The Keys to Sharper Images
Derek Smith • 23 January 2021
Like every other photographer in this lockdown pandemic world that we currently inhabit, we long to be travelling, and taking photographs. Deeply saddened by the high Coronavirus mortality rate, and infections, it’s sometimes hard to be motivated to take photos, especially in this lockdown situation, where photo opportunities are limited.
Nonetheless, I believe that it’s important to be out as much as possible, with our cameras, making the most of whatever opportunities arise. The snowdrops are out now, and sunrise, sunset photos make great subjects, you only have to see the weather watchers photos on the television weather forecasts.
So, how do we improve the photos that we do take? Composition skills are certainly one avenue to explore, but today I want to discuss the topic of sharpness in our images. The key elements to sharp images are focus, depth of field, and shutter speed.
Focus
The first point to remember is that cameras are very clever, but not mind readers, the auto focus on the camera needs to be guided to the correct focus point. For portraits, and animal photography use the smallest focus point and focus on the eyes, S-AF will be the best camera setting for posed photos, you may need to switch the focus mode to C-AF, or AI Servo for moving subjects, and possibly with a slightly larger focus point, or even a small group of focus points. For landscape photography the focus point is determined by the hyper focal point. However, the easier method is to focus a third of the way into the scene, because camera focus is sharp at the focus point, a third of the way in front, and two thirds of the way behind the focus thus ensuring a sharp foreground, and background. For macro photography the rule here is not to get too close to the subject, as the depth of field reduces as you get closer to a subject, so stay back, and crop into the image during post processing. When using manual focus, use whatever aids your camera has; focus peaking, or magnification to ensure the subject is in focus.
Depth of Field
Controlling the depth of field in an image is relatively easy if using the aperture priority mode on the camera. Portraits with a shallow depth of field and blurred background can be obtained by opening the aperture to f/2 to f/4 in natural light. For wildlife f/5.6 to f/6.3, landscape photography will require stopping the aperture down to f/7.1 to f/14. These aperture settings are dependent upon the available light, the lens, and camera used. Be aware that a lens opened wide open may not be sharp in the corners of the frame, and exhibit darker corners, called vignetting. Conversely, a lens stopped down f/16 to f/22 might give softer images owing to an effect known as diffraction, where not all the light rays are directed onto the sensor. Lenses will often be sharpest at a particular aperture setting usually around the range f/4 to f/8 this is known as the “sweet” spot of the lens.
Shutter Speed
A rough guide to the best shutter speed for handheld photography is to match the shutter speed to the focal length of the lens, with a 50mm lens 1/50, 300mm lens a faster speed of 1/300. Now, starting off the camera settings in Aperture Priority mode and fixing one of the exposure triangle parameters leaves the photographer with only the ISO adjustment to obtain the correct shutter speed, and exposure. Most modern cameras will happily shoot up to ISO 1600 without any noise issues. The type of scene that will need care with shutter speed will be: wildlife, sports, and children, moving water, and windy conditions causing moving flowers, grasses, and leaves.
Looking at this tree reflection image, taken a few days ago, I have set the aperture to f/7.1 (ideal for micro four thirds camera landscape photography) ISO200, shutter speed 1/100, with these settings the hyper focal length is 2.71m ensuring sharpness from front to back. The lens used was my walk around favourite the Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 (35mm full frame equivalent), on the Olympus PEN E-PL7.
For the nuthatch image it was a very different scenario, using the Olympus OM-D E-M5 lll, and the M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/2.8, with the x2 convertor. Setting the aperture to f/6.3, and ISO1000, the resultant shutter speed of 1/250 was sufficient to capture the bird at a full frame equivalent focal length of 600mm. The 5 axis image stabilisation of the Olympus camera really does pay dividends for handheld wildlife photography.
Stay safe, and enjoy your hobby.
Nonetheless, I believe that it’s important to be out as much as possible, with our cameras, making the most of whatever opportunities arise. The snowdrops are out now, and sunrise, sunset photos make great subjects, you only have to see the weather watchers photos on the television weather forecasts.
So, how do we improve the photos that we do take? Composition skills are certainly one avenue to explore, but today I want to discuss the topic of sharpness in our images. The key elements to sharp images are focus, depth of field, and shutter speed.
Focus
The first point to remember is that cameras are very clever, but not mind readers, the auto focus on the camera needs to be guided to the correct focus point. For portraits, and animal photography use the smallest focus point and focus on the eyes, S-AF will be the best camera setting for posed photos, you may need to switch the focus mode to C-AF, or AI Servo for moving subjects, and possibly with a slightly larger focus point, or even a small group of focus points. For landscape photography the focus point is determined by the hyper focal point. However, the easier method is to focus a third of the way into the scene, because camera focus is sharp at the focus point, a third of the way in front, and two thirds of the way behind the focus thus ensuring a sharp foreground, and background. For macro photography the rule here is not to get too close to the subject, as the depth of field reduces as you get closer to a subject, so stay back, and crop into the image during post processing. When using manual focus, use whatever aids your camera has; focus peaking, or magnification to ensure the subject is in focus.
Depth of Field
Controlling the depth of field in an image is relatively easy if using the aperture priority mode on the camera. Portraits with a shallow depth of field and blurred background can be obtained by opening the aperture to f/2 to f/4 in natural light. For wildlife f/5.6 to f/6.3, landscape photography will require stopping the aperture down to f/7.1 to f/14. These aperture settings are dependent upon the available light, the lens, and camera used. Be aware that a lens opened wide open may not be sharp in the corners of the frame, and exhibit darker corners, called vignetting. Conversely, a lens stopped down f/16 to f/22 might give softer images owing to an effect known as diffraction, where not all the light rays are directed onto the sensor. Lenses will often be sharpest at a particular aperture setting usually around the range f/4 to f/8 this is known as the “sweet” spot of the lens.
Shutter Speed
A rough guide to the best shutter speed for handheld photography is to match the shutter speed to the focal length of the lens, with a 50mm lens 1/50, 300mm lens a faster speed of 1/300. Now, starting off the camera settings in Aperture Priority mode and fixing one of the exposure triangle parameters leaves the photographer with only the ISO adjustment to obtain the correct shutter speed, and exposure. Most modern cameras will happily shoot up to ISO 1600 without any noise issues. The type of scene that will need care with shutter speed will be: wildlife, sports, and children, moving water, and windy conditions causing moving flowers, grasses, and leaves.
Many dedicated sports photographers will choose to shoot in Shutter Priority mode, or even Manual exposure mode, but for the vast majority of photographers Aperture Priority mode makes camera settings easier to understand.
Looking at this tree reflection image, taken a few days ago, I have set the aperture to f/7.1 (ideal for micro four thirds camera landscape photography) ISO200, shutter speed 1/100, with these settings the hyper focal length is 2.71m ensuring sharpness from front to back. The lens used was my walk around favourite the Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 (35mm full frame equivalent), on the Olympus PEN E-PL7.
For the nuthatch image it was a very different scenario, using the Olympus OM-D E-M5 lll, and the M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/2.8, with the x2 convertor. Setting the aperture to f/6.3, and ISO1000, the resultant shutter speed of 1/250 was sufficient to capture the bird at a full frame equivalent focal length of 600mm. The 5 axis image stabilisation of the Olympus camera really does pay dividends for handheld wildlife photography.
Stay safe, and enjoy your hobby.
Reflections
Photo By: Derek Smith
Nuthatch
Photo By: Derek Smith
Louth Photographic Society
Good Morning All We have just got back from a week staying at Sedbergh, Cumbria. We had varied weather but not too much rain and some really good light for taking photographs. There is no shortage of water up there the rivers and waterfalls are flowing well. Last week at the club Harry Kerman gave a talk on one of his favourite subjects, flowers. I was not there but going by the blog Harry demonstrated how he goes about taking his photographs with some stunning photographs to show what can be done. This week, Wednesday 5th November, Mike Bennett from Cleethorpes will be our speaker, Mike likes to tell a story with his photographs and seeing some of his talks before it will be an excellent evening. Today, (Sunday) it is the LPA PDI club competition at Nettleham village hall near Lincoln. 1.30 pm for 2pm start. If you have nothing on this afternoon why not go along and see how we get on. The week after (12th November) we hold a series of mini lectures, with this year's club outings as the topic. If you would like to take part, email me please and I will see how many members want to take part. Harry is also taking entries for this year's PDI of the year, all the rules are on our website but any image that has not been in a PDI of the year before and there are six subjects with a maximum of six photographs in all. Closing date is 12th November. Regards Graham
At our meeting last night one of our members, Harry Kerman gave a talk on one of his favourite genres, flower photography. Harry's talk was accompanied by a slick, professional standard power point presentation, he also had his camera a Canon R6 II, a Sigma 105mm macro lens, a Lens Baby 56mm manual focus lens, and the standard 24-70mm zoom. Harry demonstrated his use of the equipment, which included backgrounds, a plamp to hold flowers in place, and a light box. After the break Harry presented some of his images, projected onto the screen, not all the images were "perfect" he wanted to show some of his mistakes so that we could learn from them, he also welcomed feedback from members, all of the flower images he showed were stunning, and you can see some of them on this post. It was an inspiring evening, providing many techniques, and creative ideas for members to emulate. Harry's passion for flower photography shone through during the whole talk, his clear narration, power point presentation, demonstrations, and images completed a very successful night. Thank you Harry for a fascinating evening, and to Richard Hildred for the refreshments during the break.
Good morning, All Last week at the club we held a retro night, with four members showing pre year 2000 transparencies. It turned out to be a really interesting evening, I didn't know Richard Hildred had started out at an early age photographing trains, it turned out himself and member Chris Birchmore were travelling on the Flying Scotsman in 1967 at the same time. There is a full report on the evening on our blog. This week, Wednesday 29th October, Harry Kerman, one of our members will be showing some of his projected images, and talking about his interest in flower photography. Don't forget Harry is now taking entries for our PDIOTY (Projected Digital Image Of The Year) competition. (closing date 12th November) Regards Graham
Last night was a nostalgic trip down memory lane, with four of our members presenting a slide show taken before year 2000. Now we all remember sitting in a darkened living room showing your latest holiday slides to friends, and neighbours, that click and whir as the slides changed, the stuck slide, the one that was upside down, or back to front, and uncle Jim dozing on the settee! It wasn't quite like that for last night's presentation, Richard Hildred began the evening with some amazing images of railways from British Rail days, we might ride one of the preserved heritage lines, and see the gleaming clean steam engines pulling a line of carriages, Richard's images returned us to the reality of steam powered passenger and freight operations, with the dirt, the grit, and grime of daily steam running, this image captures the essence of steam hauled mixed goods traffic, Richard's slide was in colour, but renders better here in monochrome. Next up was Tony Gaskins, many of his slides featured his first trip to the Maasai Mara game reserve, and the Ngorongoro Crater, Tony also showed slides from his trip to Canada, his slides and narration made for a great presentation. This image of a mother elephant, and calf was taken in the Ngorongoro Crater. After the break, Chris Birchmore presented many images from the Lincolnshire area, some of the disused, and crumbling buildings in the images made interesting subjects for photography, I have used this image of Bolingbroke castle, and from this viewpoint the church is clearly visible in this image, compared with today where only the church tower is visible. Graham Harrison was our last presenter, last but not least, the variety of images shown was remarkable, several from Wales, and quite a few that had been entered into club competitions previously, and were of high quality, as this image of a Flamingo shows. It was a fascinating, and interesting evening, thanks to each of our presenters, and to Dave Mann for the refreshments.
Good Afternoon, All, Last week at the club we held our monthly print competition, with the categories of "Mono" and "Open", judged by Diane Seddon. It was a very good evening with Diane critiquing our prints with helpful comments on how we could improve our images as well as praise. The results are on our website but well done to David Whitehouse for best print in the mono and Dave Turner for best print in the open. This week, Wednesday 22nd October, we go back in time to before the millennium with transparency slides to be shown by Tony Gaskins, Chris Birchmore, Richard Hildred and myself. You can start sending Harry your entries for the PDI of the year, all the rules etc are on our website, but the important thing is you can enter any PDI's as long as they have never been in a PDI of the year before. There are six subjects and an overall max of six PDI's, no more than three per subject. Regards Graham
A print competition was held last night with the categories of; "Monochrome" and "Open". Diane Seddon from Cleethorpes Camera Club was the judge for the evening, Diane is very skilled, and thorough in her judging, providing useful insight, and critique of the prints. Many of her comments centered around the best cropping of an image to optimise the subject within the frame, and giving the subject "room to breathe" in the framing. Congratulations to David Whitehouse placed first in the "Monochrome" category, with his superb rendering of a face sculpture, and Dave Turner placed first in the "Open" category with his stunning print of the sunrise over Whitby Harbour. Thanks to Diane Seddon for a great evening, and as she remarked at the end of the competition all the prints were of an extremely high standard. The Competition Page has been updated with the highest placed images, but currently the score sheets for the competition are unavailable.
Good Morning All Last week Dave Bennett came to the club again, it has been a while since we have seen his photography but well worth the wait. Dave's photographs were excellent and his story telling along with AV's made it a very good night. This week, Wednesday 15th October, we are holding a print competition, with the categories of "Mono" and "Open", our judge for the evening will be Diane Seddon AFIAP CPAGB BPE3* she is well qualified to judge our prints. The following week we are going to try a retro night again, with Transparencies taken prior to the year 2000, please let me know if you want to take part and have a time slot allotted, time will depend on the numbers wanting to take part. Regards Graham
Last night Dave Bennett came to the club to show us AV's and narrate other sets of photographs on a theme. Dave started with photos along the Humber and then carried on the evening with AV's on nature, flowers and transport as well as talks and photographs showing us Grimsby docks including detailed photographs of fish smoking and engineering. Dave's photography is of a very high standard with strong colours, lot's of use of depth of field and they tell a story. A great night, thank you Dave.
Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a local PDI competition with a category of "5 Minutes From Your Home", we had some very good entries in each category with myself, and Dave Turner judging on the night. All the results are on our website, but well done to Derek for his mobile phone picture of a remembrance seat in Horncastle and Harry for his hellebores in the "Open" category. This week, Wednesday 8th October, Dave Bennett is coming to the club to show us what he has been taking lately, Dave does quite a bit of AV so as usual it will be a very good night. A reminder, send your print titles for the next print competition to Dave Turner by midnight Wednesday and bring your prints in this Wednesday night as well please. If you have any more N&EMPF Exhibition PDI entries send them to me by midnight tomorrow (Monday) please. Regards Graham
Our PDI "Local" competition was held last night, with the categories of "5 Minutes From Your Home", and "Open". Dave Turner, one of our members began the evening with judging the "Open" category, always a difficult category in my opinion because of the variety of subjects entered into the competition. Dave had previewed the images on his home computer, and had notes on each of the images, he provided excellent feedback on each image. After the break, Graham Harrison began judging the "5 Minutes From Your Home" category, this was a very unusual subject category which stretched the creative ingenuity of members, and it was particularly interesting to see what members had submitted. Graham judged the entries very fairly, and provided very good critique of the images. The standard of images submitted was high, which makes judging a competition such as this difficult, and as always is subjective, but a big thank you to both judges, it was an interesting evening. The first placed images, from each category are shown on this post, "At the Going Down of the Sun" by Derek Smith, "5 minutes from your home", and "Hellebores" by Harry Kerman in the "Open" category. The website Competition Page has been updated with the top three placed images, and the scoresheets.
