There are all sorts of things that can
conspire to make your pictures soft and
soggy and you've got to know what they are
and how to control them so i thought i'd
go through my top five tips to make sure
you get the sharpest pictures possible
but the place to begin is to make sure
your picture is sharp
whilst you're still on location whilst
you're still there because if you go home and
then look in the computer and go "oh blast, i liked that shot
its really soft" and you try sharpening it
in photoshop and lightroom and all that
stuff, you can get away with it to an extent but
it's not great. How do you check when
you're on location see this bit of
sinky boat here let's have a go with
that...come over here a bit right let's
take a picture of the sinky boat, I don't
want it just there, I want it over there a
little bit said Browne trying not to fall in
the water so let's line up my shot turn
on my camera it'll work better get my feet out
lets do a bit of sinky boat and wood that looks
quite good so i've taken my picture and then
in the back of the camera I just zoom in
on it and make sure it's nice and
sharp before i go home because if that
was horribly soggy all i've got to do is
to find out why using my top 5 tips and
then do it again and make sure it's sharp
I can hear the question now how
much do I zoom into a hundred percent. I
don't know it depends on your camera on
my little X-T1 you just dial in all the way
and it won't go beyond a
hundred percent. sorry can't help you you
may have to look in your book
ok the next step is we need a cup of tea
and a slice of cake...come with me
I always find that the best thing in the
world is a piece of cake and a cup of tea so I
thought we'd demonstrate blurry pictures
with them
here we go so first off my number one
bad boy for blurry pictures is camera shake
lets just see if we can demonstrate some
camera shake for you i'm gonna take
a picture of this pretty looking cake and
coffee. see what we can do right so camera shake
kinda looks like that, no part of the
picture is sharp at all none of it and
it's caused by the little movements of
our hands human beings are not
Rocksteady we move all the time those
little movements those little jumping
around movements they have to be frozen
it's very very noticeable when you're
getting close to something or if you're
using a long lens you know stuff jumps
around in the viewfinder doesn't it?
your shutter speed has to be fast enough
to freeze that movement or you'll get a
blurred picture through camera shake
I'm not going into the full equation
here because I've already made a video
about it but generally speaking what you
need is to have your shutter speed at
least as fast as the focal length of
your lens is long. you may need it to be
longer if you have a crop sensor
generally speaking use the fastest
shutter speed you can for the aperture
you want to use
Mmmm it's pretty good....you rolling? Yes!! professionalism
now the next one is not so much a case
of the picture is soft but that the wrong part
is sharp this is about controlling your
auto focus
let's say we're looking over this way I
want to shot of the cup and the cake and we're
going to use a little bit of the
background there with the pub and
there's a sky and all that sort of stuff
but I line up my shot
and what i end up with is something like
that. it's not so much as the picture is soft
it's more a case of the wrong part is
sharp because I didn't control the
autofocus. autofocus doesn't know where
you want to focus in your picture so you
have to take control and you have to
control it yourself and tell it so the
shot which we really want is gonna be
something like this, with the cake sharp
and the background just a little bit
soft. control your auto focus modes I've
already made videos about this one go and
learn how to do it and then you're going to
be able to keep your pictures nice and
sharp and have the correct bit in focus
Mmmm such a shame you're on the camera Christina
because you could be enjoying
some of this yourself. now depth of field
that's another one we looked at focus in
the wrong place
what if you want all of it sharp, what
if you want your cups and your
background sharp, that means you got to
learn how to control your block of
sharpness backwards and forwards and all
over the place so how would we do that?
Um I've made videos on it but i'm going
to do a very quick just kind of give you
an idea if I focus somewhere around there. If i can get
my camera to..there it goes and shoot that with
a small aperture you see we've got more
depth of field so looking at your depth of
field is my number three tip to making
sure you've got sharp pictures, if you want
lots of depth of field...use it!!
Provided that nothing is moving the cure all is to use
one of these things; a tripod, because it
ensures your camera isn't moving
it's gonna hold it nice and still so
regardless of how slow your shutter
speed is you're gonna be able to have a
nice still camera i know people say i
don't want to have to carry a tripod
around i don't want a heavy tripod but that's
the cure-all you know it's the only
thing you can do so let's say you wanted
that big block of sharpness as we talked
about a moment ago lots of depth of
field that's going to mean a small
aperture that's gonna be a slow shutter
speed that's gunna mean you're in danger of the
first one which was camera shake. so that
negates all of that problem
so let's say I want to take a nice
picture of the diminishing cake I
control my auto focus put it in the
right place and I want it on the fork
and I focus on the fork and I take my
picture and it doesn't really matter
about the shutter speed because
nothing's moving let's say I want to try
and make it a bit sharper I want to make
the background a little bit more complex
this distance that's not gonna be so
easy but again i can slow that shutter
speed way way down and have a sharp picture
the tripod is the cure-all whichever way
you want to do it
don't ignore tripod don't be lazy get a
tripod that
is my number four top tip for making
sure you get a nice sharp pictures
And finally it's pretty obvious you really
should keep your lens fairly clean
didn't you. now don't go into too much of
a panic about this and also don't go
into too much of a panic about cleaning
your lens i've already done a video about
care of your equipment you may have seen
me poking my lens with the end of a fork
lenses are pretty sturdy so don't
begin to worry about how much you can
clean it and how often you can clean it
incase you damage it, I've even heard
stories online that going *huh* on the end of
it and huffing with your breath is going
to deteriorate the coatings, i'll tell you if
there's acid in my breath that can deteriorate
coatings on a piece of ground glass
I'm seriously worried for what's going
on inside my throat and lungs so let's
have a little look let's assume you're a
very clumsy person who likes to eat cake
and on top of that you never actually
bother to put your lens cap on or your
lens hood indeed to protect it
so you've been shoving bits of mmm mmm
cake in your mouth and then you got
your sticky fingers all over your lense
like that right and you got nice sticky
dirty bits of mmm sugary icing. Is that
going to affect your picture
let's have a look...do you know what?!
Gives you a lovely arty effect doesn't it
but here's the thing all you have to do
it really isn't a big deal
a good huff a bit of microfibre cloth
anywhere you go. get it nice and huffed on and give
it a good old clean. now I put a lot of
sugary fatty icing on that lens
just then so it's taking two or three
good huff's and a damn good rub with a
microfiber cloth to get it off but it
does come off you truly don't have to
worry about it that much
there we go
up to the nose smells like a rose up to
the light clean and bright
what does our picture look like let's get
a little arty bit in the corner here of
just the edge of the fork and some cake
and as you can see it's just all gone
ok it's not a big deal if you get
something on your lens don't worry about
it so my five top tips for keeping your
pictures nice and sharp are watch out
for camera shake be very careful that
one it's the worst offender. number two
make sure you control your auto focus
don't just let the camera do it for you
because it may focus but in the wrong
place
that's not a soft picture it's a picture
that's focused in the wrong place
number three look after and control your
depth of field because you're in control
how sharp do you want it do you want it
front-to-back sharp or do you just want
a little bit of sharpness it's not out
of focus it just means you haven't got as
much sharp as you wanted
number four is to use one of these bad
boys use a tripod it's so simple and it
means you got sharp pictures
surely it's better to go a bit more
slowly use a tripod take your time and
go home with loads of sharp pictures
than go home with a hundred that are all
soft and fuzzy and hopeless and of
course the last one number five don't go
putting cream all over the lens of your
camera and if you do comes off pretty easy
i'm going to eat the rest of this now and you
can't have any
Christina camera woman
so my top tips are, watch out for camera shake
be careful where you're focusing choose
where you're focusing don't just let the
camera do it for you or it will focus in the
wrong place
number three whats number three
I *laughing waitress* "she's laughing at me can you see her in the video"
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