Portrait sharpness VS full body sharpness

[James33]

Hello! I've been lurking and searching and reading and learning for a few weeks now - what a great resource! I was wondering when I would be able to post something as most of my questions have been answered with a search and I definitely don't have the knowledge or experience to post advice to someone else. I think I finally have a question to which I have not been able to find an answer. :)

I was really bitten by the photography bug a little over a year ago and have really fallen in love with all of it. My sig should contain most of my equipment I currently use in addition to some new Flashpoint monolights and softboxes.

In a lot of posts I see where people say an image is "soft". I take it to mean it's not OOF (See, I learned what that was already! :lol:) but not tack sharp either. When I am doing headshots, the sharpness is excellent to me. But when I back up and do a 3/4 to full body shot, it just doesn't look as sharp at 100% on my monitor as the headshot. When I zoom out, it looks pretty good. I would love to see an example of a full body shot that was excellent, acceptable soft, soft, and simply OOF for comparison. Photos are taken at ISO 100, f/8, and 125 to 160 SS. I use center point back button focus on the eyes or bridge of the nose then recompose and shoot. I have tried to read on what is Ok to post as far as photos go and most of the rules say I have to have XX amount of posts and be a member for XX months. If I need to ask someone for permission, please let me know who and I'll post a couple of photos. Not sure if they are permitted in this sub-forum or not.

Thanks for reading and to all - thanks for the great resource!!!

[arkphotos]

I think the posting rules you are mention are for the glamour&nude forums.
Many threads in this subsection have photos attached, and I don't think you need to pass any 'vetting' process to post away :)

But I dont have a set of examples that meets your needs.

If you post yours, you can probably get some feedback.

[James33]

Ok - here are some examples. Let me know what you think.

1.
http://www.rivercitybimmers.org/james/hat.jpg

2.

http://www.rivercitybimmers.org/james/face.jpg

3.

http://www.rivercitybimmers.org/james/full.jpg

[number six]

Welcome to POTN, James!

Your first two pics are quite sharp - and the eyes are the sharpest, which is what people usually want to see. Well done!

The third - the face is not in focus, but it looks like the nearest part of the blouse is well focused.

Looks like your focus point is the center one, which doesn't work in the last example. Try using the top focus point to get the face in focus.

Or, if you want, you could increase the depth of focus. You're shooting at f/8 in the last shot - f/11 or f/16 will give you better depth of field (at slower shutter speed).

But never mind the minor focus issues: your composition and posing is excellent!

-js

[nuffi]

Welcome to POTN, James!

But never mind the minor focus issues: your composition and posing is excellent!

-js


I would like to quibble about composition in pic #1....

I see togs twisting their cameras to take shots all the time. Literally 97% of the resulting images end up making me tilt my head at a stupid angle in order to try to assess whether or not I like it. And pretty much 99% of those instances I come to the conclusion that the tilt adds nothing to the image except a need for the veiwer to lean over.

I find it annoying and otherwise pointless.

Unless you are very aware of why you're doing it (and making funky angles in a vain effort to pep up an otherwise boring subject is not a valid reason!) I strongly recommend you don't do it.

[James33]

Thanks everyone! I'll try some shots this weekend and up the aperture to f/11 and see what happens. As for the tilt, I can personally go either way and usually don't, but I personally like it in this instance.

Another question - when you do a session, approximately what percentage of photos do you discard because they are OOF?

[James33]

Welcome to POTN, James!

Your first two pics are quite sharp - and the eyes are the sharpest, which is what people usually want to see. Well done!

The third - the face is not in focus, but it looks like the nearest part of the blouse is well focused.

Looks like your focus point is the center one, which doesn't work in the last example. Try using the top focus point to get the face in focus.

Or, if you want, you could increase the depth of focus. You're shooting at f/8 in the last shot - f/11 or f/16 will give you better depth of field (at slower shutter speed).

But never mind the minor focus issues: your composition and posing is excellent!

-js

JS - forgot to mention that I used the back focus button with the center focus point set and focused on her glasses/eye then recomposed and took the full body shot. At f/8 and 40mm and approximately 8 -9 feet to her, my DOF was over 3 feet......

[JeffreyG]

Thanks everyone! I'll try some shots this weekend and up the aperture to f/11 and see what happens. As for the tilt, I can personally go either way and usually don't, but I personally like it in this instance.

Another question - when you do a session, approximately what percentage of photos do you discard because they are OOF?

If I was shooting posed portraits with flash I typically experience about 0% OOF shots. I usually will manually focus and shoot from f/8 to f/11 for such work, so it is really hard to miss.

JS - forgot to mention that I used the back focus button with the center focus point set and focused on her glasses/eye then recomposed and took the full body shot. At f/8 and 40mm and approximately 8 -9 feet to her, my DOF was over 3 feet...... Not everything in the DOF is equally sharp. There is one plane of absolutely greates focus. You need to have that plance on the subject's eyes as that is where some apparent softness will be most obvious. I'm not sure why this particular shot is apparently focussed on her front shoulder, but if it had been on her eyes then her shoulder would have instead been slightly soft.