Can This Image Be Saved?

Prefrosh01 said:

I took the image below on my daughter's birthday. It would be a good picture, except that the focus is on the cupcake and not her face. I am really disappointed in myself and wish I had the opportunity to go back and do it again...but I guess it is part of the learning process and is more motivation to improve my skills.

Can this be fixed in post processing though sharpening? I do not know how to really process images but learning how to is one of my photography goals for 2016!

View attachment 191950

Here is a link to the RAW File:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e2q75xtxw3vpucn/DSC_7164_RAW.NEF?dl=0

Thank you in advance!

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Prefrosh01 said:

Thank you for the replies. That is what I thought, but wanted to make sure.

As to the focus, I thought I had moved the single point to her eyes, is the result due to the f/5 aperture that was used? Or did I simply "miss" the shot?

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Prefrosh01 said:

Thank you for the replies. That is what I thought, but wanted to make sure.

As to the focus, I thought I had moved the single point to her eyes, is the result due to the f/5 aperture that was used? Or did I simply "miss" the shot?

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Horoscope Fish said:

What Focus Area Mode were you using for that shot? If you used AF-Auto the camera may have moved the focus point to the nearest thing in the viewfinder because that's sort of what AF-Auto does, it typically assumes the nearest object in the viewfinder is the subject and gives it focus priority.

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480sparky said:

How does the camera know what is closest to it?

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Horoscope Fish said:

I would assume it's a function of the auto-focus algorithm, determining what to focus on. In my experience AF-Auto will tend to go to focus lock on the foremost object it can. If that's not your experience please feel free to elaborate.
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480sparky said:

In order to do that, it needs to know the distance to each possible subject in the frame. This would require it to focus on everything it can, take a measurement, then focus on other possible subjects in the frame. If there's 5 or 6 possibilities, it will need to do this 5 or 6 times.

Does your camera do that? Mine sure doesn't. It locks onto a contrasty subject, which is how AF modules are programmed to function.

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Horoscope Fish said:

I'm saying if I'm photographing something, for example, on the far side of a fence, AF-Auto will tend to focus on the fence, not what's behind it.

Why do your questions always sound antagonistic, by the way?
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Kevin H said:

You need single focus point to shoot threw a fence If had 9 focus points on this guy I would have focused on the weeds single focus point right between the eyes and this

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Horoscope Fish said:

I'm saying if I'm photographing something, for example, on the far side of a fence, AF-Auto will tend to focus on the fence, not what's behind it.

Why do your questions always sound antagonistic, by the way?
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480sparky said:

Perhaps the camera was already focused at a closer distance. Once it detected the contrast in the fence needed to 'achieve' focus, it stopped there. Try putting the lens to infinity first and repeat.

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The “Auto-Area AF” (Nikon) or “Automatic AF Point Selection” (Canon) Mode is the “point-and-shoot” method of acquiring focus. Depending on what you are photographing, it will automatically pick what to focus on. It is a pretty complex mode, because it will actually recognize skin tones of a person in the frame and will automatically focus on him/her. If there are multiple people in the frame, it will focus on those that are closest to the camera. If the camera does not detect any skin tones, it will typically focus on the closest and largest object in the frame. If you shoot in Single Area/AF-S mode and select “Auto-Area AF”, the camera will actually display what focus points it will use for a second, allowing you to see and confirm the area the camera will focus on. The same thing can be done on Canon DSLRs, but it is called “Automatic AF point selection in One-Shot AF mode”. I never use this mode, because I want to control where to focus, instead of letting the camera do it for me.

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480sparky said:

My questions don't have any 'sound' to them. They're written words. The antagonism isn't intentional.

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Horoscope Fish said:

Or maybe AF-Auto is picking the largest, closest object in the frame...



Source: https://photographylife.com/dslr-autofocus-modes-explained


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Written words convey tone and I think you know that.
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On the other hand, the “Passive AF” system works very differently – instead of relying on the red beam to find out the distance between the camera and the subject, it either uses special sensors within the camera to detect contrast from the light that goes through the lens (known as “Phase Detection”), or uses the camera sensor itself to detect contrast in the image (known as “Contrast Detection”). What does “detect contrast” mean? Without going into complex terminology, this simply means that it tries to look for sharpness in a particular part of an image.

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