# How to get razor sharp focus + portrait editing ideas?



## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

I am a beginner and have been using Nikon D3400 for about 3 months now and I just bought the Nikkor 50mm/1.8G prime lens.

1. I am in the 'lens test' stage. There is no Auto Fine Tune feature on the D3400 and I am still struggling a little bit to get razor sharp images with these lens even with higher shutter speeds. Maybe f/1.8 is too low? How to fine tune?

2. I shot the below picture and I feel like the picture doesn't pop? Is it something that people do in post-processing that makes images pop? For a picture like this, how would I edit?

50mm prime: 1/350, f/1.8, ISO 200, no flash






Also, what are your thoughts on the image below? Would sepia tone/ B&W make the picture better?

200mm: 1/320, f/4.5, ISO 200, fill flash





Thank you!


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## ronlane (Feb 21, 2017)

At f/1.8, the depth of field is going to so shallow that it will be tough to get much more than an eye in tack sharp focus. Try it at f/2.8 - 4.0. 

The first image could have used some fill to help with the eyes. It is soft from using f/1.8. I wouldn't worry about making it pop, just use it as a learning experience.

The second image is much better in my opinion. The biggest thing in it would be to have her bring her eyes back to toward the camera to avoid seeing only the whites of the eye. The background is blown out nicely but the bright street lights and signs will pull attention away from the subject.

These are not bad photos and there is stuff to be learned from them and build on that.

Welcome to the site.


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## Derrel (Feb 21, 2017)

MOST 50mm lenses have a slight optical weakness called "veiling glare" at their widest aperture of f/1.4, or f/1.8, or f/2, and this has been true for 60 years or so. At wide-open aperture, MOST lenses are at their very weakest performance, and f/1.8 has very little depth of field, so focusing becomes ultra-critical at f/1.8. The veiling glare issue on some lenses is very bad, and it looks like a very thin diffusion filter has been slapped on top of a mostly-crisp image; this goes away around one f/stop down, so at f/2.5 or f/2.8 or so, most 50mm lenses are markedly more "Crisp" in their rendering.

In the real world, I would seriously avoid ever shooting at f/1.8: use f/2.2, or f/2.5 or f/2.8 instead. For the best shallow DOF, close-range portraiture with a 50mm on APS-C, I like f/3.5 or f/4 if the subject is close.

Shot #1 has a too-yellow look I think; this is a white balance issue, due to incandescent lighting. Shot #2 is a fairly good exposure setting against the bright lights, and is a good fill-flash shot for your camera. The f/4.5 aperture kept the background from being too bright. And it gave a nice highlight on her one cheek, very realistic look to that shot.


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## DanOstergren (Feb 21, 2017)

I achieve razor sharp focus with a combination of careful focusing and additional sharpening added in post production. My honest recommendation though is to not focus on that, and focus on light, color, shape and composition. Getting the right light will give you that "pop". Learning to get sharp photos comes with experience, but to me it's not that important.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

Thank you so much for the great suggestions. Appreciate it!


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

DanOstergren said:


> My honest recommendation though is to not focus on that, and focus on light, color, shape and composition.



I am still learning about composition. It is trickier than in theory, I realize. 

Do you think the above pictures could have been composed better?


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## KmH (Feb 21, 2017)

Which 50 mm prime?
Nikon makes six 50 mm prime lenses.

But fast prime lenses often deliver their sharpest focus in a range of lens apertures that starts about 2 stops down (f/3.5 is 2 stops less (down) than f/1.8) from wide open to about f/11.

As a working photographer I only rarely used a 50 mm focal length for a portrait. Most of my portraiture was shot using 105 mm to 300 mm focal lengths.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

I got the AFS NIKKOR 50mm f1.8G Standard lens 


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## SoulfulRecover (Feb 21, 2017)

The 50G is a great lens and sharp, just hard to nail focus at 1.8 but it can be done with enough patience. Make sure your shutter speed doesn't drop too low either and look for the right light.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

SoulfulRecover said:


> The 50G is a great lens and sharp, just hard to nail focus at 1.8 but it can be done with enough patience. Make sure your shutter speed doesn't drop too low either and look for the right light.



Thank you; will do! I figured yesterday that it takes a couple of tries to focus at 1.8 and especially with D3400 which has only 11 focus points.


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## Vtec44 (Feb 21, 2017)

Shooting that wide requires you to be very precise with your focus point and a good understanding of the behavior of the focus system on your camera.  I shoot f1.6 90% of the time.  Here's a shot that was done at f1.6 (Nikon 50mm f1.4) , and a close up.  It's never going to be as sharp as f2 or f5.6, but the appearance of sharpness helps a lot.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

Vtec44 said:


> Shooting that wide requires you to be very precise with your focus point and a good understanding of the behavior of the focus system on your camera.  I shoot f1.6 90% of the time.  Here's a shot that was done at f1.6 (Nikon 50mm f1.4) , and a close up.  It's never going to be as sharp as f2 or f5.6, but the appearance of sharpness helps a lot.
> 
> View attachment 135548



That looks great! 

Sometimes I feel like I am trying too hard to focus with the 50mm prime at 1.8. It seems so much easier focusing with a 18-55mm lens at f/4.5. Do all cameras behave this way or would a basic camera like D3400 (having a cropped sensor and all) have focusing limitations?


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## Vtec44 (Feb 21, 2017)

Inklingforsake said:


> That looks great!
> 
> Sometimes I feel like I am trying too hard to focus with the 50mm prime at 1.8. It seems so much easier focusing with a 18-55mm lens at f/4.5. Do all cameras behave this way or would a basic camera like D3400 (having a cropped sensor and all) have focusing limitations?



It's a combination of the lens and the camera.  My 24-70 f2.8 focuses extremely fast, even in low light, on most modern professional DSLR's.  My 85 f1.4 is almost unusable at night and requires a lot more attention even during day time.  My 50 f1.4 is somewhere in the middle.  IMHO, the limitation is mostly in low light, where it's harder for the camera to obtain focus quickly and accurately.  I'd suggest you test it out with different settings.  For example, AF-S focus mode is better in some night time situations.   Center focus point is faster to obtain focus at night.


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## Derrel (Feb 21, 2017)

SoulfulRecover said:
			
		

> The 50G is a great lens and sharp, just hard to nail focus at 1.8 but it can be done with enough patience. Make sure your shutter speed doesn't drop too low either and look for the right light.



At close distances with the 50mm lens on an APS-C or "DX" camera, here's what DOF Master, the online depth of field computing web page, comes up with. I made this screen capture just a minute ago. In your shot #1, see how her chin and teeth seem to be in the best focus, but the hair and eyes are ever-so-slightly less well-focused? THAT is the tricky thing with a 50mm lens at close distances at f/1.8...the DOF band is .21 foot deep...that's two-tenths of one foot...and the area in front of the actual focus point, and the area behind the focus point--both are exceptionally narrow zones!





You have 1/10 of one foot in front of the focus point, and about the same behind the actual focus distance. This means that there will be only a very narrow band that appears truly sharp; if the eyes are sharp, that usually helps. In your Shot #1 it appears to me that the teeth and chin were what the AF system locked onto, and that allowed the eyes to be just slightly out of the narrow DOF zone.

One tip is to shoot from 7 feet, and not much closer, for any person-shot. That keeps the nose and chin and forehead from looking unnaturally enlarged. Inside of 7 feet, and there is what's called perspective distortion. it's better to be a biut farther away, and then to crop a high-megapixel image, like the D3400 makes, a solid 24 million pixel image. Being at the 7 to 10 foot distance will create more of the appearance of sharpness that makes things Pop!


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## Designer (Feb 21, 2017)

Inklingforsake said:


> Sometimes I feel like I am* trying too hard *to focus with the 50mm prime at 1.8. It seems so much easier focusing with a 18-55mm lens at f/4.5. Do all cameras behave this way or would a basic camera like D3400 (having a cropped sensor and all) have focusing limitations?


Why are you "trying too hard"?  Does not the lens focus itself?  Of course it does, so what effort do you think you are required to exert?

There are usually some very simple reasons why the lens won't focus.  Let's go through them:

1. Do you have some kind of filter on the front of the lens?  A cheap UV filter will affect the sharpness, so if you have that, remove it.

2. Have you specified which exact focus area that you want, and is it located on the subject?  With stationary subjects (portraiture) use AF-S.  Select single point focus, and place that focus point on the eye of your subject.

3. I can't think of a third reason, so if it won't focus, and neither of the above issues are not the problem, then either:

3(a) The lens is defective, and will never be sharp unless it is repaired at a lens repair facility.
(or)
3(b) Your AF module does not meet factory specifications, and will need to be sent to Nikon for repair/adjustment.

Nothing else.

Yer welcome.


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## Designer (Feb 21, 2017)

Inklingforsake said:


> I shot the below picture ..


I attempted to see the focus points, and was unable to see them, because too much information was stripped from the image as you have posted it.  You can do this yourself:  Turn on the focus area indicators either in your camera or in your editing software, and verify that the focus area is actually where it should be, namely; on your subject's eye.  My hunch is that the camera focused on her hair (left shoulder area) so obviously her face will not be in focus, given the extremely shallow DOF resulting from the f/1.8 aperture and close distance.  

BTW: I made a photograph of something that was only about two feet from the lens and a fairly wide aperture, and it was acceptably sharp.  

Here is a 100% crop from a shot taken at f/5:




 

Same lens at f/5


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

Derrel said:


> SoulfulRecover said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I was indeed standing very close to the subject. Great observation. Thank you! Thank you for introducing me to DOF master too!


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

[/QUOTE]Why are you "trying too hard"?  Does not the lens focus itself?  Of course it does, so what effort do you think you are required to exert?
[/QUOTE]

So on auto focus, when I half-press the shutter button (or when I hit back button focus) it does a little beep and even when I have my focus area selected (single point) the beep highlights another area elsewhere. I have to keep hitting the focus buttons until it goes to the area I want focused. I don't have this problem with manual focus but I keep wondering why the auto focus troubles me. 

But like Derrel mentioned, I think I just stand too close to the subject. I have got to try moving farther away.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

Designer said:


> Inklingforsake said:
> 
> 
> > I shot the below picture ..
> ...



Thank you. I am going to go down two f stops and try!


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## astroNikon (Feb 21, 2017)

Inklingforsake said:


> So on auto focus, *when I half-press the shutter button (or when I hit back button focus) it does a little beep and even when I have my focus area selected (single point) the beep highlights another area elsewhere*. I have to keep hitting the focus buttons until it goes to the area I want focused. I don't have this problem with manual focus but I keep wondering why the auto focus troubles me.
> 
> But like Derrel mentioned, I think I just stand too close to the subject. I have got to try moving farther away.



You need to learn about Focus Modes and Focus Areas to control this aspect for what you want to do, versus letting the camera decide for you.

Set the camera up to AF-S Single Focus Mode and Area.
I'll find the page in your manual ....


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## Derrel (Feb 21, 2017)

I think the issue is that you have what used to be called *Automatic AF Area Selection* set to be enabled. This is a Custom Function preference that needs to be changed by the user. This can also be the behavior used by other Custom Function modes in a Nikon camera. Some of the "Group AF" modes, ones which use multiple points, can also behave the way you're talking about.

As soon as I read a more specific description, I realized why you're having trouble! "*and even when I have my focus area selected (single point) the beep highlights another area elsewhere."  ----*YOU ARE NOT FULLY in Single-Point AF mode,as evidenced by this exact behavior.

Time to dig into the D3400 Instruction manual and AF modes and figure out the best way to negate this issue that is bugging you.


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## astroNikon (Feb 21, 2017)

Here's 2 pages from the D3300 manual about Focus Mode and Focus Area  (your D3400 should be very similar).
For Portraiture it is best to be in AF-S
and to get a single focus point to, for instance focus on a persons eye, you want Single Focus Point.

This will let *you* choose where to focus on, and not let the camera choose for you which as you can see can be arbitrary.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

Ha! I get it now. I finally understand what I was doing wrong. 

Good people, I cannot thank you enough!!! 


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## vintagesnaps (Feb 21, 2017)

The shutter speed seems faster than necessary if you're not trying to freeze action. I'd suggest you get out & about, just you and your camera, and learn how the camera settings work together. Try different apertures and take pictures of the same scene/setting and see how that changes the images. 

You need a lot more practice than you can probably get in just three months. Learn how to frame shots, the subject is rather too low in the frame in the first one. Notice backgrounds and change your vantage point, be aware of people moving in and out of the scene. It would've helped for the hair to be combed/arranged so she doesn't look windblown.

There's not necessarily a right or wrong but I focus manually because autofocus isn't precise enough for me - experiment and see what works best for you. Try searching 'elements of composition in art' and that should bring up some resources.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

vintagesnaps said:


> The shutter speed seems faster than necessary if you're not trying to freeze action. I'd suggest you get out & about, just you and your camera, and learn how the camera settings work together. Try different apertures and take pictures of the same scene/setting and see how that changes the images.
> 
> You need a lot more practice than you can probably get in just three months. Learn how to frame shots, the subject is rather too low in the frame in the first one. Notice backgrounds and change your vantage point, be aware of people moving in and out of the scene. It would've helped for the hair to be combed/arranged so she doesn't look windblown.
> 
> There's not necessarily a right or wrong but I focus manually because autofocus isn't precise enough for me - experiment and see what works best for you. Try searching 'elements of composition in art' and that should bring up some resources.



Yes, sir! I am learning as much as I can. Thanks to you all. 

It was very bright there and I increased the shutter speed to get it to be darker. Is that a wrong move? I also went a few stops down on Exposure.


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## dasmith232 (Feb 21, 2017)

Inklingforsake said:


> ...It was very bright there and I increased the shutter speed to get it to be darker. Is that a wrong move? I also went a few stops down on Exposure.


Increased the shutter speed, but in which mode? That could be "manual" but the comment about "also going down a few stops" doesn't seem to fit.

If it's any other mode, then shifting the shutter speed faster will cause the camera to compensate in some other way to get back to a "standard" exposure. This makes "shifting the shutter speed" mostly irrelevant.

The part about "going down a few stops" seems like you'd be using exposure compensation. Can you include information about what mode you're shooting in?


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

dasmith232 said:


> Inklingforsake said:
> 
> 
> > ...It was very bright there and I increased the shutter speed to get it to be darker. Is that a wrong move? I also went a few stops down on Exposure.
> ...



I was on "M" Manual mode and yes, I meant Exposure Compensation for the few stops lower. I was at -0.3  and I could have gone lower than that I guess? Versus increasing the shutter speed? 

Settings used: 1/350 f/1.8 ISO 200 and no flash


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## dasmith232 (Feb 21, 2017)

Your camera might(?) be different, but I think the way that is works is this.

When in Manual mode, you set both aperture and shutter (that part's certain). If the ISO speed is set to "auto" then exposure compensation will have an effect (darker by 1/3 stop in this case). But if the ISO speed is manually set (as in this case at 200) then the exposure is not affected by exposure compensation. Rather, the metering will now read 1/3 stop darker just to help you make exposure decisions; it doesn't actually change the exposure.

I only mention this to help explain how the camera works. The fewer unknowns or mysteries, the easier it is to control things for a great image.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 21, 2017)

dasmith232 said:


> But if the ISO speed is manually set (as in this case at 200) then the exposure is not affected by exposure compensation. Rather, the metering will now read 1/3 stop darker just to help you make exposure decisions; it doesn't actually change the exposure.



I did not know this.... thank you!


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## Derrel (Feb 21, 2017)

This is with a moderately heavy vignette added, and +61 Sharpening just painted on to the face and hair above the mouth and teeth, in Lightroom.




This is how shot #1 looks with a white balance shift, away from the overly warm original, to a more neutral WB, and then the horizontal framing cropped to a more square, sort of a "Profile Shot" aspect ratio.





Some minor white balance tweaking on shot #2, lightening of the coat, and a very slight vignette.


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## KmH (Feb 21, 2017)

Inklingforsake said:


> and especially with D3400 which has only 11 focus points.


The D3400 is a consumer grade, entry-level DSLR and uses Nikon's most basic Multi-CAM 1000 AF module. All of the D3x00 series use it.
Regardless how many focus points it or other cameras have they can only use 1 focus point to set the focus.
The camera(s) have options that let the camera choose *1* of the focus points available rather than the photographer choosing one.

Unfortunately, Nikon elected to not put the Focus section (and other sections) in the D3400 Reference Manual.
Download the D3300 Reference Manual because it uses the same Multi-CAM 1000 AF module your camera has but has the Focus section that explains the options it has. 

There are 2 kinds of focus points - *cross-type* is the more accurate type and can detect _both_ horizontal contrast and vertical contrast, and - *single-type*, that depending on how they are oriented, detect vertical or horizontal contrast.
The Multi-CAM 1000 AF module has just 1 cross-type focus point. It's the middle one.

Understanding Camera Autofocus


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## KmH (Feb 21, 2017)

Inklingforsake said:


> dasmith232 said:
> 
> 
> > But if the ISO speed is manually set (as in this case at 200) then the exposure is not affected by exposure compensation. Rather, the metering will now read 1/3 stop darker just to help you make exposure decisions; it doesn't actually change the exposure.
> ...


Using a Nikon in M - manual mode, when you adjust EC it just biases the light meter indicating the compensation amount you chose. You have to change the exposure setting(s) then to make put the light meter scale back on zero.

The bottom line is that the better you understand how the camera works from a technical perspective, the better you will be at controlling it so it does what you want it to do _within *it's* limitations_.


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## Inklingforsake (Feb 23, 2017)

KmH said:


> Inklingforsake said:
> 
> 
> > and especially with D3400 which has only 11 focus points.
> ...



I just went through this article you shared. I understand better now. Thank you so much!


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