Shoot sharper shots

Get tack-sharp shots with these hints, tips and practical advice

The techniques in this feature should have you shooting sharper shots straight away, but if you’re not getting the results you want, it’s definitely worth persevering. Camera shake is arguably going to cause more problems than focusing, so if in any doubt, use the highest shutter speeds possible and don’t be afraid to push your ISO. Modern digital cameras give good results at higher ISO values.

f/5.6 1/320 sec

he most common cause of soft shots when you shoot handheld will be camera shake. This means that the camera moves slightly while the scene in front of it is being exposed to the image sensor. We can blame shutter speed for this – in particular the choice of a speed that’s slow enough to capture the movement (under 1/30 sec, for example).

TIn the hands of a fine-art photographer, intentional camera movement is a useful creative tool, but for anyone aiming to get pin-sharp photographs, unintentional camera movement will be a catastrophe.

While the shutter speed needs to be fast enough, the focal length of your lens also plays a big part in determining how fast the shutter speed should be. There is a straightforward way of making sure you are using a suitable shutter speed, though: the ‘reciprocal rule’ suggests using a shutter speed that’s at least equal to the focal length of the lens. So if you’re shooting at 50mm, try 1/50 sec or more, try 1/200 sec at 200mm and so on.

These settings apply to cameras with a full-frame sensor. If you’re using a camera without one, then you’ll need to take into account the relevant ‘crop factor’.

A tripod will help you get sharper shots, but just mounting your camera on a tripod may not eliminate all movement; you need to make sure it is as stable as it can be. Extend the top leg sections first, as these are sturdier, and avoid using the centre column if possible.

On windy days, hang your kit bag from the centre column to weigh down the tripod.

The best way of making sure your tripod is stable is to ground it, by using the spikes on its legs, if fitted. If not, use the kit bag method (above).

Some tripods offer a working height as low as 10cm, thanks to catches at the top of each leg. This will make the tripod even more stable to use.

Sometimes there’s no need for a tripod at all; instead you can use a wrap-around camera support like the GorillaPod from Joby.

DIGITAL CAMERA 61

epth of field refers to the extent of the sharpness of an image. If an image is noticeably soft in front of and behind the point of focus, then its depth of field is shallow; if the image is sharp from front to back, then its depth of field is broad. Depth of field decreases the closer you are to a subject, so accurate focusing is vital to ensure that your subjects are sharp. This is why narrow apertures are used in macro photography (see below).

DEven then, when you shoot extreme close-ups, the depth of field may be only a matter of millimetres. As a rule of thumb, there’s roughly double the amount of depth of field behind a focal point than there is in front of it. See what happens if you were to shoot a landscape (right) with a narrow aperture of f/16…

f/11 1/60 sec

utofocus was a game-changer in the development of modern cameras – being able to get pictures in focus so easily has done a lot for the popularity of photography. But like any automated system, autofocus is not infallible, and there are times it needs a little assistance.

ADSLR and mirrorless cameras offer a variety of autofocus modes, which you can switch between by pressing the AF button usually found on the top of the camera and rotating the control dial; you can also access AF modes via menu systems.

One Shot mode is ideal for shooting static subjects, such as landscapes or still-life.

For sports, wildlife and other types of action photography, switch to the mode designed to track moving subjects. Different camera manufacturers have different ways of referring to this: on Canon models, it’s known as AI Servo, while Nikon calls it Dynamic Area AF and Sony uses the term Continuous AF.

The camera’s default autofocus mode will use a grid of AF points to focus on whatever’s closest in the frame…

his technique can be used with any lens, and enables you to shoot using its ‘sweet spot’. Focus stacking blends several images that have been focused at different points, to produce a single image that contains the sharpest parts of each shot, and is therefore sharp from foreground to background. It is straightforward to do, and can be carried out in dedicated software or in Photoshop.

TStarting at the bottom of the frame, focus on a relevant point and take a shot. Move up the frame and repeat.

To avoid any chance of shake, fire the shutter remotely, or by using the self-timer – two seconds is ideal.

After the blending process in Photoshop, you’ll need to crop out any empty space from around the edges where the images were aligned.

The blended image has an enhanced depth of field. Crop any blurred edges then go to Layers > Flatten Image.

To ensure full sharpness from front to back, a series of shots focusing on different areas is taken, then focus stacked.

hen you shoot using JPEG quality settings, your camera applies a filter to the resulting images. This sharpens them and boosts the colours and contrast. This is why raw files can look slightly soft and washed-out when you compare a JPEG to a raw version of the same shot on the camera display.

You can change the amount of sharpening applied to JPEGs in-camera by creating a user-defined Picture Style, and adjusting the sharpness setting. If you shoot in raw, a default sharpening effect is applied when you bring the image into raw-compatible image-editing software, like Lightroom or Camera Raw.

W

the results. To access the Unsharp Mask in Photoshop CC, go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask; if you’re using Photoshop Elements, go to Enhance > Unsharp Mask.