How To Achieve Sharp Pictures.

davey_griffo (e2 Member)

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8 Apr 2010 - 9:58 AM

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It may or it may not be you, it's hard to tell, & will vary from shot to shot.

If you are doing all you can (High shutter speed, tripod, etc) as you say, then the only other area to look at is your camera. More specifically, the autofocus.

I'm pretty sure that your Nikon will be the same as most entry/medium level D-SLR's, in as much as it has 9 focus points. Those little squares in the viewfinder show you where they are.

They are also useful for knowing what the camera is doing, as in general, they glow or vanish as focus is set. I'll give you an example.

On my previous camera, a Sony a350, the 9 sites showed as squares & lines. When focus was acquired, the point that has focus glows red for a second to show where it's occured.

On my new camera, a Sony a550, all points show as squares. When focus is acquired, those not in focus vanish, leaving only the point(s) in focus showing.

Your's will employ some similar way of telling you where focus is. If you're not sure how, check the manual (sorry, I've never used a Nikon, so don't know off-hand).

If focus is acquired at more than one range, say the bottom middle sensor at 3 metres (maybe a blade of grass), & the centre spot at 5 (say the duck/deer/whatever that you actually want to shoot), the nearest is generally the one that the camera goes for. This I believe cannot be altered in any settings, but again, check your manual just in case.

In this case, your camera would focus on the blade of grass, softening or blurring the duck/deer/whatever.

What you need to do is keep an eye on the focus points, & if the camera isn't focused where you want it (after all, it doesn't know what your subject is), then don't fire the shutter. Let go of the button, & try again. Reposition the focus points if you have to, to get the desired focus. If you hold down the shutter button half way once focus is acquired, you can recompose without focus shifting.

If you still can't get focus where you want, you can choose the point (look in the manual, as different cameras have different ways of setting the focus point), then recompose as above if necessary. This will depend on whether you use the centre (more sensitive) or one of the outer points. Even with the outer points, if they don't quite fall in the right place for your composition, you may still have to acquire & recompose as above.

Your other alternative is to do it the old fashioned way, & go manual. As an aid, the focus points usually glow, etc, when your manual focus has actually got something in focus, but you should be able to see it go sharp yourself.

This depends on your eyesight, & if less than perfect, you may have to adjust the dioptre correction on the viewfinder. Again, hit the manual, but most D-SLRs have them these days.

You can also add some sharpening in Photoshop, or whatever software you have. The most effective generally is the unsharp mask (yes I know, an ungainly & counter-intuitive name, but it works), or for more drastic sharpening, the high-pass filter. You should be able to Google up a tutorial on using this, but in a nutshell, you duplicate the layer, run high-pass over the duplicate, then change the blending mode to overlay.

If you shoot raw, the raw converter also has some very effective sharpening tools.

Hope this helps. Sorry it's long-winded, but focus is a big subject. Again, you should be able to Google further tutorials off the web.

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cats_123 (e2 Member)

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8 Apr 2010 - 10:40 AM

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Hi Midi Man

welcome to epz

I'm just an enthusiast, so no technical expertise, so most of what i do is a combination of reading the manual (I bought one of the Magic Lantern guides) and just pointing and shooting.

I use a D60 (but haven't got the 18-55 lens)...however, perhaps you can try this...

I have my camera set to manual (but with autofocus on the lens).

Because the D60 doesn't have live view you have to play around with the controls until you find what suits best.

If you press the ? button (bottom left) you get up the quick menu (you can scroll around). I then have the AF set to single point; AF-A (auto servo mode); you can set the iso manually from here too.....

Then, when you shape a shot (pressing shutter release half way), you can see a graphic display at the bottom of the screen. From here you can rotate the dial on the top of the casing to change the shutter speed (until you centre the point) and you can also change the aperture by holding down the +/- button and rotating the dial.

That's my simple way of explaining it. I've no idea whether what i am doing is technically correct but it works sometimes.

I have found, however, that there is room for sharpening in post production. I use Picasa which is quite limited in functions, but very easy to use.

Hope that helps...try uploading and asking for critique if you're confused. there are loads of helpful people on here.

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