# Getting sharper focus on the face?



## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

f/4.5, 1/500, ISO 5000

Couldn’t figure out why the face looked soft on this shot and the others I took today.  I know I had the focus point squarely on the near eye.   The Fuji 18-55 is usually very sharp even at full zoom.  Went through all my settings when I got home.   The AF was set to All instead of single point in one of the menu settings.  The shirt seems much sharper to me than the rest.  Not sure how that setting got changed but hopefully that was the problem?  Still learning the Xt2 settings.  It has face and eye detection that I’ve currently got turned off.  Thoughts on using that technology for portraits?  I’ve always thought of that as a feature for candids or group shots.  Any other thoughts on why this looks soft?   I think it’s also a bit underexposed?


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## jaomul (Oct 29, 2017)

I would say from your settings that if you dropped the shutter speed to 1/500 the iso would drop to 500 also. Though cameras are capable at elevated iso, 5000 is high for any camera, robbing details and sharpness, maybe


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

oops shutter speed was 1/5oo.  That was a typo.   Sorry!  I had it on Auto ISO. It was very late in the day starting to get dark so available light was not great.


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## Destin (Oct 29, 2017)

Definitely just softening from the high iso setting and any subsequent noise reduction processing (either in camera or in post)

I would agree that a shutter speed of 1/500 or so would have made more sense here.. no need to be up at 1/5000 for a portrait unless it’s very bright and you want to shoot wide open.

Edit: just saw your shutter speed correction. I maintain that high iso is causing the softness. But the solution would be to consider adding flash somehow at this point to get lower iso levels.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

Re the high ISO, not great I know but compared to the shirt I feel like the face is a lot softer.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

@jaomul @Destin 

See my update re shutter speed. Thanks for your responses. Sorry for the confusion


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## jaomul (Oct 29, 2017)

Did you focus/recompose? Possibly you focussed on short rather than on face, or if you recomposed maybe focus initially on a different plane than the face. Also if it's quite dark it's possible to misfocus slightly


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## jcdeboever (Oct 29, 2017)

SquarePeg said:


> View attachment 148906
> f/4.5, 1/5000, ISO 5000
> 
> Couldn’t figure out why the face looked soft on this shot and the others I took today.  I know I had the focus point squarely on the near eye.   The Fuji 18-55 is usually very sharp even at full zoom.  Went through all my settings when I got home.   The AF was set to All instead of single point in one of the menu settings.  The shirt seems much sharper to me than the rest.  Not sure how that setting got changed but hopefully that was the problem?  Still learning the Xt2 settings.  It has face and eye detection that I’ve currently got turned off.  Thoughts on using that technology for portraits?  I’ve always thought of that as a feature for candids or group shots.  Any other thoughts on why this looks soft?   I think it’s also a bit underexposed?



More than likely, it was because of the all setting. Double check noise reduction setting too. I always use the face / eye detection for portraits unless I'm going for a creative DOF look to it, then I manual focus and select my focus point. The face / eye detection works extremely well and keeper rate is fantastic. You will be impressed with it. It always seems to get it right, even with multiple people. I use it 99% of the time. I found the "all" rather useless with how I shoot and just adds a potential failure to the mix, as you have discovered, just like I did.


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## zombiesniper (Oct 29, 2017)

Agree that the shirt does appear to be where the focus is.

With a 55mm lens you should have no need to go above 1/80 unless you have a medical condition or it's really windy. 1/500 is a really quick shutter for a portrait.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

jaomul said:


> Did you focus/recompose? Possibly you focussed on short rather than on face, or if you recomposed maybe focus initially on a different plane than the face. Also if it's quite dark it's possible to misfocus slightly



I didn’t focus/recompose -at least not intentionally lol. I never got the hang of that technique. I always move my focus point in camera.   I may have shifted back unintentionally.  



jcdeboever said:


> SquarePeg said:
> 
> 
> > View attachment 148906
> ...



Good to know.  Going to turn those face/eye detection features on and see how it goes.  I changed my shooting settings to sharp +1 and noise reduction I left at 0. 



zombiesniper said:


> Agree that the shirt does appear to be where the focus is.
> 
> With a 55mm lens you should have no need to go above 1/80 unless you have a medical condition or it's really windy. 1/500 is a really quick shutter for a portrait.



No medical condition but I’m not the steadiest either.  I rarely shoot below 1/500 or 1/250 unless I can lean on something. I need to practice my hand holding technique and stance.  I had a decent technique with the Nikon but the Xt2 is so much smaller and lighter that it’s almost harder to hold steady.


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## jaomul (Oct 29, 2017)

I would say unless your subject is moving try go for 1/250 instead of 1/500 for portraits unless you have a long lens. Obviously if 1/250 isn't getting you the results you need you'd need to up the speed


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## smoke665 (Oct 29, 2017)

Sure you hear this a lot but she is a beautiful young lady. Maybe  a combination of missed focus and DOF. On my tablet the NFL tag and some of the sleeve appears really sharp. At somewhere around 6' away from her you would have only had 3" give or take in front of the label still in focus so the eyes were likely close to the transition.

I prefer Manuel focus using the screen at 10x to determine my focus point. When I do use AF I rarely use anything but single point. My Pentax has face recognition that when combined with continuous focus will do a decent job of tracking a moving subject. 

I'm not up on Fuji but I suspect there is a difference in technology used for focus on screen vs viewfinder. Again using my camera as an example it uses contrast difference to AF on screen view and Phase Detection on viewfinder. The Phase Detection is much more accurate, especially in low light.


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## Gary A. (Oct 29, 2017)

Use single point and the toggle to move the AF point. It is quick, accurate and painless. For a portrait and you gots the time, use the face/eye detection it is amazingly useful and it works amazingly well.


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## Overread (Oct 29, 2017)

ISO 5000 on most modern cameras shouldn't be a struggle to get a clear shot from. Yes it won't be as sharp as at a lower ISO but its perfectly useable and at the size show on on a forum shouldn't even be that evident.

1/500sec more than fast enough for a candid shot like this

f4.5 - not a huge depth of field but should be more than enough for a face


Your error is here
"The AF was set to All instead of single point in one of the menu settings"

When set to all the focus of the camera looks for the nearest point in which it can detect a contrast change. So even if the main point was aimed on the eyes the rest of the sensors are also in play and thus picked up the hair and focused on that instead. If you want to define an AF point to work with you really have to tell the camera exactly which one to use - sometimes cropping wide on the shot so that the middle (oft the one easier to use) AF point is on the point you want in focus and then you can crop to more easily compose the shot in editing.

Note remember that AF focuses the plane of focus on an area of contrast change, so if you recompose the shot the AF will either remain where it was (and thus you'll move the focus off the subject) or the AF will re-engage and refocus on the new area its pointed at. 


Face and eye detection might well have kicked in and picked up the face and over-rode the AF default and some face/eye is getting scary good at picking out faces. For casual shooting that might be better to use if you don't want to use single AF point selection.


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## smoke665 (Oct 29, 2017)

Overread said:


> Note remember that AF focuses the plane of focus on an area of contrast change,



Not necessarily true. I couldn't find confirmation on the method used in live view, but I suspect it uses contrast detection.  Contrast Detection measures the edge contrast within a sensor field through the lens. The intensity difference between adjacent pixels on the sensor increases with correct focus.  

However on the view finder on the Xt2  it's a different story for sure _"When set to the default 91-point mode t*here are 49 phase-detect *AF points in the centre of the array. This is a significant improvement from the nine phase-detect AF points that featured in the X-T1"  https://www.fixationuk.com/close-up-fuji-x-t2-af-system/ _

Phase detection has been around on some other models for awhile now, the major advantage being it's ability to AF in low light better than the Contrast Detection method. For a more detailed explanation of how Phase Detection works How Phase Detection Autofocus Works


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## tirediron (Oct 29, 2017)

With respect to the OP, pretty simple.  DoF  in this case was 4-5".  The shirt is in sharp focus, the face is further away, ergo....


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## Tomasko (Oct 29, 2017)

tirediron said:


> With respect to the OP, pretty simple.  DoF  in this case was 4-5".  The shirt is in sharp focus, the face is further away, ergo....


Sure, but OP claims she had AF point on subject's eye and mirrorless usually don't tend to front/back focus for obvious reasons...


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## Derrel (Oct 29, 2017)

The jersey looks sharp, but it is all low-frequency detail, with crisp, clearly delineated edges on the decals/letters/numerals. I can see the eyelashes are rendered individually, but they are not well-defined, so there was good focus at the eye distance, but not much definition of the detail, so my feeling is that mostly, the ISO 5,000 is what hurt this shot the most. The shirt looks sharp because it relies on color-contrast, not fine details, but the skin and hair and eyes lack finely-rendered high-frequency details, so  those things appear a bit soft.

Eye detection has become astoundingly good...there's a computer and software underlying and supporting the focusing system in modern cameras; switching various camera operating system features to OFF is at times, counter-productive, and slows us down. There's a rather pervasive on-line photo forum bias against _using all of the technology_ modern cameras offer, with the underlying premise being that a human can perform complex,precise,critical functions faster and better than a dedicated computer can. Sometimes it makes sense to go it by hand-and-eye, while at other times, the computer, the software, and the hardware can out-perform the human.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

Many thanks to all for your thoughts on this.  Really appreciate you guys taking the time to add details and suggestions for improvement.  I’m thinking it’s a combination of that one setting being off and too high ISO and maybe poor technique on my part.  Always something new to work on or relearn. 

 Since Princess is grounded today she’ll be around for me to try again.   It’s raining so will need to improvise some lighting. I don’t even have off camera flash for the Fuji yet but I may try some kind of window and ambient light combination.


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## vintagesnaps (Oct 29, 2017)

The settings to me sounded off so yeah, the exposure might be off, although it can be more challenging if you're losing light to get a proper exposure. 

I wouldn't necessarily go with a large-ish aperture to blur backgrounds; even when people do that, whatever is in the background is still there (just ends up being a blurry blob of color or shape). Of course with the lens more open you'd get more light coming into the camera, but then it's going to be harder to get all of her in focus with more shallow depth. 

You might do better with manual settings. Supposedly in low light we can actually see better than a camera is able to focus. I think a camera in trying to adjust for one setting or mode can end up getting off track with exposure. You might get better results controlling and adjusting the settings yourself. 

It sounds like you'd benefit from getting out and practicing with your camera to be able to get a slower shutter speed, even 1/250 is pretty fast. You probably want to get so you can hand hold at 1/125 at least. I developed a stance over time that I don't know if I could describe, but I have to brace myself even more if I'm losing light and trying to go lower than 1/80. I basically have my shoulders back a little and shift my weight over my hips, with heels slightly outward and toes slightly inward. Make yourself into a human tripod!


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

vintagesnaps said:


> The settings to me sounded off so yeah, the exposure might be off, although it can be more challenging if you're losing light to get a proper exposure.
> 
> I wouldn't necessarily go with a large-ish aperture to blur backgrounds; even when people do that, whatever is in the background is still there (just ends up being a blurry blob of color or shape). Of course with the lens more open you'd get more light coming into the camera, but then it's going to be harder to get all of her in focus with more shallow depth.
> 
> ...



The only auto setting I was using was auto ISO. Sounds like a funky stance, I’ll see if I can find something that works for me with the Xt2.  What worked for the Nikon is not working for me any longer.


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## Designer (Oct 29, 2017)

It seems I'm always in the wrong setting somehow.  Either I forget the AF, or WB, or something else before I take the shot.  I usually remember long after the opportunity has passed.


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## Designer (Oct 29, 2017)

BTW: I think you'll find that you can make a nice portrait with window light.  Use a tripod, and ask your model to see how long she can hold still.  1/30 of a second should be easy.


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## Derrel (Oct 29, 2017)

I have no issue with AUTO ISO in Manual exposure mode being used, but 1/500 second seems awfully fast, and almost guaranteed to "run up" the ISO level quite high. My main issue is not the sharpness of this portrait, but rather the somewhat magenta-tinged skin tones, and the rather dark shadow tones in the hair.


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## Designer (Oct 29, 2017)

I'm always in the wrong WB setting.  I need to work on thinking of everything and check all the settings BEFORE I start making exposures.  Sometimes I catch myself before I take the final shot.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

Designer said:


> BTW: I think you'll find that you can make a nice portrait with window light.  Use a tripod, and ask your model to see how long she can hold still.  1/30 of a second should be easy.



Well Princess fell asleep on me (must have been a fun sleepover) so I had to recruit my very shy nephew.  I knew he’d hate having the camera pointed at him so we improvised.  I’ll post that below.



Derrel said:


> I have no issue with AUTO ISO in Manual exposure mode being used, but 1/500 second seems awfully fast, and almost guaranteed to "run up" the ISO level quite high. My main issue is not the sharpness of this portrait, but rather the somewhat magenta-tinged skin tones, and the rather dark shadow tones in the hair.



Now those two things I can fix since I have the raw file!


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

Now this time I had the face detection on and single point and kept ISO to 320.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

Hard to tell on a phone but he’s looking out rainy window.  Even with that it’s so much sharper.


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## Designer (Oct 29, 2017)

What is your editing process?  How did you do that texture?  I like it, but I probably shouldn't say this, but it looks like an old oil painting on which is spattered black paint. 

We used to do that with the children.  Dip a toothbrush in black paint, whisked over a piece of window screen.

I think the technique is called "spatter painting, and we would put down found objects such as leaves, spools, popsicle sticks, and spatter over the paper.  Pick up the objects and view your creation.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 29, 2017)

This technique is called me outside in rain, lol.   And lots of contrast.


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## fmw (Oct 29, 2017)

Peg I think it just a matter of maximum zoom extension and wide open aperture.   The shot would likely have been at ISO200 and f8.  All you would need is a tripod.


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## jcdeboever (Oct 29, 2017)

SquarePeg said:


> Many thanks to all for your thoughts on this.  Really appreciate you guys taking the time to add details and suggestions for improvement.  I’m thinking it’s a combination of that one setting being off and too high ISO and maybe poor technique on my part.  Always something new to work on or relearn.
> 
> Since Princess is grounded today she’ll be around for me to try again.   It’s raining so will need to improvise some lighting. I don’t even have off camera flash for the Fuji yet but I may try some kind of window and ambient light combination.


That little flash works great.


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## Gary A. (Oct 30, 2017)

SquarePeg said:


> Now this time I had the face detection on and single point and kept ISO to 320.


Go B&W and kick up the contrast a ton ... just to see what happens ...


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## Braineack (Oct 30, 2017)

high ISO doesn't cause a soft photo like that.  Sorry, but no.

whatever posterized the image killed off any and all detail.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 30, 2017)

Braineack said:


> high ISO doesn't cause a soft photo like that.  Sorry, but no.



At this point, I think it was primarily having the AF "All" setting but the high ISO and my lack of technique just amplified the missed focus on the first photo.  The second photo shot at a similar time of day, through the rain covered window, picked up the face very sharply in comparison.  I updated the AF to single point and turned the face and eye detection on.  Much better results, IMO, although my plan to have the photo be him looking through the window while the rain ran down was thwarted by the rain just sitting there like specs!  I used the window because my nephew would be uncomfortable with the camera pointed right at him.  He has Asperger's and eye contact and getting his photo taken can be issues for him.  Going to try again today with a more direct approach and a different model.


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## Braineack (Oct 30, 2017)

looking at your flickr, that Fuji handles itself nicely at 5000 iso.   that 60mm macro looks really sharp in most your portraits, but wasn't seeing much from your 18-55.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 30, 2017)

Yeah I'm not that crazy about the wider focal lengths and really only use the 18-55 for landscape stuff.  I'm trying to use the 18-55 more often, I just don't find it all that exciting... The XT2 handles high ISO remarkably well, IMO.  For either of these photos I would have switched over to the 60 but it hunts in low light - it's super sharp but not super fast.  Still, I think the results would have been better than with the 18-55.  

I don't take a ton of people photos except for family events.  I need to start practicing though. While I have no interest in doing this for money, I think portraiture as art is a very interesting area and it would be nice to be able to take senior portraits for my daughter and her friends in 3 years.


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## jcdeboever (Oct 30, 2017)

SquarePeg said:


> Yeah I'm not that crazy about the wider focal lengths and really only use the 18-55 for landscape stuff.  I'm trying to use the 18-55 more often, I just don't find it all that exciting... The XT2 handles high ISO remarkably well, IMO.  For either of these photos I would have switched over to the 60 but it hunts in low light - it's super sharp but not super fast.  Still, I think the results would have been better than with the 18-55.
> 
> I don't take a ton of people photos except for family events.  I need to start practicing though. While I have no interest in doing this for money, I think portraiture as art is a very interesting area and it would be nice to be able to take senior portraits for my daughter and her friends in 3 years.



I use the 60 in manual focus with peaking highlights about 99.9% of the time to overcome the low light slow focus issue. Works incredibly well. I do turn off the focus preview though, don't care for it. The 18-55 is a very nice lens but your right, it is kind of boring for some reason. It always impresses me though. I use it in low light a lot because the OIS enables me to shoot at really slow shutter speeds. You still have to pay attention to your stability stance though. I think the micro contrast on the 60 is better, that may be what your seeing.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 30, 2017)

@jcdeboever 

Is there a way to quickly toggle from zoomed in to standard view when using focus peaking?


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## jcdeboever (Oct 31, 2017)

SquarePeg said:


> @jcdeboever
> 
> Is there a way to quickly toggle from zoomed in to standard view when using focus peaking?


I don't think so. I seem to recall it just pops up, hence why I don't care for it. It messes with my composition mojo.


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## SquarePeg (Oct 31, 2017)

jcdeboever said:


> SquarePeg said:
> 
> 
> > @jcdeboever
> ...



Yes, exactly, especially when in close.  I’ll just turn it off then and leave peaking on.


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## jcdeboever (Oct 31, 2017)

SquarePeg said:


> jcdeboever said:
> 
> 
> > SquarePeg said:
> ...


It's a little more useful on the xpro2, it ahas a toggle switch on the front to put the view finder in hybrid mode which actually is ok when doing portraits. The only thing with the xp2 is I am left eye dominant and the vf is on the left. If the XT2 acted like that, I may use it more. I guess ... If I was right eye dominant, I'd probably use the xp2 more than the XT2. The xp2 is so stunning looking.


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## photoflyer (Nov 23, 2017)

Does this camera have the ability to do autofocus microfocus adjustment.  I have an 85mm f 1.8 that was doing what you show above... it was focusing short.   I described this on the forum and someone explained AF microfucus adjustment.  What a difference that makes, especially with a fast lens.


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## ac12 (Dec 19, 2017)

I don't know about your camera, but on my Nikon's, auto focus is driven by the exposure mode the camera is in.

In "Auto" the AF is set to "closest subject."  So the camera will focus on anything that is close, thinking THAT is the subject.  I stopped using auto after one try.  I had chairs, tables, dinner plates, etc, etc, in focus, but my subjects further back on the other side of the table was OUT of focus.
I now use P, so that I can select where I want the camera to focus on.
In Canon's area focusing, the manual says similar, "closest subject."

On my old D70, I locked the camera to center point AF.  This was because it was difficult to see the AF point that the camera would select.  It did not light up bright enough to be easily seen, and I regularly missed which AF point the camera selected.
I am also forgetful, so if I moved the AF point away from the center, I was/am likely to forget and leave it there, messing up my next shot.  I have an excuse for this, old age  

Derrel has an interesting point.  I noticed on some of my shots, which I "thought" were out of focus, it really was in focus.  When I zoomed in on the face, I could clearly see the eye lashes, and they were IN focus.
In my case, I think the issues is, that the clothes are bright and have more visual attraction than the small eyes and eye lashes, so by attracting the eye to the clothes, it visually looks like the clothes is in the focus point.
Note to self:  Tell subjects to NOT wear BRIGHT clothes to a portrait type shoot.


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## ac12 (Dec 19, 2017)

Also when shooting close with shallow DoF, with a subject with deep set eyes, you need to make sure that the AF is on the EYE, and not the eye brow.

This is similar to the discussion of focusing on the CLOSEST eye, when the head is turned slightly away from the camera.
With a shallow DoF, only ONE of the eyes will be in focus.
Example, in this case I would focus on the right (her left) eye.  It is also the eye that is most visible.


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