Below I've shot two different photos that seem to have turned out well. I shot these ones manually and set up everything myself. The second shot is more candid, so I didn't exactly set it up as the JSP guides have told me to.

Aside from being brought down from 6000x4000 to 1920x1200, the photos are unedited.

I'm wondering what I could do to improve these photos. At a glance, should I switch up my shutter speed, ISO, or anything? Idk. I'm so new.

These were both shot with the 35mm 1.8G Nikkor DX lens.

Also, I'm having difficulties getting shots like these... these are really crisp and nice. I'm just not getting this consistent level of focus from my lenses (both the 16-85 and 35). A lot of the time the shot will look good, I'll have focused on the correct area, and then I get back to the computer and the focus seems off, the picture is fuzzy, there seems to be some shake or something... I'll try to take more photos and provide more information about when and what settings I get this problem, but it's frequent.

Second shot is my little brother.

I haven't had time to really take the camera out and take photos on the go.




This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Jun 28 2013 02:24pm

could you provide exif data because we have no way of knowing what everything was shot at

are these jpg or raw > jpg?

the slight blur is because that part isnt in focus, if you want it in focus you need to stop it down but also reduces the amount of light coming in

i like the first pic since its probably shot wide open and adds a very dreamy texture but the face isnt in focus, more of the nose and ears

This post was edited by Hermione on Jun 28 2013 03:02pm

Seems the auto 39-point focus just sucks then. It seems I always have things out of focus with it. Whenever I have good pictures, it's with single-point focus unfortunately :-/ Not sure.

Thanks for the input. This is all jpeg (I turned RAW off for the duration that I'm learning how to focus, set ISO, etc, since I don't need to edit the RAW data).

Next time I post pictures I'll provide all the exif data, and I'll turn RAW on now since I'll have photoshop lightroom soon (just in the process of acquiring it).

most cameras usually focus on the object that is closest and in your case was the nose and ear

just play around, and get a feel for the controls and how it performs, a camera should live for at least 100k shutter releases so dont be worried. ive had my camera since december and i only have 7k releases

Just checked the shutter count on my camera... says it's at about 1500... that's odd... I have shot maybe about 500 photos with it so far (A LOT of junk). :-/

Wondering where the extra photos are coming from.

I personally have RAW+jpeg on. The jpgs work for quick previews and the RAW is for dialing in those good shots. Unless you just have a small SD card there is no reason you cant leave both on imo.

i use to also but importing everything to lightroom and sorting is much faster,

I may start doing the same now that I have LR. I was using CS6 but the "version" I had could open RAW files and couldnt be updated.
Now that I have LR I need to just go back and change the settings in my Nikon.


Also, I just picked up the 35mm 1.8 tonight and so far I like it. Razor sharp when you get the focus just right but man is the DOF narrow at f/1.8.
The low light performance is pretty sick too. Im hoping to take it out in the sun tomorrow and play with it some more or maybe try some star shots tonight if it isnt to cloudy (which it was earlier)

This post was edited by AXIS on Jun 28 2013 08:37pm