Looking for advice/suggestions

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fotojack

Senior Member
Here's a little tip for ya: If it moves - Shutter Priority. If it doesn't move - Aperture Priority. :)

Also, at the very least, use a monopod if you're going to shoot lower than 1/60th of a second. It helps to eliminate camera shake.

And what the other guys have told you....why shoot in Normal, when Fine is so much better?

Here's a little program you can download (free) to do some corrections and resize your photos for uploading and saving to disc. Go to www.irfanview.com and download this. You will love it! :)
 
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btrotter

Senior Member
I spent an hour today doing a pretty lengthy test of my camera and two different lenses. I took my 24-70mm f2.8 lens and a 35mm f1.8 prime lens and did a side by side comparison. I set the camera up on a tripod and set a number of brightly colored objects with sharp designs up in my back yard. I set the 24-70 lens at 35mm and took a whole battery of pics in M, A and S modes using various shutter and aperture settings. I documented each picture setting with one lens, swapped out the lens and took all the pictures again. I set the camera in RAW mode and was shooting at ISO 100. In the end, most of the pictures with either lens looked really good. Half were nice and sharp and some were only so-so. I think that was probably the lighting as it was cloudy out. Some times the sun would break through the clouds and light everything up nice and bright. One thing I am a little perplexed about is something I see in the exif info for some of the pictures I shot with the 24-70mm lens. Out of the 26 test pics I took, 5 of them showed a Focus Mode of Manual. The rest showed Auto. Those pictures still looked pretty good, but I cant figure out why the focus mode is different. I wasnt moving the camera between shots. Most of the time I would change the setting on the camera, reach up and snap the picture, change the setting, take the picture. I am 99.99% sure I never touched the focus switch on the lens. Is it possible this is expected behavior when shooting at a fixed object from a tripod where there is no movement between camera or subject? ​
 
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WayneF

Senior Member
btrotter said:
. Out of the 26 test pics I took, 5 of them showed a Focus Mode of Manual. The rest showed Auto. Those pictures still looked pretty good, but I cant figure out why the focus mode is different. I wasnt moving the camera between shots. Most of the time I would change the setting on the camera, reach up and snap the picture, change the setting, take the picture. I am 99.99% sure I never touched the focus switch on the lens. Is it possible this is expected behavior when shooting at a fixed object from a tripod where there is no movement between camera or subject? ​
Click to expand...

No, it is certainly not expected behavior. It always should remain what it was set to be. I've never seen that, and have no clue, but AF is an electrical connection when the lens is seated into place. Either it is not seated well (fully rotated), or damaged contacts, or switch not seating, or something like that? If real, certainly it could explain unsharp results.

You might try moving the camera between shots, aimed alternately between near and far subjects, watching to see if AF does in fact refocus every time.
 
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btrotter

Senior Member
Update: I took my camera and kids to the soccer field about an hour ago. I wanted to test some of the settings and recommendations. Shoot in RAW, new sharpness camera setting, used a monopod (even though the shutter was between 1/320-1/400). The pictures looked dramatically better. I think the RAW and sharpness setting made the biggest difference.
I checked all those pictures and none of them showed the focus mode on manual. I may need to clean the lens connectors really good to make sure there are no electrical issues interfering and causing out of focus shots on occasion.

I am going to continue experimenting with it in different lighting conditions and subjects to see if the results are always the same.
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