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Focus Problem Pop Quiz

Alright, so we're gonna take all of the information that we have gathered in this section, and we're gonna go into my favorite quiz, which is, I am possibly the only photographer in the world that is making a business use of my out of focus pictures. If there is another photographer out there that sells their out of focus pictures or is able to market them in some way, and these are not ones that I intended to be out of focus. These are ones that just, I messed up. Now the reason why I messed up could be because my camera did not focus in the right place. And I did not get the focusing point. So it's incorrect focus, either I or the camera directed the area to focus incorrectly. I might not have enough depth of field. In which case, I didn't get the full subject sharp as it should be. The subject might have been moving, or the camera, me, I might have been moving, and that might have caused the problem. Now, I am not gonna test you on lens sharpness. That's just something that you woul...

d, but that's something else that might cause a problem in one lens not being very sharp. So what we're gonna be looking at is a few possibilities as to why something might be out of focus. So, on the left are your possible reasons why this picture might be out of focus. And I think we'll do a volunteer type thing here. So if you think you know why this picture is out of focus, either ask for the microphone or pick the microphone up. Does anybody think they know what went wrong in this case? Alright. I'm gonna go with insufficient depth of field. Insufficient depth of field, okay. I'm not gonna say that you're wrong, but I'm gonna ask is there somebody else that sees something else going on? My instinct would say subject movement 'cause the boxer's gonna be moving around a lot. Right, okay. I'm gonna say you're wrong on that one. Do we have somebody else in the front row here? Somebody else see something else? Incorrect focus 'cause it's focusing on the back door. Incorrect focus is what we're looking at here, and so I didn't give you the hints, I'll give you those in some of the others. So this is 1/500th of a second, so 1/500th should stop the fast movement here. Now, at an aperture of 1.4, we know we have very shallow depth of field. And as we analyze this picture, what can we learn from this? Well, we can see in the background, that's in focus. So we know, well, I hope you don't think I'm focusing on the fence in the background. I think we know we wanna focus on the boxer here. And they're out of focus so I didn't focus in the right place. Now, I could have used more depth of field to get the whole field in focus. And that's why you're not 100% wrong, and so that's one possible answer that has a reason for being correct. But the main problem is that the camera did not focus in the right place. I messed up on focusing. Maybe that focusing point went back there, or for whatever reason, it didn't work out. That was the problem. So the key thing to look for in these, is there something else in focus? That isn't what it's supposed to be. So that's what we're looking for for incorrect focus. Alright, let's look at our next out of focus picture. This one's pretty ugly. So who thinks they know what went wrong in this image? And if you know why, that would be great to know as well. I'm gonna say it's the camera movement. Okay, why would you say that? Because I've taken pictures like that. (laughing) And usually it's pushing the camera down too fast or when I click the shutter, the camera goes up a little bit. Okay, a little bit of camera movement in this. I forgot to give you the hints here, so here they're at a 13th of a second. That's kind of a warning of potential blurry there 'cause that's kind of a slow shutter speed. F/4 is moderately shallow depth of field, but that's a 16mm lens which should have a lot of things in focus and so, in this case, we are talking about camera movement. And so what I notice about this is that there is a pretty consistent blur over everything, and you can kinda tell which directions those streaks are going, whether they're going side to side or something. And so, I don't know what's back here, but this has a pretty consistent blur. This is a little different, there's this person. Eric, I don't know if you're watching, hi Eric. Eric went to Cuba with us and so, that's Eric. He can be so out of focus but I'd still recognize him. (chuckles) Alright, let's go to our next photo. Alright, so take a look at the photo, and you're really taking a close look at what's in focus and what's out of focus. And exactly what's causing that to be out of focus, is it the movement? Is it the focusing? This one's a little bit trickier. I hope the folks at home are looking closely at this, coming to their own conclusions. So, do we have a volunteer to answer this one? Let's keep those microphones up and ready to go around. Subject movement? Let's take a look at some additional information here. What's our shutter speed? 1/25th of a second, what's going on here? These guys are playing, is that slow or fast? That's gonna be a little bit faster in the human motion, and so in that case, that is subject movement. So we can look at things that are not moving, like the wall, and we can see that's pretty sharp. So focusing, and we can check the guy in the foreground here, he's reasonably sharp. But we can see things that are moving quickly are more blurry, so we know that is subject movement. So that was very good. Alright, let's take a look at our next photo. A lot of photos from Cuba in here. Alright, so can you see a problem with this photo? Somebody else wanna volunteer an answer here? Maybe insufficient depth of field on that one? Alright, let's take a look at some additional technical information. It's a 50mm 1.4 lens. 1.4 has very shallow depth of field, and that is insufficient depth of field. Now you'll notice the Cuba, now you could artistically argue with this, but technically, Cuba's not all in focus and we've got really shallow depth of field. So we have a point of focus, but it doesn't really reach the full scale. Now, as an artist, you could, and it's perfectly fine, it's 100% legal, to say that's what I intended, and that's all I wanted. So it's not technically this is a bad photo. This is not a deletable photo. But it's one of the ones where, well, depends on exactly how I'm gonna use it as to whether it's quite right for that scenario. But good call. Alright, and actually this was taken only about 15 feet away from the other one. (chuckles) So, what's wrong with this photo? Why is it out of focus? Gotta be looking at this one full screen at home, folks. Can't be looking at this one small in the corner. These people are hitting the box to go full screen. Somebody see the problem with this one? Would this be an incorrect focus? Like, it's not quite in the right area? Alright, let's take a look at the, we're using that, let's see, which lens? We're using that 50 at 1.4, and so incorrect focus. So what are you noticing about focus here? [Curly Haired Woman] I would expect it to be more on the knob and the keyhole, but it's a little-- Yeah, what seems like it should be the main subject is not in focus. We do have an area of focus, but it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make logical sense. Now, once again, artistically speaking, you can say this is what I wanted, and it will confuse most people, but you can say it. So, very good. Nice job. Alright, we looked at a similar photo like this a little earlier. This is one of the outtakes folks, one of the outtakes. So who wants to make a call as to what went wrong here? You can do this by process of elimination. If you're pretty sure it's not one of them, just kind of take that one off the board. I'll give you a hint on this one. Let's take a look at the stats on it. It's an 85, 1.2 lens. Now, if you want, you can just simply say, John, this is a wonderful photo. I think it's perfect. I will pay you large amounts of money for this photo right there, like that. Or you can tell me what's wrong with it. Most people prefer to tell me what's wrong with it. Alright. I'm gonna go with the first answer, insufficient depth of field. Insufficient depth of field? What do you see in focus? I see the face mostly in focus. Is there one thing that you can say, that's the sharpest thing in the photograph? The cigar. The cigar? And his nose. His nose? Yeah, and the cigar. And his hat. His hat. Yeah. What do you think is closer to us, his hat or his eye? Closer to the camera. So we do have the hat in focus. I'm also noticing the shirt down here. Right,. And so, it's not depth of field on this one. It's incorrect focus. So we're front focused here. And so we focused a little bit on the hat, a little bit on the shoulder, there's the tip of the cigar in focus, but as you follow the cigar back, his mustache is not in focus. Right. And so, this is where we're front focusing. Made a mistake. And now this could have been caused for a number of reasons. If I had focused and I leaned back a little bit after focusing, that would cause this problem. Because the focus is only off maybe, three or four inches. Okay, that makes sense. And so, we do have an area of focus, but it's not where we would expect it to be. It's not on his eye. That's where we would want it to be. Okay. Okay. All right. What's wrong with this one? There's a lot of things wrong with this photo, folks. I'll tell you that much. But what's the focusing problem on this photo? [Curly Haired Woman] The camera movement? Let's take a look at our shutter speed. Does our shutter speed give an indication? So when you're studying your own photos, you're gonna look at them and you're gonna say, oh, this one's out of focus. You look at the metadata to look at information about the aperture and the shutter speed. 1/20th of a second is a warning that there might be camera movement. And so that's the case, we're camera movement. Everything is kind of evenly blurry. We know this person's walking here, but everything's got this kind of same streak to it. Alright. Let you know right now, little tricky on this one. So take a close look. And I'm gonna give you the extra info right now, so you can see shutter speed, aperture information on this. Look at what's in focus, what's blurry, and what manner is it blurry? Because the blurriness is different with out of focus versus movement. Anybody have thoughts they'd like to give on this one? Would it be subject movement? She looks like she's moving a little bit faster than that shutter speed. So that shutter speed at 30th of a second, so she's probably working this rope here, and what do you see in focus? Let me give you a hint. Okay, back here, so something's in focus. Alright, so it's not camera movement. If it was camera movement, everything would be blurry but now subject movement, it's just the subject that is moving. But in this case, the extra little tricky thing is we have subject movement, but we also have incorrect focus because it's focused back here and the subject is out of focus and it's moving at the same time. So this is kind of a compound problem. And we're on the last one here. Now this one's a little bit trickier. I wanted to save this one for last because there is nothing in focus. So you don't have that, normally you're looking for that point of focus to give you a reference as to what might be the problem, but you don't have that in this case. Why is this picture out of focus? What's the problem? If it's a compound issue again, the first thing would be subject movement because they're twirling, and then insufficient depth of field because you don't have enough to focus on behind that twirling skirt. Okay, does anyone else have something that they can add to the equation? Let me give you some hints. F 2.0 with a 50mm lens. Now we could say that depth of field would solve the problem. And in theory there is a correctness to that, but it's not really the main problem here. And if we look at the movements, if we look at this arm up in the upper left hand corner, do we see a lot of movement that we would expect from an arm that is moving? And we can look at 1/100th of a second. Would 1/100th of a second stop that motion? Maybe, maybe not, but it's not an especially slow shutter speed. Anyone else wanna take a stab at this before I give you the answer? Alright, so that's why I saved this one for the end. This is tricky. In this case, it's incorrect focus. I have focused in front of everything, and everything behind that is out of focus. And there is a certain look to this. This is kind of the bokeh look of things that are in the background that are out of focus. And you don't have that reference point. It's something that has, the camera has been focused too close to the camera, and not out here enough. And so everything is out of focus. And what I would look at in this is first, everything is out of focus, and as things get further into the background, they get a little bit more out of focus. And that would let me know. Well as things get closer, they would probably be sharper. And that focus point is probably in front of where this first person is. Alright, and so, you should be able to look at your photos and study and understand why they are out of focus. So, some things to look for in your pictures. For incorrect focus, you're gonna look for sharp focus somewhere in the photo. Something went right, okay. It may not have been what you wanted, but incorrect focus means you didn't hit the right spot with where you were focused. So somewhere else will be nice and sharp. For cases of insufficient depth of field it's gonna be sharp somewhere, and if you look at the metadata, you might have used a large aperture. A large opening aperture and you should have closed it down to get more depth of field. For subject movement, the subjects are more blurry than the surrounding area. So, for instance, in the woman pulling the rope, she was blurry for a couple reasons, but the background was sharp so we knew the camera wasn't moving there. You would look to see if you had a slow shutter speed. What sort of action are you photographing, and what sort of shutter speed are you using? And is the stationary subjects sharp? Something that you know is not moving, a tree that's just sitting there, for instance. For camera movement, things that you're gonna wanna look for is an even blur streaks throughout the whole frame. Remember the one where the guy walking down the street, everything in the background kind of had, you could tell which way the camera moved with it. Those camera movements are typically gonna happen at slower shutter speeds. Where you might have been trying to hand hold it like 1/30th or 1/15th of a second. And it also tends to happen a little more often with longer lenses because they magnify our movements more. And so this is a detective game. Don't let an out of focused picture go unresolved. Figure out what you did wrong, so you don't make that mistake in the future. This is something that I got really good at when I was working at the camera store. And people would come in and say, "You just sold me this really expensive camera, and it takes out of focus pictures". Well, you didn't focus it right here, you were moving the camera here, and you wanna be able to explain these things because one thing that I didn't show you is a dropped lens that has lens elements out of place. It's gonna have a really weird focus that you don't normally recognize. So in this last section we were talking a lot about focus and a lot of that deals with working with the lens, so I'll promote my Canon and Nikon lens classes because I think, I think most people think a lens is a very simple device and does not need an instruction manual. It's pretty obvious on how to use a lens and how to get the most out of it. And I will tell you that I have jam packed two days full of information on how to get the most of it. This class simply kind of has the tip of the iceberg on it. And it is really nice to go into the specifics of those different brands to look at the different lenses and do a lot of comparisons and talking about how to use them. Everything, on how to clean them, from how to sell them on eBay and stuff. And how to choose them, and so those classes are ones that I think, if you own a Canon or Nikon camera, I think those are things that you'll really appreciate. Go to the class' creative live, look at the reviews for the class and you can kind of see what other people say about that class. I think you'll see that it's a well liked, it's kind of a little hidden gem for a lot of people.