Help....fstops and blurry baby...

[katem9579]

Ok so I did a photo shoot of a newborn yesterday and I have never had this happen but in ll the pics just a small part of the baby is in focus and the rest is totally out of focus. So here is what I dont understand...I have never had this happen bt maybe its just a misunderstanding of f-stops. I shot almost everything yesterday at 1/60 and fstop of f2.8, iso of 100 with my bounce 530ex on top at 1/2 power in M mode with 14m zoom. I stil havent really figured out how to use the bounce yet. So please tell me...what settings should I use in this situtation. Are the pics all blurred because I used too low of an f-stop so it blurred everything but the middle of his face or whatever else it focused on? I am so disspointed. Please help.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b350/katem9579/spencer039.jpg

[shannyD]

1/60 is too slow handheld which i think is your problem. i would have bumped up my iso a little to get a little bit faster of a shutter speed. but i think thats probably your main problem. i dont think it has anything to do with your bounce, your lens or camera. i think it was just too slow if you were hand holding.

plus it doesnt look at though the focus was on the eyes.. looks like it was more on the mouth.

but still an adorable picture anyway.

i would use a tripod when using slow shutter speeds.

shan

[yunaiseng]

The EXIF information for this picture I'm seeing is:

ISO: 200
FL: 45mm
f/2.8, 1/60th

Were you about 3 or 4 feet away from the subject at that focal length? Check out this page for calculations of your depth of field with those settings. If you were 3 feet away, you'd have about 1.68 inches of DOF; if 4 feet away, you'd have about 3 inches.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I think that, in addition to your relatively slow shutter speed for FL of 45mm is adding to your dissatisfaction with the sharpness. I'd also bump up the ISO, maybe to 800 so that you could stop down to f/4 or even f/5.6 and maybe get your shutter speed to 1/100th. Increasing your flash power to full power bounce will also help out a bit.

[tdodd]

So long as you were steady with the camera, 1/60 should be OK with the lens at 45mm, and if flash was your main lighting (I can't tell) then the flash duration would have been less than 1/1000 so I don't think camera shake is the problem here. Without a doubt, DOF is the problem, and I'm not sure you nailed focus properly, given the narrow DOF. With the DOF so thin it only needed a tiny waver on your part to throw focus off completely.

I also think your white balance is a bit off and it might help to tone down the red saturation a little and add some sharpening. I've made these tweaks in Lightroom but can not post the results back here because you have not permitted "Image Editing" in your profile. If you'd like to see my salvage efforts please turn on "Image Editing".

[katem9579]

This photo has not been workedon PS at all yet. I was just showing it righ off the camera. Thanks everyone for the suggestions. So, I need to up the shutter speed and ISO and stand back furthur?

[katem9579]

As far as white balance what is the best setting to use indoors? I have yet to figure that out. I usually use auto or sunny or flash?

[tdodd]

This photo has not been workedon PS at all yet. I was just showing it righ off the camera. Thanks everyone for the suggestions. So, I need to up the shutter speed and ISO and stand back furthur?
I think what most of us are saying (especially if you look at the replies in your other thread - http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=491298) is that you need a smaller aperture, to increase your DOF without changing the perspective or the framing of the shot. Increase flash power and/or ISO to compensate. Moving further back will simply mean you fill the frame less with your subject, so you zoom in more and don't really gain anything with your DOF adjustment.

Looking at the tweaked photo I'm not sure the aperture needs to be that much smaller. You will note how sharp the edge of the left nostril is - there is no sign of motion blur there - it's simply that you don't have sufficient DOF to cover your subject, and you appear to have focused on the front most part of the child, thus wasting half the DOF you have, because it is in front of the baby's nose. A little more DOF, from a smaller aperture, and an adjusted focus point, should get you the shot you want. I don't think you need to worry about the back of the baby's head, but try to get the whole face sharp.

Unless you have wobbly hands, or stab at the shutter release, I don't believe a faster shutter speed is the solution you need for this shot. If you want to eliminate camera shake then an IS lens or tripod - even a monopod - would help. If the lighting here is mostly flash then you could bump up the shutter speed as well, since that won't affect your exposure much at all. You can go right up to the sync speed - 1/200 or 1/250 or whatever it is, and the effect of the flash will still be just as strong. I just don't think your blurry problem is down to a slow shutter speed. Without knowing the relative strengths of ambient light and flash in this picture it is hard to give more precise advice about what shutter speed you could have used.

Here's my tweaked version....

[tdodd]

As far as white balance what is the best setting to use indoors? I have yet to figure that out. I usually use auto or sunny or flash?
That's not a straightforward question to answer, especially if you're using bounced flash and mixing the flash light off a surface that might have a colour tint to it. In my opinion, the best thing to do is to shoot in raw rather than jpeg, set a custom WB if you like, by shooting a white/grey card, and then go with the custom WB or fine tune the raw image in post processing.

But if you're mixing lighting - say ambient tungsten with flash - you're going to have a tough time sorting out WB unless the relative stength of each is even across your scene or you dominate the scene with one or other light source. e.g. you could shoot this with f/8 and 1/250, thus pretty much killing the ambient light indoors, and use the bounced flash as your dominant source. If you are bouncing then you can't depend on the colour temperature to remain unaltered so a custom WB and/or tune in PP is the way to go.

My approach to your shot was to set WB manually by sampling a couple of the "white" areas of trim on the clothing and then make a further tweak to the red tones to calm down the skin a little, simply to visual taste.

[kirkt]

To be perfectly honest, I am not quite sure why you would be disappointed with this image. Sure you can set focus on the eyes - but they are closed, so it really is not so important (like when you want tack sharp catchlights). The DOF is shallow because you are at f/2.8 - but if you had more DOF, all you would get was more detail on the dry skin of a newborn on the forehead. Not necessary. I think the shallow DOF here works to your advantage - it focuses attention on the newborn's peaceful sleeping face and curled up hands. It is a great capture of a peaceful moment and puts the emphasis exactly where it should be. The bounce is fine - as tdodd mentions, WB for a bounced flash creates issues that no preset can usually handle accurately. tdodd made a nice edit to balance the various tints in the image. If you are really nitpicky, you can clone out some of the pimply bits along the newborn's eyelids, but I think you made a nice capture. Don't oversharpen - it's a baby not a car! For future reference, when shooting kids, starting now and lasting for a very short time will be the only time to use 1/60 sec - after that it's like herding cats.

Kirk

[kajawhit]

I actually think the image is really good!! Of course I am no pro, so take it for what its worth :) With a little pp you can see that your focus is pretty much right on. Here is my go on it.
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i309/kajawhit/fixbaby2.jpg