hi guys welcome or welcome back thanks so much for joining me today
we're going to talk about why your photographs might be blurry
so basically like i've just said we're going to discuss why your photographs may be blurry
and there are many many reasons why this may happen so we're basically just going to kind
of go through all of them as quickly as physically possible so if you haven't already please do press
the subscribe button and click the bell icon the bell icon will help you out because it'll give you
a notification every single time i upload a video i upload every week and sometimes more than that if i
feel like it and if i have time so guys for this particular video i made a list and on my list
is a number of things that could make your photographs blurry to get through this list in as
quick time as possible with as little boring bits as possible we're just gonna run straight into it
start with number one the first reason for having blurry photographs would be
because your shutter speed is too low now if you've not already you might want to go ahead
and watch the exposure triangle video which i will link above the exposure triangle video will
discuss what shutter speed actually does and how to control your settings to freeze action
so the main reason why people's photographs are blurry is usually because the shutter speed is
too slow this will give you a telltale look in your images and it will just look like things are
being stretched and not particularly pretty that's reason number one reason number one the solution
for that would be to just increase your shutter speed come on to either shutter priority mode or
uh tv mode on canon cameras and go ahead and increase the shutter speed to control it in there
or shoot in full manual like we do and follow the exposure triangle video it is also a video on the
channel that is something called how to photograph dogs running or something like that the second
reason that your photographs may be blurry would be because the shutter speed is too slow for you
not for the subject so that kind of isn't motion blur that's camera shake camera shake essentially
is where the subject is stationary and therefore there is no action to freeze there but you have
moved and that movement has created camera shake it's easy to solve just increase the shutter speed
a little bit the general rule for avoiding camera shake is to keep your shutter speed at two times
the focal length of the lens of a second what i mean by that is if you have a 50mm lens
you want to be at 100th of a second which is two times the focal length 50 to 100
then put of a second after it perfect that's how you do it so if you're on a 200mm lens yep you
guessed it 400th of a second will prevent camera shake unless you're throwing your camera around
in which case you're gonna need to be higher than that that's for sure the only exception to the
camera shake situation is if your lens has image stabilization in it if your lens has is or oss
or one of the stabilization acronyms then you definitely can go slightly lower with your
shutter speed to make sure it's safe in fact you can usually go to the whatever the focal length is
of a second so if you're using a 200mm lens with image stabilization you can shoot at 1 200th of
a second usually with relative safety in fact i have been known on occasion for international
award entries to be shooting at one 150th of a second and even one 125th of a second
for award things on a 200mm lens so yeah if you're safe it's okay but the subject
must obviously be completely stationary and you should also anchor yourself on an object within
the environment for example a tree a rock a log or some other solid thing in the area
also the ground the ground can work quite well too reason number three why your photographs
may be blurry comes down to lens issues so you can calibrate lenses lenses can be calibrated
using particular tools and you can input the adjustment for the lens for your camera body
and to do that basically you just want to go ahead and look at the manufacturer's guidelines
for how to calibrate your lenses calibrating lenses isn't really that difficult um but it does
take a little bit of time and effort your lens may be causing the blur if it is front focusing
or back focusing so front focusing means that the focus point is consistently grabbing in front
of where you want it to so if this is the dog's eye and consistently the nose is in focus as in
the little bits of hair in front of the eyes are always in focus when you know you focus on the eye
that lens is therefore front focusing if the head forehead of the dog behind the eye is in focus
consistently but not the eye the lens is back focusing so there is an issue there with the
lens it's not usually a massive problem you can also send your lenses off for servicing that is
an option just send your camera body too they both need to go together the next set of issues
come down to focus issues so that is kind of user error but not user error basically something is
going on within the camera and the lens that means that the focus is not going on the right place
so there's loads of different options for this the first option is that you
have got your lens or your camera set to manual focus you would not believe how common this is
everybody does it genuinely so if you've got your camera or your lens on manual focus of course your
photographs will be blurry because there's no autofocus in play here so unless you are very
carefully manually focusing the lens you're going to end up with blurry pictures that's just a fact
the next one is that you've got the wrong focus mode on so maybe you are photographing
a dog running towards you and in that situation maybe you have got afs on not afc or you're using
single shot and not ai servo on canon cameras so in that situation basically your camera is
focusing once when you press the button but not continually and therefore only the first one is in
focus because everything after that you held your finger down but the camera didn't refocus so you
just need to make sure that you are on the correct focus mode the next reason that your photographs
may be blurry is if you're using the wrong focus area or you're not controlling the focus area
enough so that comes down to whether you're using the wide area mode whether you're using a like
9 focus point method that kind of focuses on a group and then moves it whether you're using the
autofocus mode so basically what that does is the camera picks what you want to focus on and then it
tracks it but that's not always accurate and then the next option for you would be your spot focuses
so there's loads of different methods for spot focusing too and you will have blurry pictures
if you have not moved them onto the subject so if your focus point is over to one side but you're
actually focusing on somewhere else then you are going to have a big problem and the image is going
to be blurry where the subject should be sharp so the next issue that most people do come into
contact with at some point is light issues so your camera will struggle to focus in very low light
and also in very harsh backlight so if there is a very very bright light coming at the camera lens
from behind the subject then in that situation the camera will sometimes struggle to acquire focus
that usually happens at sunset and in the morning if you position your subject directly in front of
the sun then you're going to have an issue there another issue would be to do with low light in
a studio situation if you're shooting with a mirrorless camera especially the sony's this is a
situation that happens if you're using back button focus on afc so continuous autofocus on the back
button in a studio situation where you're using a very very small aperture or a very large f number
like f14 or f12 something like that then you will find that your camera consistently struggles
to acquire focus and that's because the lens is in its small position continually for the continual
for the continuous focus to work and therefore the lens doesn't breathe properly so if you switch to
using afs so a single focus method you can still have that up on the back button if you want to
but in those situations the lens will correctly breathe to let more light in to acquire focus and
then close back off again so that is a major issue that you may come into and be like why is
my camera so useless in studio it's not it's just you need to change the focus settings
that's all so the next two issues tend to come about when you're photographing in
action situations and you will have these issues if you're shooting with an entry-level camera
and an entry-level lens tend to happen most of the time so the first one is if you've got a slow
camera an entry level camera will usually have relatively poor autofocus technology within it and
therefore usually it will struggle to acquire and hold focus on a moving subject particularly well
your hit rate will be low that's just a fact so the other option therefore is if you are having
that issues maybe you've got a slow lens so an older lens an older third-party lens usually has
quite slow focus issues there but not always the old ones for example the sigma 105 1.4 lens is the
most amazing portrait lens in the world you can watch all about that i will link that above but
it is absolutely diabolically useless for anything to do with moving subjects and if that subject is
moving very quickly you might as well just kind of take the lens off and throw it at a brick wall
because it's not gonna get any good pictures from that situation unless you manually focus i guess
which you could do but what's the point there's no point just change your lens to something faster so
our penultimate reason for having blurry pictures would be that your lens is broken like you know
sometimes you just can't get around the fact that your lens is broke so somebody i know recently
just had consistently soft images even though they used to get really sharp images and they thought
it was them that was the problem but it was not it was the focus motor within the lens it had gone
it had blown its little mind and the lens had slowly deteriorated over a number of months
and there was no solution for that the camera and the lens went in for servicing they found
the lens issue and they said you look you need to get a replacement lens we can't fix it doesn't
fix from this point so they've got a new lens on their insurance job is a gooden and absolutely fine
the other option would be if your camera is broken which has happened before i used to own a camera
can't really remember exactly what it was but it was a dslr so not a mirrorless and the mirror
moved within the mirror chamber thing and apart from having issues looking through the viewfinder
there was also issues with focusing it couldn't acquire solid focus and the camera was therefore
dead at that point you either need to decide do i give my camera a funeral a good send-off
and a solid wake or do i repair the camera at cost or claim on my insurance whatever you do
at that point that's completely up to you but try and assess all of the other options first before
resulting in a dead camera sometimes it is just user error and therefore just practice a little
bit more with your focus especially if it's of a moving subject because sometimes your kit is
absolutely fine you just maybe need a little bit more practice so that's it guys that is all of my
reasons why you may or may not have a blurry photo did i miss one if i did please do drop it into the
comment section below if you haven't already please do press the subscribe button and hit
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