Bouquet of flowers

[arith]

I managed to get the DOF in this image exactly right but at 1/250 is there motion blur?

What does the Clarity slider do in Camera Raw 6.7 because it appears to be able to increase blur?

I've done two of these of the same scene for comparison, the exposure in this one is banged up to the right at +2 in the exposure meter, the other has yet to be processed but if the flowers are sharper could be because of faster exposure.

I focussed on the bucket using 50mm then used 17mm at f6.4 banged up to the right at 1/250 sec where 1/1000 would be more accurate. At this focal length aperture, if I focussed on infinity then everything past 2.3 metres should be in focus, but I think the bucket is more than 2.3 metres away, did I focus in front of the bucket or doesn't it work like that?

_MG_3898rose copy by Stephen Davis, on Flickr

[Shadowman]

The clarity slider will give the appearance of more sharpness by increasing the midtone contrast, it can also produce artifacts if the image is noisy so do any NR prior to using. Your static subjects shouldn't be affected by motion blur but could by camera shake. Try shooting multiple exposures to overcome the camera shake but first make sure you are nailing the focus. Image does appear a bit soft.

[Wavelength]

I cannot comment on the technical aspects, but see, you should have changed your position a bit or waited for that couple, to move a bit. As of now it looks like the gentleman is squeezing the head of that poor old man of the couple.
Otherwise, the young man's pose and other things in the frame are really nice. I liked it as a whole.

[arith]

Cheers John, all bar the flowers and possibly the bloke are supposed to be out of focus; I've had a look at the other one and the sharpness of the flowers are the same. But it wasn't taken at 1/1000 but 1/500 for some reason.

Moving Clarity left exaggerates the blur in the deliberately out of focus everything else while apparently leaving the in focus bucket and chap unaffected.

So the main difference between the two images is considerable noise in shadows on the correctly exposed version, red noise which is obvious if left untreated.

I suspect that building is a gate to a palace, if I went it would have cleaned me out of all my money which is better spent in wine bars

[arith]

Cheers Nandakumar; this is a very busy place, in fact it was quiet when a professional was taking photo's of a model walking in the flowers, it wasn't Kate Moss but I suspect they would complain if I took a candid shot so I refrained, and once the model was gone, and she can move leaving the photographer confused, hundreds of people descended into the space between me and the flowers.
In the other one the chap has gone and it looks very lonely, as well as noisy.

[arith]

I'm convinced it is focussed in front of the bucket now, yes well.

[Shadowman]

I'm convinced it is focussed in front of the bucket now, yes well.

Are you manually focusing? You wrote about focusing on infinity.

[arith]

My Tamron hasn't got auto focus John, it's a long time ago but I seem to remember being mindful of focus being 1/3 in front to 2/3 behind so might have done it deliberately.

[Shadowman]

My Tamron hasn't got auto focus John, it's a long time ago but I seem to remember being mindful of focus being 1/3 in front to 2/3 behind so might have done it deliberately.

Steve,

Doesn't the Canon display focusing distance in the exif? I think your distance from the pot is a bit further away than 2.3meters. Also, I believe when focusing at infinity you would want your aperture set at f/22 or higher.

I looked at the exif and it showed subject distance 1.11m.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Steve,

I don't know about motion blur, but the shot exhibits a lot of lateral CA (Chromatic Aberration) which is easily corrected in ACR - this is making it look soft in some areas.

I agree the big planter of flowers is sharper than the background, so you may have inadvertently not used the best focus distance for this scene.

Dave

[Wavelength]

Cheers Nandakumar; this is a very busy place, in fact it was quiet when a professional was taking photo's of a model walking in the flowers, it wasn't Kate Moss but I suspect they would complain if I took a candid shot so I refrained, and once the model was gone, and she can move leaving the photographer confused, hundreds of people descended into the space between me and the flowers.
In the other one the chap has gone and it looks very lonely, as well as noisy.

I was just joking; we know these are all in the game called photography

[arith]

The planter is supposed to stand out by being the only thing in focus Dave, the other stuff is seen a million times. Unfortunately I seem to have focussed at 1.1 metres but I could have focussed a bit further back. The CA is interesting especially since I haven't got a clue how to correct it in the free version of ACR.

Cheers Dave

[CaolIla]

I would say it doesn't work that way. If you set focus on infinity, the best focus is far away. The further you go from that the focus is just "acceptable". A better way to do it in my opinion is to first find out the hyperfocal distance and focus according to that. Then you will have better focus on the object in close and acceptable on the distance where it is not so eyecatching.

[Dave Humphries]

The planter is supposed to stand out by being the only thing in focus Dave ~

In which case, why not use 1/1000s and f/3.2, instead of 1/250s and f/6.3?

That said, I often wonder (in hindsight) why I shot many pictures at the settings I did!

Even so, with such a wide angle of view, subject and background distances, reduction of size to display on web and sharpening, I'm not sure the selective focus/DoF would be an effective technique to make it obvious that was the prime subject of the image.

Cheers, Dave

PS
Regarding the CA correction, if you're using ACR in Elements 10, I'm not 100% sure whether you have access to the lens tab in ACR and the CA check box/controls, plus, on that (now quite outdated) version of ACR, it wasn't as good.

[arith]

Cheers Mats, sounds about right.

[arith]

Cheers Dave; I was being too ambitious wanting a definable blur in the background radiating whiteness with an obvious pin sharp bucket of flowers. It turns out from what John says that it is focussed in front and with this dof the far limit is 2 metres. The perspective at 17mm makes it hard to judge distance but looking at the grass the bucket is just beyond 2 metres hence the softness.

I often stick to f6.4 though, because this lens is pin sharp up to the edges above f5.6 at 17mm and f7.1 red diffraction limited plus I know approximate hyperfocal distances for 17mm =2.3 metres, 35mm=10 metres, 50mm= 23 metres approximately of course.

[IzzieK]

Steve...if you play with the Luminance slider in ACR, you will be able to cope with lesser noise. Then tackle sharpness. I don't touch the clarity slider because I use Nik's Viveza and I like the structure slider there better...here is one tutorial for the Luminance :

http://www.morganburks.com/how-to-re...be-camera-raw/

[arith]

Cheers Izzie.

[arith]

Just tried it but my eyes are so bad I cannot see any difference Izzie, I think for the moment I will stick to Topaz DeNoise5 which reports very little noise unless I'm using it wrong.

[arith]

Just set on infinity, another view.

_MG_3897garden by Stephen Davis, on Flickr