nikonnate Loc: Woodbury MN

This is my niece Kennedy. KenKen for short, or K2 according to me because the girl is an adventure (2-1/2 on the money). Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what went wrong with this. I love the emotion this invokes and it looked great on my LCD, but on a monitor it is clearly out of focus. Time of day was about 4:30/5p behind the cabin so it was a lower-light situation. Is this poor focus, or movement capture? Anything else starkly wrong? It's driving me nuts because she posed well and gave me a lengthy CHEEEEEESE!

D850, 105mm macro 2.8 prime at f 7.1, 1/125th, ISO 1600 (IIRC). Handheld but I was on the ground, supported the lens, both elbows in the grass so I had a nice human tripod going.

(Download)

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Nate, interestingly, your stated exposure differs from what the camera states. f/5, 1/125, ISO 64. Additionally, either the subject or the camera moved during the exposure.
--Bob

nikonnate Loc: Woodbury MN

IIRC'd wrong, evidently. Must have looked at another shot for those figures. I'll correct it. Thanks for the catch.

luvmypets Loc: Born & raised Texan living in Fayetteville NC

Nate
I recently watched a livestream class for beginner photographers and, though, I'm not a beginner, I did learn several things that have changed since I started photography back in the late 70's.

The "rule of thumb" for shooting has always been to set you shutter speed for a number equal to or slightly above the focal length of the lens. i.e. a 100mm lens would require a shutter speed of 1/125 or above. Now that has changed to doubling or tripling your shutter speed. i.e. a 100mm lens would now require a shutter speed of 1/200 or 1/300. The reason is that mega pixels are now so densely packed and so sensitive vs the grains of silver on film that the high megapixel cameras (esp. your D850 with 45.7 megapixels) that camera shake is more obvious.

So next time K2 is "ready for her close-up, Mr DeMille" start by setting your shutter speed higher and see if that solves the problem.

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing more of K2.

Dodie

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Great photo of the character of a 2 y old... but I do not need to see the background on the left side of the photo... whack it off and only use the "target" she is emerging from. Rule; that which does not add, detracts. Forgive your camera ... it did not know to do this automatically. That AI judgment will be in cameras in few years.

lowkick Loc: Connecticut

I think that, at 1/125th, your shutter speed was too low. Is that a slide that Kennedy is going down? Was she moving quickly? By the way, I liked your statement, "...it is clearly out of focus". Good oxymoron.

nikonnate Loc: Woodbury MN

Thanks everybody. I haven't had issues with that shutter speed before but subjects were not in quite as much constant motion :)


I sure hope not. When cameras replace the art, reward, challenge, failure, and everything imperfect in a photo with something it thinks is a better choice, I'm checking out.