A Guide to Sharp Photos

Let’s talk sharp photos. A lot of you guys email or ask me questions on how to get eyes so sharp when you’re shooting wide open and other similar questions.

Here’s a few of the main causes of unsharp photos:

1. Your shutter speed is too low. Depending on what your other camera settings are how low you can go without getting motion blur will vary, but it’s a good rule of thumb to keep it over at least 100.

2. You have the wrong focal point selected on your camera and your camera is focusing on another area of the photo instead of where you want.

3. Your equipment. The higher quality your equipment and lenses the sharper your images will be. Unfortunately not all of us can run out and buy the best their is, and it’s still easy to get a nice sharp photo with starter DSLR equipment.

4. You are shooting in RAW. Raw files tend to be a tad less sharp when they are straight out of the camera (SOOC). Jpegs are sharp when they are straight out of the camera, but that’s because the camera condenses the files for you. If you want to shoot in raw and still have sharp images all you have to do is sharpen them.

5. Lighting – sometimes a low-light situation can make it harder to get your camera to focus.

Here are some solutions to help get sharper photos:

1. Use your lens’ auto-focus mode instead of the manual focus ring. Although it can be beneficial to learn how to use manual focus because it’ll help you truly understand how depth of field works, it’s easy to miss and be slightly off.

2. Back Button Focusing. Maybe I’ll do a tutorial about exactly how to do this in the next couple weeks. Basically you set your camera up so a button on the back is your focus button instead of holding the shutter halfway down. It helps you track fast-moving subjects (hello moms!!) and keep them in focus.

3. Boost your ISO so your shutter speed can go higher and you can still get enough light to create a beautiful photo.

4. Use  a sharpening action or other tool in photoshop to give your photos that extra sharp ‘oomph.’

5. Consider what lenses you are using. If you can’t afford to upgrade your camera start researching lenses. Prime (or fixed) lenses that don’t zoom have a tendency to focus quicker and sharper.