Can't get it right, blown out, blur Help Please

[shellybonds]

I have never posted pics before so I hope I am doing this right.

I am a beginner and I took some practice shots of my son & his dad. My photos have lost their backgrounds (sky ect), lost detail and to me look blurry, not the sharp photos that I know my camera is capable of.
I have a friend that wants me to do senior pictures for her son & I am afraid they will look like these. The photos I’ve taken in the past with the 20D in auto mode look better than the ones I’ve taken with the Mark III Ds (because of the operator, I know:confused:) What am I doing wrong? UGH!

I have 2 more examples but can't figure out how to share them...sheesh, these 2 took me an hour to post, lol.

[shellybonds]

It got a little better....but not much.
Grrrr, feeling overwhelmed :(

[AdamJL]

To test sharpness, it's impossible to judge from such small pictures. You will need to post either the full rez file (not necessary) or 100% crops.
And to be honest, looking at exposure, I wouldn't be unhappy with any of them. The portrait of the boy looks a touch over-exposed, but definitely salvagable.

If I'm ever taking pics of people with coloured skin, (like myself or my family!) I always spot meter their sking and dial in compensation because the camera will most likely over-expose as it sees dark skin as just a dark colour that needs brightening.

The first picture you were never going to win! That's a bright sky and will always look bright unless you use a lot of fill flash and expose for the sky.

[zelseman]

All of them could benefit from metering the background and using fill flash to light the subjects. You would keep the sky in 3 of them, and you wouldnt get such overexposure in the 2nd one.

[gjl711]

All of them could benefit from metering the background and using fill flash to light the subjects. You would keep the sky in 3 of them, and you wouldnt get such overexposure in the 2nd one.
Thats one way, another would be to make sure that the sun is at your back. The camera is properly exposing for the subjects which then blows out the sky. Another way you can do this it to take a series of bracketed shots and blend them on post processing. If you set AEB for +-2 stops you would get a better metered sky and also a properly metering for the subjects. Lastly you can use a graduated ND filter which would reduce the exposure of the sky while leaving the bottom 1/2 unaffected.

[neilwood32]

If you add light to the subjects, it will allow the sky to be darker. Either use a flash or a reflector. Because the foreground is lighter the metering compensates and the whole image becomes darker (when using evaluative or centre weighted metering). It sounds strange to add more light to make bright things darker but it works!

Polariser might help - so long as your shooting at (or around ) 90 deg to the sun.

Another thing would be to shoot RAW - it might just give you sufficient leeway to pull the detail back from the sky. Just make a duplicate layer, make your selection (magic wand ) on the sky and bring that down using curves or levels.