Question about Sharpness in this photo

[KristenTyler]

ok. I should probably know the answer to this but I'm stuck and confused.

I did a glamor shoot today and some of my photos have softness in all the wrong places.

I'm wonder if this is because I shot on a F4.5 ....

but if you look at this photo - her head/face is soft but her mid section (just below her breast etc) is perfectly sharp.

I need ALL of her body to be sharp.

Here is the high resolution image so you can see the softness and sharp areas im referring to.

ADVICE?

http://173.201.161.119/upload/files/IMG_6476.jpg

[hawk911]

how did you focus? Looks like the focus point was her breast. And yes- the wider aperture is a likely cause. If you shot at F8 or even F11 you'd have more in focus.

[elipkin]

Looking at the photo it feels like the camera focused in the center and since you had pretty shallow DOF the face is not sharp. As a general rule, never let your camera decide which focusing point to use

[KristenTyler]

Ok. Ya I was auto focusing and the camera was def deciding the focus point on top of my wide aperture.

thanks for the help guys! I'll be playing with this :)

[sspellman]

A better focusing technique is to use centerpoint focus only, focus on the eyes and recompose your picture.

[elipkin]

I beg to differ, in some cases if you have a really shallow DOF recomposing will kill your focus, in most cases you will be ok, just should not recompose without thinking

[lettershop]

+1 on above. Change the focus point selection so it is using an upper point and target this point on her eyes

[harroz]

9/10 I would use sspellman's way without issues, unless I'm shooting a tight dof, in which case I'll use elipkin and lettershop's way. They're both right under certain circumstances, but if you're around f7.3+ and not using a longish telephoto lens then recompose with the centrepoint focus as it has more accurate focusing in most cameras.

[Dereksalem]

Definitely use center focus point and focus on the eyes. Even after that you probably want to decrease the aperture size. I'd recommend at least f/6 or higher (a lot of people recommend and love f/8). It'll give a much deeper depth of focus.

[Realnotes]

If you have a selectable focus, for the shot taken, It may be helpful to use one of your outer points (if horizontal, then use your upper point. If vertical, than use use one to the outside edge, whatever you want ot highlight. I have the 7D; so for me, I have 19 points to choose from. If I am shooting a long shot, I tip my camera to the left, so a point to the right side (After it is flipped, the top side) of the camera works well.

I am somewhat new to photography, so am going through a huge learning curve. I was asked to shot a wedding, and had it on autofocus for a bit - BAD idea. I had a buddy as well, and I did change it rather quickly - but was horrified at what auto did. ACK! (BTW, I like her pose.)

[pearts]

when I shot at f4.5 I had the same problem you are having... go up to f5.6, or f8 and it will cure your issue. also zoom in and focus with the center spot on the eyes, the eye furthest from you, then zoom out to what you need and recompose (dont move bacwards or forwards ) and it should be better.. but at the f4.5, or f5.6 at most your gonna get a few inches of DOF at about 5-7 feet with a 50 to 70mm, so back up to 10 to 12 feet to get about a foot of DOF at 50-70mm. use the DOF calculator on the web, google it, to figure out how far away from the model you need to be at the focal distances you like to use.