Sharper Indoor Portraits

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Permalink Reply by Tony Hill on October 22, 2009 at 4:59pm

Brian,

Many thanks - yes I am a coffee addict LOL - have tripod so will experiment - no remote though so I will see how I go - if it makes a difference I will then setup portraits always with tripod - yes it is a great lens - not overly expensive compared to others ($ 199Aus) when i bought it recently. Matt talked about lighting hence my purchase of the speedlight which I havent trialled yet but will very soon.

Interesting though the VR18-200 produces crystal clear head shots - the nature of the anti shake in it I feel

Cheers

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Permalink Reply by Brian McNea on October 23, 2009 at 3:19am

Tony,
yah, the VR system is great at eliminating that shake at your end. Yet another lens I wish I had. It won't do much if your subject is moving though. That is where Matt is right about the strobe/flash. Flash photography can be tricky but it can produce sharp images with slow shutter speeds, as the flash is so quick it "freezes" your subject for that split second while it is firing. The intensity of the light has the effect of overpowering some of the movement that occurs in ambient or natural light. He is right about mixed lighting as well, most flashes and strobes are daylight balanced so they have a much cooler temperature than house lamps that use tungsten or halogen bulbs(incandescent light). If you mix them you get the effect Matt talked about with blue (cool) light from a flash or a window and the yellow (warm) light from the house lamp. Either one can be used to good effect on their own, but not together for color photography. Some people use filters or colored gels over the flash to match the color of incandescent or florescent light but they are never quite a perfect match in my experience.
If you don't have a remote release for your camera I can get by with using the timer set at a second or two on a tripod to eliminate that jolt I give the camera when I press the shutter. It just takes those one or two seconds longer to take the photos and that can be a pain.
If it were up to me, I would try some more shots with the tripod and remote or timer and then move on to the flash stuff later as that is another can of worms altogether and has it's own set of technical issues. On camera flash photography can be harsh or cause shadows where you don't want them. That will take another round of experimentation all on it's own.
Keep us posted and please share your results. I would very much like to see what you come up with.
B

Permalink Reply by Matt Needham on October 23, 2009 at 8:09am

DOF is increased as:

aperture gets smaller (bigger f/#)
focusing distance is increased
focal length is shortened

You can google "DOF calculator" to get a better idea what your DOF is specifically at different settings, focusing distances, etc....

I shoot individuals at f/1.4 to f/2 all the time. There's plenty of DOF, particularly if they aren't moving around. It starts getting trickier as more people are added. You have to make sure their eyes are all within the DOF and that can be hard to see without viewing larger. F/4ish is safer, and as long as there is a little space behind the subjects background objects will be out of the DOF. But sometimes you just need the extra 2 stops.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Hill on October 15, 2009 at 3:27pm

Thanks to both for the help - will certainly use the tpis - thanks again

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Permalink Reply by Luigi Clemente on October 22, 2009 at 8:02pm

Hi. Not clear what kind of subjects you are shooting, but I guess you are talking about portrait, mainly face or torso shots. If not, you will never have enough DOF for other subjects, like groups in a room, with 1.8! Then, shoot with a tripod, or at least 1/80, 1/100 sec. For a portrait, unless you want to have the soft bokeh, shoot with aperture 6-8. More, for such a lens, I think the sweet spot of maximum sharpness is around 4-6, not 2.8. Last, if tripod and closer aperture don't work, try calibrating the autofocus system. Check the difference between autofocus and manual focus on the same subject. If it is big, you could have back or front focusing problems. Don't forget that in low light and 2.8 aperture the autofocus could have problems. Use only the central point.

Cheers!

UPDATE: sorry, I had not seen the pics before :-)
It looks like shaken type of blur. Faster shutter or tripod or studio light (flash).

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Permalink Reply by Matt Needham on October 23, 2009 at 7:59am

"If you mix them you get the effect Matt talked about with blue (cool) light from a flash or a window and the yellow (warm) light from the house lamp."

Nathan should get the credit there. Here are a few ways I deal with tungsten lighting mixed with flash:

1) Turn off tungsten lights, and only light with speedlights.

2) If I can't turn off the tungsten lights set the exposure so the ambient light is way, way underexposed, and only light with the speedlights.

3) Velcro some CTO gel over the flash, and set camera wb to tungsten. Now the flash is almost as orange as the tungsten ambient light, and if you are shooting raw it's easy to adjust wb in raw processing.

You can buy sheets of CTO gel in various strengths from www.mpex.com. I cut it into strips that fit over my speedlight, and attach it with velcro. It's a life saver if you regularly need to balance the color of tungsten and speedlights.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Konz on October 23, 2009 at 5:23pm

Tony, I looked at the image you provided, and it looks like it was taken hand-held with a shutter slower than 1/60 and with available light. Do you use a tripod for these? If you did, indeed, use a tripod, then is it possible your subject moved?

Also ... I think you're treading in risky territory using the widest aperture(s) (1.8 to 2.8 in your case) in a portrait shot with a lens at that focal length because the depth of field (the range of sharpness) will not be that great. With a lens of 80mm or greater, when you'd have to be farther away from the subject, your depth of field would be wider and more forgiving at the widest apertures, if you really insist on going so wide. Most portrait photographers recommend using lenses with focal lengths of 80 to 150mm anyway, and while I realize the 50mm, once you consider the 1.5 crop factor on the D80 sensor, takes you into that range, my point is that a lens with a longer focal length will give you more leeway to nail the sharpness you seek with your the subject if/when you shoot at the widest apertures.

Finally, if you're not doing so already, make sure you make the subject's eyes the point where you meter your focus. On the image you provided, it kind of looked like the woman's nose was the sharpest element ... definitely not the eyes.

As the others mentioned, using artificial light (flash/strobe/softbox) could also help address the sharpness issue.

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