Maus' Photography Tutorials VII: Defeating the enemies of clarity I: Blur

This is another of my photography guides, born of lots of reading and experimentation. More will be added as I tame my notes.

Maus' Photography Tutorials

I – Basic kit for studio lighting of toys
II – Posing your subject for toy portrait photography
III - Isolating your subject
IV – Shapes and lines
V – Lighting basics
VI - Studio portrait lighting styles
VII – Reducing blur and noise
VIII – HDR versus RAW

Defeating the enemies of clarity I: Blur

Have you ever wished your photographs were sharper, had more detail and clarity? Are you cursed by speckled, wishy washy images? If so, you need to defeat the two main enemies of clarity; blur and noise.

The aims of these two, companion guides are to help you recognise which culprits are ruining your beautiful toy photographs, understand why they are happening and identify the steps you can take to defeat them. The guide on noise can be found here.

These are abridged versions of the full article, containing what I consider to be the most important information. The full version, with additional information on causes and remedies, is on my website here.

BLUR

Blur is the presence of soft areas where there should be sharp lines, detail and texture. There are three, main causes of blur: motion, ineffective focusing and depth of field limitations.

MOTION BLUR

A sharp picture requires that all parts of the scene remain in the same place as the exposure is taken. If they move, you will get a smearing of information across the sensor (the part of the camera that captures the image). This results in blur.

Diagnosis:

Motion blur can be recognised when there is softness across the entire image, in the subject and in the background. Nothing is sharp. What differentiates it from general focus problems is the presence of double or multiple images in the same scene. If you look at high contrast edges (so, where there is a light area right next to a dark area, with a sharp line between them), you might see double or multiple edges, indicating the different positions of the camera as the shot was taken. It can also show itself as streaks or lines from light-coloured areas, smeared across the image as the camera moved.



If you look at the edges of the raised hand, you can see a double line. This identifies this hazy picture as a victim of motion blur.

Cause(s):

When shooting toys, your subjects are not going anywhere. We therefore don’t have to worry about them. However, you will move and there are three types of movement that could spoil your shot. Firstly, no matter how steadily you hold a camera, your body and hands will move slightly as you take the picture. Secondly, the action of your finger pressing the shutter release button will move the camera slightly.

Remedies:

Adopt a solid stance

If you are hand holding your camera, as opposed to placing it on a support like a tripod, make sure your stance is as solid as possible. This will minimise the shakes and wobbles that humans are prone to. Stand straight with your feet a shoulder’s width apart. One foot should be slightly ahead of the other. Tuck your elbows into your sides and hold the camera close to your body with both hands. Your right hand should hold the camera body and the left should support the lens from underneath. If your camera has a viewfinder, make sure it is resting snugly against your brow. Take a minute to make sure you are steady, with your weight squarely over your feet. Take a breath and let it out slowly. Squeeze the shutter release button smoothly without “stabbing” at it.

You can also use a firm, stationary object as a stabiliser. Brace yourself against a wall or the back of a chair (turn the chair backwards and straddle it, bracing your arms or camera on the back of the chair).

Use a fast shutter speed

With short exposures (using fast shutter speeds), the amount of movement happening whilst the shot is being taken is minimal. When you are hand holding, using a fast shutter speed will therefore reduce the effect of movement on the shot. My personal (and cautious) rule of thumb is not to go above 1/125 of a second for most lenses when hand holding.

Use a support

With most tabletop toy photography, we are using dim lights. Increasing the shutter speed means less light is being let in. You will therefore need to compensate by increasing the ISO or aperture to levels that you might find problematic (see the notes on this in the article on noise). It therefore isn’t the best solution when shooting in low light. An alternative is to stabilise your camera using some form of support and let the shutter speed take care of itself. The best support is a tripod. Even a cheap one is better than none at all. If you don’t have a tripod, try resting your camera on a pile of books, a bean bag or some other support that will keep your camera steady without you having to hold it.

 

FOCUS PROBLEMS

A good image requires that the lens has been focused effectively on the subject, or parts of the subject, that you want to appear sharp. Blur will occur if this hasn’t happened.

I COMPLETE FOCUS FAILURE

Diagnosis

The sign that the camera has failed to focus is that nothing in the scene is sharp, neither foreground nor midground nor background. Everything is a blur. To distinguish it from motion blur, look at an edge of high contrast, so one where there is a light/dark boundary. If the edge is soft, with no multiple lines, the chances are the camera failed to focus.

One of the signs that your camera is struggling to focus is that the focus confirmation light in your viewfinder (usually a circle) is flashing. Another sign is that your lens is “hunting”; moving backwards and forwards, trying to achieve focus and not managing it. Your lens might not move at all, juddering each time you press the shutter release. This means that the conditions are such that the camera is not even going to try to focus.

Cause(s)

Too little contrast

Most of us use our camera’s autofocus system to achieve focus. The autofocus system works best when it can find a sharp line or high contrast edge to home in on. One reason why it might not be able to do this is that there just aren’t any sharp lines or areas of high contrast in the area you want to get in focus. The autofocus system therefore has nothing to latch onto.

Too little light

The second, and related, reason is that there might not be enough light falling on your subject to produce the lines and areas of high contrast your autofocus system needs. It again struggles to find anything to work with.

Remedies

More light

The simplest way to help your camera focus is to increase the amount of light in the scene you are shooting. This will enhance the sharp lines and areas of high contrast that your autofocus system needs. If you are using a home studio with bulbs, use the strongest bulb your lamp will take, given its wattage limitations. You can also use flash (strobe). This will produce as much light as anyone could need, but needs to be used intelligently if you are to produce a pleasing image. If you are using natural light, position your subject so that there is plenty of light hitting the most important areas.

Chose a useful autofocus point

You should also make sure your active autofocus point is over an area of sufficiently high contrast for your camera to use. Eyes tend to be high contrast and, as they are usually the point of interest of a portrait, they are a good place to set your autofocus point.

Post processing

A final solution is to sharpen the image in post processing. This isn’t really a solution, as sharpening can’t turn a terminally blurry picture into something useable. However, it can correct slight blurring. As over sharpening can produce unsightly haloes around areas of high contrast and exaggerate noise, use it in moderation.

II INAPPROPRIATE FOCUS

Diagnosis

The sign that your camera has focused, but on the wrong thing, is that some parts of the image are sharp, just not the parts that you wanted to be. Scan the picture to identify what has happened. Is the hair sharp but the face not? Is a detail in the background the only thing in your image that is in focus? The chances are it is a problem of inappropriate focus.



Here is a classic case of inappropriate focus. We have lovely, sharp architecture in the background. The doll? Not so much.



Here is a more subtle but probably familiar example of inappropriate focus. The doll’s face is frustratingly soft. However, the texture on the cardigan is beautifully rendered. Not really what you were aiming for.

Cause(s)

When you use an autofocus system, you can generally tell the camera where in the scene you want the lens to focus. This is determined by selecting the active autofocus point (check your camera manual for how to do this). Inappropriate focus occurs when you haven’t placed your autofocus point over the area you want to be sharp. It therefore focuses on some irrelevancy. This can be a particular problem if there is an object in front of your subject, such as overhanging hair. The autofocus system might latch onto that and give you beautiful, crisp hair and a hazy face. No one wants to see that.

Remedies

Take a minute to move your autofocus point every time you take a photo, so that it is always over the most important area of the scene.

III DEPTH OF FIELD PROBLEMS

The amount of a scene that can be captured in sharp detail, from front to back, is limited. The amount of the scene that is in acceptably sharp focus is called the depth of field. Any areas that fall outside of that zone will appear blurry.

Whilst a narrow depth of field can be used for artistic purposes, such as blurring a background to reduce it distracting qualities or producing those lovely, sparkly bokeh effects, it can cause problems.

Diagnosis

The point at which you placed the autofocus point is sharp. However, the important areas in front of or behind it are unacceptably blurry.



See how the doll’s face and body are blurry, but the hands are pin sharp? The depth of field has been deliberately narrowed to get that lovely bokeh. As a consequence, it has become too shallow to encompass both the body and the outstretched hands. This is made more noticeable by having placed the focus on the hands rather than the face, the most important part of the image.

Causes

The depth of field you were using was too narrow to be able to encompass all the parts of the image you wanted to be sharp.

Remedies

Increase the depth of field

The obvious solution is to increase depth of field. This is done by adjusting the size of aperture. This is the hole in the camera that lets light onto the sensor. Aperture size is measured by f numbers. The higher the f number, the smaller the aperture will be. The rule is, the smaller the aperture size (so the higher the f number), the larger the depth of field you will get. So, shut down the aperture until you can get all you want in focus.

Line it up

Make sure all the interesting elements are lined up at the same distance from your camera. So, to get a close up shot of a tiny face, shoot it straight on, rather than at an angle. This will avoid half the face fading away into blur.

Use the available depth of field sensibly

If you have a scene that is deep, such as a group shot with subjects close to and further away from the lens, you will get the most useful depth of field by choosing an autofocus point that is one third to halfway down the depth of the important parts of the scene. This will make the most of the depth of field you have, enabling it to cover as much of the scene as it can.


The second part of this article, covering noise, is here.

Photo credits: Many thanks to feaydrak, yiuu, Jatzu, Balljointed Adventure and Zoe for permission to use their example photographs.