fuzzy faces

[monkey44]

I shoot athletes in action -- baseball -- when I shoot runners the photo comes out fine, great detail in the uniforms, buckles, logos, etc., but the face of the runner is often a little blurred when I blow up to 8x10 ... I'm shooting with a Canon D-30 - 100-400 IS lens and 400 or 800 ISO setting, RAW format, and usually in pretty good sunlight... Anyone have an idea about the face blurring ... Thanks

[pwagner]

We'll probably need to have more information. Aperture? How about a cropped sample showing each pixel.

Depth of field, especially at wide open F 5.6, is pretty short. Perhaps the camera is auto-focusing on the high-contrast uniforms and the head is just enough out of the depth-of-field range. You might try taking some experimental pictures when people are standing still with manual focus and with center-focus only aimed directly at someone's head.

I'm a little confused by your running 400 to 800 ISO "in pretty good sunlight." Are you using a small aperature or an extremely fast shutter? Going to F 8 seems about the sweet spot for lens sharpenss (I have the 100-400 also) and would give you better depth of field than F 5.6 . Also, you could try using a tripod and a moderate shutter speed (1/125 or 1/250) so that you can close the aperature down. Very quick shutters are to compensate for the photographer moving; the subjects (unless they are hummingbird wings in action) probably don't need anything faster than 1/250.

Another thought is ISO 800. Perhaps the noise makes the gradual contours of a face seem blurry but the colorful and sharp lines of uniforms beome noisy but still sharp.

[defordphoto]

Samples?

[monkey44]

I'm pretty new to this forum -- can you explain how to put a sample on the board you can look at... I've got a couple very good ones that show exactly what I mean -- I can also post the tech details with them ... or can send email direct if that's appropriate.... thanks

AND -- shooting standing people, no problem. Just the faces when I shoot fast action and lens is full extention to get close to the runners...

[robertwgross]

Posting an image is covered in "Help" at the top of the page here.

---Bob Gross---

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Hi,

How do you have the AF ?
I opted to choose ONE point, the center point, and focus with that, I found the AF on the camera itself to be not so good (don't flame me please), choosing almost everytime the nearest point. I tested this on rather close up shots, never out in the open (maybe it works perfect than), so I opted for the center focus.

Greetings,
Frank

[monkey44]

Yes -- right, AF at center point, then I aim at the player when he's running. The players move very quickly and are hard to keep in focus... From some discussion, here and elsewhere, I may be in a very short Depth of Field situation and may be shooting too fast (750 - 1000). I'm will try it with 1/250 or 1/500 and see what happens.

[monkey44]

Very quick shutters are to compensate for the photographer moving; the subjects (unless they are hummingbird wings in action) probably don't need anything faster than 1/250.



I thought the Image Stabilizer is designed to stop the "photographer motion", and that ISO and shutter speed is to "stop action" on the subject... am I mistaken?

[Pekka]

pwagner wrote:
the aperature down. Very quick shutters are to compensate for the photographer moving; the subjects (unless they are hummingbird wings in action) probably don't need anything faster than 1/250.

The bigger your required enlargement is the more shutter speed you need. Enlargement here is also a synonym for megapixels. So with D30 you don't need as much as with 10D simply because more does not "show". Direction and distance matters, too. When you get closer to subject the more speed you need, if something moves 100km a 100m away can be stopped with 1/100, when it is 10 meters away and passing past you you may need 1/2000.

To really stop people with 10D you need 1/500 or more depending on above variables. I use always as much as I can get.

And about the face blur: it faces are in DoF, then one explanation can be excessive post processing. Set sharpening treshold off and don't use masked sharpening. D30 has very little resolution on fine detail so most sharpening actions may blur it even more when they consider it to be "non important".

[Mark Kemp]

Also don't forget when you are following the action that things are moving in several directions at once.

A really fast shutter will freeze everything but if its a bit slower, you will get an effect like panning. Some parts will appear frozen, because they are moving in the same direction as the camera while others are blurred.

You often see slight vertical blurring on panned car shots because the car was bouncing slightly during the shot.

[monkey44]

Guess what I was hoping to do here was post or email a sample to someone knowledgable in this area with the "tech specs" and get an opinion why this was showing up this way... but I can't figure out how to post a photo, and went to the help section but don't understand what to do... I'm generally pretty computer-stupid when trying to figure out new operations...

If anyone can help, I'd appreciate it. I shoot these baseball photos for kids, at no pay, but don't want to have "fuzzy faces" because the kids don't look like that and get disappointed... aslo shoot some college athletes as well... Thanks... B

[monkey44]

Sample of image: D-30 Prog AE, 1/350, 9.5, Center metering, 400 ISO, RAW, One SHot AF, 100-400 IS at FL 100.

http://haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/FuzzyFace01.jpg