How to get sharper?

Hi guys, im sure it isnt just me but when ever ive ben out taking pictures I always come home to PP them and am offten hit with underwhelming results. My equipment is fine (see sig) and when using lighting for anything I use interfit lighting through either two shoot through umbrellas or softbox.

When using the lighting I always shoot at a shutter of 125 but there is always something off.. I know it is something im doing, auto focus shouldnt be missing as I use focal to calibrate my lenses.

I'm not sure where i'm going with this thread, its not so much how can I shoot better with lighting or how could I improve this image - its more any tips on how to get sharper shots more constant I think. As said I cant blame my equipment it is obviously "user error" - so it was really just advice of how I can improve any focusing techniques I should try.

Thank you for your time.
Dave

Some examples of photos that you are not happy with would be helpful. You'll probably get the answers you're looking for.

Ok here are two, one im happy ish with and a couple im not. Im an IT Manager and the company I work for has a small local magazine thats produced in house. I do probably 90% of the pics for that.

PICS MOVED TO PAGE TWO

i usually dont opt my opinion cuz im a hobbyist and my eyes have been acting up.. hah.. but me just looking at them..

the people seem to look like they have massive sun tans???

first she looks ok
1st 2nd looks way over exposed
3rd looks ok to me
4th the shirt is making things look weird.. spirally and where it buttons up near his neck... maybe just the shirt doing that...

Dave I think you have some exposure issues as well as a magenta, red cast to your photos that are masking your ability to determine just how sharp they are. If you shot in raw, I would go back and try to get the skin tones more normal. The guy standing in the computer room is overexposed. Bring that one down some. He also has a color cast unless it's intentional. The group of 4 looks a bit dark.
Lets go back to the first one of the lady at the table. The lighting is much too harsh to be flattering to her. If you have one off camera light source and no light modifiers, just bounce the light off the wall to create a much softer light. She will be much happier with the result. Someone else I'm sure will have some more ideas.

haha on the sun tans. To be honest the colours look weird on flickr if I open the originals they don't look as vivid. Not sure why that would be?? I agree on the exposer on the bloke stood near the cabinets its too bright. Thanks for the thoughts.

whuband wrote in post #15815807
Dave I think you have some exposure issues as well as a magenta, red cast to your photos that are masking your ability to determine just how sharp they are. If you shot in raw, I would go back and try to get the skin tones more normal. The guy standing in the computer room is overexposed. Bring that one down some. He also has a color cast unless it's intentional. The group of 4 looks a bit dark.
Lets go back to the first one of the lady at the table. The lighting is much too harsh to be flattering to her. If you have one off camera light source and no light modifiers, just bounce the light off the wall to create a much softer light. She will be much happier with the result. Someone else I'm sure will have some more ideas.

Thanks for this. I think half my issue could be to much messing about in PP and not really knowing what im doing. As mentioned above the colour looks way off for some reason, the actual file looks nothing like as bright and vivid?
The pic of Sue (lady at the table) was taken using a soft box to the right and a fill in shoot through umbrella to the left. Like you say I may have had the light up a bit much or aperture too wide maybe over exposing?

Dave,

I looked at all 4 of the images. They look acceptable, so far as sharpness is concerned. I looked at the images at very large size - the horizontal ones spread all the way across my 24" monitor. There was enough detail and resolution that they could be used for a 2 page layout in your company's magazine without any noticeable degradation.

I do find it interesting that you are always shooting at the same shutter speed and the same ISO. That means that you are using changes in aperture to control your exposure. There may be times when it would be advantageous to switch shutter speeds, and use a different aperture for a particular image. Changes in aperture are what will allow you to better blur the background elements. This might be particularly advantageous in an image such as the first one you posted, as it would blur the window blinds behind the subject more effectively. If you're not comfortable changing settings, then you could move the woman and her desk out away from the window further and shoot from the same place, using the same settings . . . that would also result in more effective blurring of the window blinds.

I know you didn't ask about aperture, but your settings do play a major part in your image-making, and I couldn't help but to see that you are always at the same SS and ISO. Please forgive me if you find my remarks to be "off target".

Its good your here for help and trying to learn. I wouldn't be so concerned with sharpness, I'm looking at these on my phone so I can't make any judgement on that, but they all have other flaws. The first one is crooked, over saturated, poorly color balanced, the backgrounds bad, the tables bad, the facial expression is bad, the hands are awkward, and the lighting is unflattering. The other ones have flaws as well but ill let someone else get into that. I would recommend looking at the work of some great portrait photographers to see the elements that go into a great portrait, look at the faces, the composition, the light, everything and ask yourself how they did it. Don't be afraid of natural light either, its the best light to learn with.

I wanted to add agree with namtot and on #1 your key light should have came in from camera left/subject right to avoid the shadow from the hair on the face.

Thanks all for the input, i'm definitely here to learn! Ok not to make excuses for my self but there is something really funky going on with the colour on these when hosted. If I open them up in photoshop, lightroom or even MS picture viewer they look completely different to how they look on flickr and on photobucket - does anyone have any idea why? Only because you guys are seeing something drastically different to how the image looks.If I open them side by side on the same screen on in flickr and the other PS its like two different images. The colour on the flickr ones are horrendous - granted that doesn't help the rest of the stuff that is all wrong haha.

A couple of other thoughts. Why are you married to 1/125 shutter speed? I think many of us would want to pick the f-stop to control the depth of field and let the shutter speed vary a bit. Also, I like my shutter speed to be a bit faster than that (when possible) when I am hand-holding the camera. That could have a big impact on the apparent sharpness of your pictures. You also need good camera holding technique.

You are shooting at 100 ISO on a 5DII. That is lower than most of us would settle on. ISO 200 is my normal low ISO and I am not afraid to go higher, especially when I can fill the frame with my subject. Going to 200 would let you move to 1/250 shutter speed.

spookyspike wrote in post #15815898
Thanks all for the input, i'm definitely here to learn! Ok not to make excuses for my self but there is something really funky going on with the colour on these when hosted. If I open them up in photoshop, lightroom or even MS picture viewer they look completely different to how they look on flickr and on photobucket - does anyone have any idea why? Only because you guys are seeing something drastically different to how the image looks.If I open them side by side on the same screen on in flickr and the other PS its like two different images. The colour on the flickr ones are horrendous - granted that doesn't help the rest of the stuff that is all wrong haha.

If they look different on your machine than on Flickr it's likely that you're not properly color managed. My images look identical on Flickr to what I see on my monitor in both Lr and Ps. Have you calibrated your monitor? Are you converting the image to sRGB before publication? When I check your exif I see CMYK for color. . . . . . .

Scatterbrained wrote in post #15815982
If they look different on your machine than on Flickr it's likely that you're not properly color managed. My images look identical on Flickr to what I see on my monitor in both Lr and Ps. Have you calibrated your monitor? Are you converting the image to sRGB before publication? When I check your exif I see CMYK for color. . . . . . .

^^This is very important for "sharing" your photos -- convert them to the sRGB color space!

The only other thing I'll add -- I don't see the photos as being "not sharp" in terms of detail captured, but the big difference between the first pic and the other three pics is that your framing/composition of the first one was a portrait, where the subject fills the frame. With the others, there is a lot more "busyness" in the background/surrounding​s. If that's what you were after, well, then the people won't "stand out" so much (maybe that's what you mean by "sharpness"?).

I think Tony is correct here. IMO the first shot is large enough so that we can resolve detail in the subject's face. The other shots are too small to resolve detail. I think it is just inherently frustrating for humans not to be able to see details in pictures of other humans' faces.