Lots of Soft/Blurry Portrait Photos with 105mm @f3

Hi all,

I shot a male yesterday (mainly head and shoulders) at riverside and a lot of my photos are soft. Luckily I took multiple shots of the same pose so I have some useable photos but I need to avoid this in the future. I used a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM on a D7100. I selected this lens because I wanted to blur out the background greatly and isolate the subject. Due to the long focal length, I had to step back a fair bit to fit the subject in. I often used the focus and recompose technique (yes, I did move the focus points around with the d-pad but the composition wasn't exactly right when I wanted to place a point on the subjects eye). I believe this is the most likely cause of the problem.

My question is, was the 105mm the wrong choice? Should I have gotten closer and used the 50mm 1.8G? or would this make the problem worse? How do you shoot a portrait at wide open apertures while focusing on the eye and maintaining the composition (and keeping things sharp? )

Thanks in advance.

Are they soft, or just a very shallow DOF?

I would ask that you post up some samples of the soft photos and let us all see what you are asking about.

I may not be the one to answer your question but I know that using a wide open aperture, to blow out the background, will create a very narrow DOF. Focusing on the eyes is what you should do but you also need enough depth of field to keep the rest of the face and head in focus as well.

You probably already know this though.

On the soft photos, what parts were soft? Did you get good sharp eyes?

480sparky said:

Are they soft, or just a very shallow DOF?

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I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking. Here is an example:

Mike d90 said:

I would ask that you post up some samples of the soft photos and let us all see what you are asking about.

I may not be the one to answer your question but I know that using a wide open aperture, to blow out the background, will create a very narrow DOF. Focusing on the eyes is what you should do but you also need enough depth of field to keep the rest of the face and head in focus as well.

You probably already know this though.

On the soft photos, what parts were soft? Did you get good sharp eyes?

Click to expand...

I've included an example above, here are two more:

Looks like focus was missed, hard to tell with such small samples. May be camera motion.

Can you put a link to a full-size, unedited image?

Can you tell us your settings? Aperture, iso, shutter. Looks like to low shutter time to me.

The shot with the bars behind appears to have focused on them....Is it motion blur....What was the aperture/shutter for all shots...

You can view larger size by hovering your mouse over the small samples, it will enlarge. Plenty large enough to see the softness. I shot the examples above at F3 @1/160 sec

gohan2091 said:

You can view larger size by hovering your mouse over the small samples, it will enlarge. Plenty large enough to see the softness. I shot the examples above at F3 @1/160 sec

Click to expand...

Okay thats a little weird, if you stood pretty still, 1/160 shouldn't give such blurred images. I got a 105mm myself, and its very sharp.

What about focus, are you sure automatic were on..? Did it look sharp in viewfinder?

I do this focus and then re-arrange sometimes, if its not to big a move, I find it works just fine. But mostly I move my focus-dot in the viewfinder, to the right place.

gohan2091 said:

You can view larger size by hovering your mouse over the small samples, it will enlarge. Plenty large enough to see the softness. I shot the examples above at F3 @1/160 sec

Click to expand...

Even the enlarged images are hard for my old eyes to make out the details that would be a clue to the issue. An unedited original will also show the Focus Points used by the camera.

Initially I would have said movement, but given the shutter speed my next guess is that you've got a focus calibration issue. Given that little is in focus on any of these I suspect it's front focusing. Have you calibrated the lens and the camera before?

All that said, were you shooting without vibration reduction? This looks so much more like movement than soft focus.

Looks like camera movement to me too.
I'm thinking along the same lines as Jake

480sparky, how do I upload an unedited original? I load up the NEF and save as a JPEG?

I haven't calibrated my lens, but I've used it before at a Wedding without too much issue. I'll have to do some focus tests next week to see.

gohan2091 said:

480sparky, how do I upload an unedited original? I load up the NEF and save as a JPEG?

I haven't calibrated my lens, but I've used it before at a Wedding without too much issue. I'll have to do some focus tests next week to see.

Click to expand...

Post it on a hosting site like PhotoBucket, then put a link to it here.

480sparky said:

Post it on a hosting site like PhotoBucket, then put a link to it here.

Click to expand...

You didn't answer my question though. Do you want this JPEG or NEF? I can send you the original NEF if you'd like?

Can we just see the full jpg first?

Do you still have the images on your camera? Can you see if there is any focus points on the images there.

I agree with Jake and others that it looks like movement but the 1/160 should not do that. When I suspect a focus issue I take all subjectivity out of the equation and put the camera on a tripod shooting a static detailed object, then taken the shot with mirror up and use a cable release. If this produces a perfect result the issue is not the gear.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Yes, I do have the photos on my camera and it does show the focus point area, however, if I am focusing then recomposing, I think the focus point shown on the photo will be inaccurate...

Here is a full size example of a soft photo. According to the camera, I focused on his cheek but as I said, I think the recomposing threw this off as I'd never focus on a cheek.

http://mar.imghost.us/KFt3.jpg

Look at the spots on his left (your right) shoulder. They're blurred almost horizontally.




Camera movement.


.

Two things, recomposing at a minimum aperture can cause you to move enough to put everything out of focus. Also, if you're recomposing too quickly and working without VR it's quite possible to blur the photo. The more I stare at this the more I think it has something to do with camera movement - it just doesn't look like soft focus to me.

Once more, were you shooting with VR on or not?