, I noticed a big difference in my images.
4. You are shooting in RAW. Raw files tend to be a tad less sharp when they are straight out of the camera (SOOC). JPG’s are sharp when they are straight out of the camera, but that’s because the camera condenses the files for you. If you want to shoot in raw and still have sharp images all you have to do is sharpen them. We’ll talk about this more in the coming weeks.
5. Lighting – sometimes a low-light situation can make it harder to get your camera to focus.
Think about the last few images you took. If they were out of focus, could one of these issues be the culprit? Think about different ways that you can fix the problem. Here are a few changes you can make that might help.
1. Back Button Focusing. Maybe I’ll do a tutorial about exactly how to do this in the next couple weeks. Basically you set your camera up so a button on the back is your focus button instead of holding the shutter halfway down. It helps you track fast-moving subjects (hello moms!!) and keep them in focus. I do this and I really believe it helps.
2. Boost your ISO so your shutter speed can go higher and you can still get enough light to create a beautiful photo. This is only if you are shooting in Manual and have full control over your settings.
3. Use a sharpening action or other tool in Photoshop to give your photos that extra sharp ‘oomph.’
4. Consider what lenses you are using. If you can’t afford to upgrade your camera start researching lenses. Prime (or fixed) lenses that don’t zoom have a tendency to focus quicker and sharper. When you zoom, your depth of field becomes shallower.