focusing help

[jasbury]

hello, looking for some input, i don't need hand-holding, just a little guidance. i was hoping to take pics of shelter dogs and pit bulls to help raise awareness. however, i don't feel like my images are very focused. strictly from a focus point of view, does this look focused? is the image crisp to you? please be kind, i am very discouraged and ready to pitch the whole idea.

50mm f1.8 1/1600 ISO 500 pattern metering? now that i look at the shutter speed, i think i don't need it to be so fast, probably 1/2 of that would have been good. maybe would have made the image brighter?

are there any pet photographers here who use the d750?

no editing other than crop

thank you

 

[cwgrizz]

[MENTION=26505]Dawg Pics[/MENTION] did this same thing a few years back. Maybe she can share her experience.
Yes your shutter speed could be slower and your aperture setting higher. That will help give you a photo more in focus from front to back.

 

[Needa]

2nd the aperture. With the aperture at 1.8 you will have a shallow depth of field.

 

[Woodyg3]

The problem with shooting at f/1.8 is two pronged. One, you get a very shallow depth of field. Two, most lenses are at their sharpest somewhere in the middle of the aperture range.

You can go significantly slower with the shutter speed on this kind of shot as long as the dog isn't moving around. With the same ISO and light, you could go around f/8 at about 1/200 and probably get a sharper picture with good depth of field.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

hello, looking for some input, i don't need hand-holding, just a little guidance. i was hoping to take pics of shelter dogs and pit bulls to help raise awareness. however, i don't feel like my images are very focused. strictly from a focus point of view, does this look focused? is the image crisp to you? please be kind, i am very discouraged and ready to pitch the whole idea.

50mm f1.8 1/1600 ISO 500 pattern metering? now that i look at the shutter speed, i think i don't need it to be so fast, probably 1/2 of that would have been good. maybe would have made the image brighter?

are there any pet photographers here who use the d750?

no editing other than crop

thank you

I used to shoot with a D750 would have probably aimed for an aperture of f/4 or f/5.6, kept the shutter speed around 1/160 or 1/250 and let Auto-ISO do what wanted; this would mean shooting in Manual Mode with Auto-ISO enabled. The image doesn't need to be brightened, in my opinion, as there is already some minor blowout in the highlights. I never really liked Matrix Metering on the D750 which I found let highlights blowout all to easily; switching to Center Weighted metering proved to be the better option. So yeah, you might want to try shooting in Manual Mode with Auto-ISO and/or Center Weighted metering versus Matrix and see where that gets you.

Also, if you shoot in .jpg primarily you might want to go into the Shooting menu and adjust the Sharpness setting for your preferred Picture Control to something like +4 or +5. The Sharpness setting in all the Picture Controls, I think, is set too low by default. If you don't like what the increased setting does, you can always go back and put it back to the default.

 

[jasbury]

Thanks! i am in manual mode, so i will set the metering to center, have enabled auto iso. shooting in .raw. should i shoot in .jpg? i appreciate your help!

 

[Dawg Pics]

@cwgrizz Thanks for remembering my dawg portraits.

I think you just treat a dog portrait the way you would a person portrait but keeping in mind that you probably want the entire dog's face in focus from nose to ears. So, use the aperture that will keep the needed depth of field. You could just focus on the eyes for effect as well. Also, get kind of low rather than shooting down if possible.
This is a link to a flickr account from one of our members who is a pet photographer. She hasn't been active on this site in a couple years. What Up Dog

I can't help with sharpness issues beyond what has already been mentioned.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

Thanks! i am in manual mode, so i will set the metering to center, have enabled auto iso. shooting in .raw. should i shoot in .jpg? i appreciate your help!

I prefer to shoot in raw because I post-process my shots; if you're doing the same I can't really come up with a solid argument for shooting .jpg instead. I just couldn't tell from your post if you were shooting in .jpg or raw so I thought I'd toss out the Sharpness setting thing.

Hope using Auto-ISO thing and/or Center Weighted metering helps you get the shots you're after!

 

[BeegRhob]

Thanks! i am in manual mode, so i will set the metering to center, have enabled auto iso. shooting in .raw. should i shoot in .jpg? i appreciate your help!

If you are going to do any post processing, raw is the better option. If you take a jpeg and process it, you lose data (and detail), every time you edit and save it. When you use a raw file, you can save it as a jpeg, to use for online and some other uses, leaving as much detail information as you choose for whatever purpose you are going to use it.

Rob

 

[BF Hammer]

Thanks! i am in manual mode, so i will set the metering to center, have enabled auto iso. shooting in .raw. should i shoot in .jpg? i appreciate your help!

I also agree that your f-stop is not appropriate for the subject. I myself think shooting manual mode is not always the way to go with an active subject like a pet or small child. My approach would be to use Aperture Priority mode so I could control the depth-of-field. I would have auto-ISO active. A D750 can give a satisfactory photo even up to ISO 1600 or 3200. It is so easy to activate that also, just move the front command dial while holding the ISO button.

As for Raw, I actually shoot Raw+Jpeg with SD card 1 taking the Raw files and card slot 2 saving the Jpegs. I have my options open that way. I tend to mostly work with Raw as that is the better way to post-process.

 

[Whiskeyman]

Are you running out of room on your storage cards when taking photos? If not, and you've been shooting RAW/NEF, you should able to shoot .jpeg as well. Adding .jpeg files to your shoot can add convenience to your post-shoot viewing efforts. I'd rather say that often .jpeg files will suffice for what the situation requires, especially if you can control the shooting environment as you should be able to with portraits.