what is wrong

[hhusson]

This weekend I went to safari park and took some family pics. Some of these pics are very bad!

I used a monopod with a D200 and a sigma 70-200/2.8
the first pic has very bad colors
the second is blurred
can someone help

 

[Mario]

both are blurry, white balance is off (hence the color), because you were in the shade so you need to warm it up a bit (easy if you shot RAW), and you cut off eveyone's feet?

I guess advice is, shoot RAW, bump up ISO if your shutter speed is too slow to handhold or hold on monopod and watch the composition.

--
Mario

 

[LilKnytt]

A few questions....

1. why post these with no information on settings - please supply

2. where did you place focus & in which mode

We need your settings to help you more

ISO
F/stop
shutter speed
focus mode

these will help us help you

Lil

 

[FOR ART]

If I am not worry,
I think you are using f2.8 wide open.
and you S/speed when up so high that your DOF is only about a few cm wide.
--
For ART

 

[hhusson]

Here are the technical details
First Pic is
Iso 200
70 mm 1/125 sec
f/2.8
matrix (5)

second pic
Iso 200
200 mm 1/320 sec
f/2.8
matrix(5)

 

[azguy]

Here are the technical details
First Pic is
Iso 200
70 mm 1/125 sec
f/2.8
matrix (5)

second pic
Iso 200
200 mm 1/320 sec
f/2.8
matrix(5)

1) Need a faster shutter speed. Bump ISO to 400 and that will help. Is your monopod technique good?
2) You may have mis-focused with the first one.

3) Try stopping down to f5.6 or so. Not every single image needs to have background separation. It is sometimes difficult to get background separation when shooting a group.

--
JohnE
Equipment list in profile

 

[LilKnytt]

Here are the technical details
First Pic is
Iso 200
70 mm 1/125 sec
f/2.8
matrix (5)

second pic
Iso 200
200 mm 1/320 sec
f/2.8
matrix(5)

1) Need a faster shutter speed. Bump ISO to 400 and that will
help. Is your monopod technique good?
2) You may have mis-focused with the first one.
3) Try stopping down to f5.6 or so. Not every single image needs
to have background separation. It is sometimes difficult to get
background separation when shooting a group.

--
JohnE
Equipment list in profile

John is right. With f/2.8 you have very little DOF, you need to stop down to at least f/5.6 maybe even f/8.

Second shot should probably have been Single area & also f/5.6 or so.

You had no DOF at f/2.8

JMHO

Lil

 

[hhusson]

Thanks to all for your reply this is a big help!
But next question is how can I determin DOF with digital camera and lens?

I know ther used to be a DOF scale on those lenses. But this is gone nowdays??

 

[Dave Dall]

Thanks to all for your reply this is a big help!
But next question is how can I determin DOF with digital camera
and lens?

I know ther used to be a DOF scale on those lenses. But this is
gone nowdays??

Many of the newer lenses lost their scale when the A ring went poof!

a handy site is here: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

but the best method is to pick a middle-third subject and shoot it repeatedly (preferably until its dead ) compare what is in focus and what is not for your f-stop range. This will give you a better feel for what your lens can do.

Good luck!
-Dave

 

[Nick Wong]

no text.

Here are the technical details
First Pic is
Iso 200
70 mm 1/125 sec
f/2.8
matrix (5)

second pic
Iso 200
200 mm 1/320 sec
f/2.8
matrix(5)

1) Need a faster shutter speed. Bump ISO to 400 and that will
help. Is your monopod technique good?
2) You may have mis-focused with the first one.
3) Try stopping down to f5.6 or so. Not every single image needs
to have background separation. It is sometimes difficult to get
background separation when shooting a group.

--
JohnE
Equipment list in profile

 

[Mark53]

Thanks to all for your reply this is a big help!
But next question is how can I determin DOF with digital camera
and lens?

I know ther used to be a DOF scale on those lenses. But this is
gone nowdays??

Your D200 has a DOF preview function. Yes, the viewfinder will darken, but you can probably get a quick idea by checking the sharpness of subject edges.

 

[Pieter Jordaan]

you can often still (sort of) save the picture with post processing.
Here is my attempt — first the original and then my attempt at pp.



--
Regards,
Pieter.

South Africa.

'Sometimes things aren't what you imagined – They are even better'

 

[andrewthomasdesigns]

both are blurry, white balance is off (hence the color), because
you were in the shade so you need to warm it up a bit (easy if you
shot RAW), and you cut off eveyone's feet?

It's easy if you don't shoot raw... give me a break!

I guess advice is, shoot RAW, bump up ISO if your shutter speed is
too slow to handhold or hold on monopod and watch the composition.

that is a bunch of bs!

The pictures are blurry, the cropping is poor, and the wb was off a little.

raw isn't going to help or solve any of those problems... unless the OP likes bigger files that aren't great.

--
http://www.andrewthomasdesigns.com
http://modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=264650

in other news, it depresses me when I think about what some people have done in the world, and here I am sitting on my butt talking about digital cameras... There are more important things I could be doing, and there are more important thigns going on in the world. Too bad we can't take all this energy and apply it to something useful.

 

[hhusson]

Hi Peter.
This looks much better how did you do it. ??
levels and sharpen ?

I also have this picture in raw so I should be able to get als the colors better but I just started also making pics in raw format so need to find out how to do this. I can use photoshop or lightroom ??
I do not have Nikon software for it.
What would be the best way to do this ??

 

[milpai]

Wow Pieter..that was a good one. Thanks for showing us the "way". Can you please let us know how this is done and what softwares/techniques were used?

Thank,
Milpai
--
D200/18-200

 

[milpai]

A very good post with very good suggestions.

Posts like these make these forums readable...instead of D200 noise and FF. I am sure that most amateurs (yeah..I am one) who come here have more problems like these than noise and FF.
--
D200/18-200

 

[Kaj E]

What is most wrong with the first picture is that you have overexposed the faces. It is also not in focus. Try spot metering on the faces for pictures like this where the persons are the most important objects. Pay attention to focus and use a smaller aperture for group shots.

The second picture is also out of focus (front focus) the exposure is better.

For better focus set the focus to focus priority a2. This will allow you to shoot only when the focus sensor has something in focus. You have to make sure it's the right subject.
--
Kind regards
Kaj
http://www.pbase.com/kaj_e
WSSA member

 

[Pieter Jordaan]

First of all, thanks for your comments, hhusson and milpai. Glad you liked it.
I sometimes think that I am a better post processor than a photographer

For quite a while now I have been shooting only RAW compressed, then do my initial processing with Nikon Capture NX (which I like very much) and the final tweaks in Corel PhotoPaint, which is part of the Corel Graphics Suite (not Paintshop Pro). I have Photoshop CS2, but am happier with Corel as I know it so well, having used all versions since 1990.

What I did with this particular picture is, firstly added a little red and yellow in colour balance, a tiny bit of extra contrast and saturation, then applied quite a lot of sharpening using Corel's "directional sharpening" rather than "unsharp mask". That is about it and took me all of about 2 minutes.
--
Regards,
Pieter.

South Africa.

'Sometimes things aren't what you imagined – They are even better'

 

[markmark]

in the first photo, the plane of focus is on the back row of people, not the kid in the stroller...

if you sharpen it up (unsharp mask, smart sharpen, nik sharpner etc) you will find they are quite sharp..

also the magazine in the mom's hand is almost readable... i suspect it would be in higher resolution..

so it seem as though the focus point on auto focus was mis-placed.

and the color is easilly fixed in any imaging editor just add yellow and it looks much better..

is your camere on auto color or daylight??

 

[GaryDeM]

as suggested if you are shooting at f2.8 you have virtually no DOF. begin shooting your pics in the middle fstops f5.6-11.0 and you will get adequate dof.

i noticed first shot was at 1/125 and the second at 1/320. 1/125 is more than ehough for steadiness unlees the suject is moving rapidly. try finding a web showing proper way to hold the camera to give max steadiness.

also check you cmaera settings for the color mode you are in.ther are several to vary the amout of color you are getting. you did setup your dslr when you got it didn't you? p&s come setup and ready to shoot; dslrs do not.