

We all shake just slightly, and that can often be enough to cause a blurry photo if the photographer's shutter speed is too low. No one, not even brain surgeons, can hold their hands perfectly steady. Pushing the shutter button too forcefully moves the camera and will always reduce the sharpness of the photo.Īnother common cause of camera blur is when the photographer uses too low of a shutter speed, so that the natural shaking of one's hands causes blur in the photo. The most common cause of this is when a photographer mashes down the shutter button because they are excited. Camera BlurĬamera blur simply means that the camera moved while the image was being taken, resulting in a blurry photo. While you want to be careful not to apply too much sharpening, a little bit of it goes a long way. At the same time, if I were printing a small photo, or using a smaller photo on the web, I would use much less sharpening: Amount 50, radius 1.7. For example, I might use these settings in Filter>Unsharp Mask: Amount 100, radius 2.3. For example, if I'm outputting a file for a 20″x30″ print (50×76 centimeters), then I would want to apply a lot of sharpness to the photo in Photoshop. In general, the larger your final photo will be, the more sharpening you need to apply.

Capture sharpening is generally applied to a RAW photo as it is brought into Lightroom or Photoshop, and you may find that these programs are applying capture sharpening behind the scenes.Īside from sharpening the captured image, tack sharp photos also need to be sharpened at output. Capture sharpening is used to compensate for inherent optical issues in all lenses and cameras. Both are necessary to produce crystal clear photos. There are many two main types of sharpening: capture and output. If you shoot in JPEG, then make sure the picture control/picture style set in your camera is applying some capture sharpening for you. To compensate for this, you'll need to apply some sharpening on the computer if you shoot in RAW. No photo is as sharp as it should be when it comes off the imaging sensor in your camera. If you have enough autofocus points in your camera, moving the focus point around to match your composition is the preferred method.
AMPED FIVE CLEAR UP FUZZY PHOTOS HOW TO
How to fix it: If you need to use the focus and recompose method because your camera doesn't have a focus point for where you want to focus, use great care not to move the camera around too much which may alter the plane of focus. While this is the only practical way to focus on cameras that don't have enough focus points, it can lead to problems when shooting with shallow depth-of-field if the photographer shifts the angle of the camera while recomposing, or if her finger slips on the shutter button.įor more advanced photographers, you might also like to learn how to do back button focus. Then the photographer holds down the shutter button half-way as she recomposes the photo to the proper framing for the picture, and then presses the rest of the way down. So the photographer uses the middle focus point and aims it at the subject's eye. This method is used when the photographer wants to focus the camera on a spot where there is no focus point, and is especially common on entry-level DSLR cameras which only have 9 or 13 autofocus points. Check out this post if you need help with this.Īnother common problem stems from the use of the focus and recompose method of shooting. This is especially common with photographer who have not yet learned how to manually move the focus point that the camera is using. We often find that the photographer did not put the focus point on the subject's eye, and instead had the camera focus on the subject's shoulder, nose, forehead, etc. Usually, the problem is that photographers are not as exact in their focusing as they should be. Improper FocusĪfter looking at many many photos from beginning photographers and analyzing each one to determine what problem caused the photo to come out soft, we have determined that improper focusing technique is the number one culprit. With no further adieu, the 7 deadly sins of sharpness… 7 Tips for Sharper Photos 1. In today's lesson, we want to provide the ultimate resource for learning to take sharp photos. The truth is that there are at least 7 mistakes that can lead to photos that aren't sharp. It can be difficult for photographers to learn how to take tack sharp pictures because there is no silver bullet. But most of the time, the photos have fair sharpness, but they just aren't quite as crisp and clear as they could be. Sometimes, the photos are clearly blurry to the point that anyone would notice the problem. By FAR, the most common problem that Dustin and I have seen as we review photos from our students is poor sharpness.

Over the last year and a half, hundreds of students have taken my Photography Start Course.
