4 EASY Steps to Get SHARP PHOTOS in Camera! | Portraits, Pets, Landscapes & More!

there are three potential reasons why your photos are not sharp number one blur due to motion two miss focus because you're not using the most optimal focus point and three your iso is too damn high now each of these different causes require different solutions to fix so it is important to be able to identify why your photo is not sharp because it will be the fastest way that we can start correcting it on the spot by the way a special thanks to professional photographers of america for sponsoring a portion of this video more on that later now to avoid taking blurry photos we will need to understand how to use shutter speed and that will require us to be in manual mode on our camera don't worry don't freak out i'm gonna make this super easy to understand shutter speed is just how fast the camera takes the shot depending on the circumstances using a slower than necessary shutter speed will be the cause of blurry photos but what does that even mean slower shutter speed well the best way to understand it is through visuals so let's go ahead and be in the camera watch as i'm dialing the shutter speed to the left as you can see there's a lot more blur happening as we go down in number to the point where i'm becoming a slow moving ghost keep in mind the shot is also getting brighter as we move to the left vice versa as we dial to the right there's less and less blur to the point where you can pause the frame now and see that i'm frozen in action keep in mind as we move the shutter speed to the right the shot is also getting darker the point i'm trying to illustrate here is as we're moving to the right you can see that we're able to freeze the action of our shot that's the thing that you need to keep in mind when you want to avoid blur in your photo there's actually a golden rule to shutter speed otherwise known as the handheld rule because you know you're shooting handheld your shutter speed must match the focal length you're shooting with if you're shooting with a full frame sensor camera for you aps-c crop sensor users double your shutter speed for example if you're shooting with a 50 millimeter lens your minimum recommended shutter speed should be one over 50. if you're shooting with a crop sensor camera with a 50 millimeter lens your minimum recommended shutter speed should be 1 over 100 now that's just the baseline to keep in mind so let's go ahead and build on top of this rule if you're moving around a lot or your subject is moving around a lot then you should use a faster shutter speed for example if you're photographing kids or pets that are just moving around a lot then you might want to shoot at one over 125 or one over 250 of a shutter speed my suggestion is take a couple of shots first and check your focus if the shots are still looking blurry then raise the shutter speed now the question that you might be asking is what if you're using a zoom lens do you need to constantly keep changing your shutter speed every time you zoom in and out and the answer is no for example let's just say you have a 24 to 70 millimeter lens right you'll want to choose the shutter speed uh best for the longest end of your lens so for 70 millimeter you would probably use one over 180 one over 100 or if you found one 125 works for you then just keep it there so even when you're retracting down to 50 millimeter 35 millimeter or all the way down to 24 millimeter you stick with that one over 125 it's just gonna make everyone's life so much easier moving on to understanding aperture and don't worry i'm not going to tell you to stop down at f 5.6 just so you can nail focus on your shot okay you can keep shooting at f 1.8 to maximize your background blur however have you ever wondered why your camera seemingly mis-focused despite you shooting at the proper shutter speed and your camera telling you that you've nail focus on the shot now the other videos that i've seen they don't really illustrate this in this video so i'm gonna do my best to explain how aperture and shutter speed can affect the focus of your image when we're taking photos we're only seeing what's in front of us through the lens and depending on the aperture that we're shooting in it can affect our depth of field going back into the camera lowering the f-stop to the widest possible on your lens will yield shallow depth of field so you'll get that blur that bokeh and as you can see when we widen up the aperture of our lens we're allowing in more light into the sensor thus making our shot brighter on the other hand when we're increasing our f-stop it produces greater depth of field so more things will be in focus on top of that when we are increasing our f-stop we're actually closing down on the aperture thus less light is getting into the sensor producing a darker shot but when we hear that phrase shallow depth of field like what does that even mean what does that even look like you see it's hard to conceptualize depth we're only really seeing what's in front of us through the lens and it took me years to understand this back when i first started learning how to use a camera what i said made sense but it never really clicked with me until i started looking at things from a 2d bird's eye view top down perspective that's when depth of field really clicked with me come here i'll show you for example f 1.8 versus f 8. this thin line right here represents f 1.8 which is quite fitting because you get a thin depth of field so even the slightest movement if you're accidentally rocking back and forth with your camera could cause misfocus in your photo even when your camera tells you you locked on in focus versus this thick line right here that represents f8 you have a greater depth of field so even if you move back and forth a little bit there's a hard chance for you to miss focus because that depth of field is so great so in this f 1.8 situation my advice to you is to be in auto focus continuous raise the shutter speed and be in burst mode that way you can be bam and land a photo with the focus tack sharp on your subject by the way if you guys are enjoying this video and you're looking for more resources on becoming a professional photographer definitely consider becoming a member with ppa ppa stands for professional photographers of america they have an expansive library of online education to really level you up as a photographer but not only on how to use a camera but also running a photography business things like contracts and copyright because those things still go over my head and they have resources to help you understand that a whole lot better on top of that if you become a full member with ppa you also get a fifteen thousand dollar am i reading this right fifteen oh my gosh fifty thousand dollar equipment insurance policy oh my god as well as a members only discount codes on big name brands what i've been really enjoying with my membership is that they send these monthly magazines that i just love to flip through and see some new creative photography and understanding the inner workings of these other professional photographers right here to learn more about ppa or if you want to sign up check out the link down below to save 25 off your membership thanks so much for listening now back to the video so moving on choosing the right focus point this is going to be the biggest reason why that one part of the image that you need in focus is not in focus using the wrong focus area or using too general of a focus area would be the culprit of this issue now by default most camera out of the box will be shooting with the widest focus area and when you're shooting with a wide focus area all your focus points are activated the camera will not be sure where or what exactly to focus on and it will grab focus on whatever stands out the most at that second this is where you will need to take that extra few seconds to choose a smaller focus point and get it to where you need it to be for the camera to focus on and depending on your subject and how far away it is narrowing it down to the smallest focus point will ensure that you get the best pinpoint focus results for example if your camera does not have continuous eye autofocus and you're shooting portraits use the smallest focus point possible and put it right on your subject's eye this will avoid the issue where the camera would accidentally focus on their nose or that strand of hair by accident the last thing that we need to talk about on this list is watch your iso high iso can be the cause of the grain and that mush that you see in your photos which can be the reason why your images are not sharp so definitely check out my low light photography guide after this video to achieve the best low light results but in case you need a refresher raising the iso digitally brightens up the image you're about to take but pushing this too hard in a dimly lit situation could yield mushy results unlike shutter speed and f-stop when we're moving the iso to the left it's actually darkening our image whereas when we're moving it to the right it's gonna brighten up our image you would be using iso to compensate for the lack of light to achieve proper exposure in your shot so i see this issue a lot on facebook so and so got the most expensive camera with the state-of-the-art lens and they take a test photo in their dark living room wondering why their image looks so terrible and they post on these groups right and typically i see that they're shooting in some type of auto mode so their shutter speeds are jacked up one over one thousand and that in turn causes their auto iso to shoot up to 256 000 to compensate for that lack of light now there's no shame in asking for help right i just want to be clear on that right that's how we spread good information to newbies out there however this also goes to show that doesn't matter if you own the most expensive equipment out there the camera is not going to be smart enough to take the photos that you want to take so the golden rules for iso to maintain a clean sharp image is if you're shooting with a full frame sensor camera try to keep it under 6400 iso if you're shooting with an aps-c crop sensor camera try to keep it under 3200 iso now newer cameras of course can push past the suggested limits so definitely i would advise to play around to see what the highest iso that you're comfortable with and if your camera has this feature go ahead and set the iso limit to not exceed a certain point when you're shooting with auto iso now i shoot an auto iso all the time there is no shame in that because i know when to get out of it to get the best results that i can alright so combining everything that we've learned in this video the next time you're out put your camera in manual mode set your aperture value first then apply the shutter speed rule and adjust if you need to be an auto iso with iso limit set or put the iso to manual and just make sure to keep it under your limit start at 100 first and raise it if needed now if your image is starting to look too bright dial down the iso and if you can't dial down the iso anymore go ahead and raise the shutter speed until you have the proper exposure remember when we are moving the shutter speed to the right we're also darkening our image next make sure you're using the right focus point and take your shot boom easy peasy tag me on instagram jasonv media all of the beautiful sharp photos that you'll be getting after watching this video because that will let me know that there that there are people out there that that cares about me and my content thanks guys thanks so much for watching alright have a happy 2021 i'll see you guys in the next video peace

Channel: Jason Vong

Views: 247,868

Rating: 4.9705629 out of 5

Keywords: how to get sharp photos, sharp photos, photography tips, jason vong, how to take sharp photos, my photos are not sharp enough, how do i take sharp photos with low light, pet photography, why are my photos blurry, why are my photos grainy, photography for beginners, photography, camera, camera lens, mirrorless camera, photography tutorials, take sharp photos, take sharp photos every time, focus dslr, sharp photo settings, sharp photography tips

Id: 1z-rq4RM2go

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021