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My pictures are . please help with the basics.

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My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« on: 16 / July / 2009, 10:10:10 »
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Hi All,

I installed chdk on my sx100is the other day for the shutter speed override feature. I regularly take pictures of wildlife and about 90% of my pics are always blurry. I thought I had it working pretty good the other day when I first installed it. I was taking pics out the car window at 45mph and the pics we're coming out stable. Now I'm losing the auto focus when I adjust the shutter speed. Pretty much the same light conditions and distance for the most part, any advice of what I can change to make these pics better in the future.







Thanks,

Dan

Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #1 on: 16 / July / 2009, 10:11:46 »
look at that my first post and i'm already under the gun :-( It wasn't a swear word but sorry.

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Offline Hacki

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Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #2 on: 16 / July / 2009, 11:10:34 »
Quote
It wasn't a swear word but sorry.

Matter of definition. I can guess which word it was. :)


This looks like slight motion blur. What exposure times dooes the original pictues exif data say?
The human eye has a - compared to a p&s camera - extreme dynamic range, you cannot really guess what lightning conditions are ok for a camera and which are not. My experience tells me that in a forest you'll always have trouble shooting motion-blur free with a p&s cam..

Try increasing the ISO speed, thats about the only thing you can do when you're moving, otherwise i'd say - dont move, use a tripod & the countdown timer.

Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #3 on: 16 / July / 2009, 11:15:46 »
sorry I wasn't clear. I meant I was testing the shutter speed while moving and most of the pictures came out well. When I was taking handheld pics of deer from my house windows they are blurry.

Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #4 on: 16 / July / 2009, 11:20:08 »
here's another example not even 40 ft away.


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Offline Hacki

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Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #5 on: 16 / July / 2009, 11:36:05 »
Yeah, thats clearly motion blur. Your shutter speed is set too slow.
« Last Edit: 16 / July / 2009, 11:45:20 by Hacki »

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Offline wontolla

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Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #6 on: 16 / July / 2009, 13:00:50 »
I agree with Hacki and it looks like that motion blur is the kind caused by the hand. In my experience, with my trembling hands, slower than 1/4sec is asking for trouble, let alone if you zoom in. Other people may have steadier hands.

One technique is to grab your right shoulder with your left hand and rest the camera on your left arm near your elbow. This way you cause less motion.

You can also use a delay of 1sec to avoid moving the camera at the time of pressing the shutter.

And don't forget to hold your breath too!

Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #7 on: 16 / July / 2009, 15:00:29 »
Some motion blur, perhaps, but this looks more like a problem caused by shooting through a house window. Especially if using long zoom reach (it will also amplify glass defects), and if that window is a double or triple pane variety. Few realize that just because you see through a window just fine, doesn't mean that those surfaces are "optically flat". I sometimes shoot wildlife through my main picture-window. I have all sorts of animals coming to my yard, deer, bears, fox, raccoons, quail, pheasant, opossums, skunks, etc. Rather than disturb them by opening a window or going out there, I'll shoot through the window. I have found a few areas of that window that are relatively free of optical defects, but the larger majority of that window will blur images taken at long zoom settings. Even worse if the window surface is not parallel with the plane of the sensor, if you shoot at an angle through that window to capture an animal off to one side, further in the woods. The the blur and CA become even worse the greater the angle. It's one of the clearest, flattest windows I've enjoyed looking through, but when it comes to precision camera optics, it's anything but clear and flat.

All of these images look more like a problem of shooting through house-windows, probably at a sharp angle through that window, rather than motion blur.

Let me guess, your windows are triple-pane too? At least double-pane. Either will easily cause the effect you are seeing in your photos.

If trying to recover some kind of usable image from things like this, check into a plugin called Focus Magic. It's a Fourier-Transform utility (the kind that forensics people use to try to recover license-plate numbers from blurry images or other data from blurry crime scene photos). It also includes a motion-blur repair utility, not just to repair minor focus problems. When used carefully, you can do quite a bit with it. But it takes practice. I've even managed to repair some motion blur going in two directions, by applying it to the shorter leg of the motion blur in one direction, then again to the longer blur in another direction. Then recovering the softness further by applying its focus repair functions.

You might not get 8x10 prints from your images, but you can probably recover enough for a 4x6 snapshot that are pretty decent.

« Last Edit: 16 / July / 2009, 15:10:01 by NewbieToobie »

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Offline Hacki

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Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #8 on: 16 / July / 2009, 15:37:52 »
Newbietoobie, i gotta say thats quite a strange explanation. I've done quite some shots through windows, macro as well as tele, and never noticed any kind of disturbance. (Except maybe dirt on the windows :P )

I'd really like to see the exif data for those pictures, just to see the exposure time..

Re: My pictures are . please help with the basics.
« Reply #9 on: 16 / July / 2009, 15:41:53 »
Thanks for the responses. I'm going to play around some more tonight even pick up a tripod. I did notice the cameras default menu had IS off. perhaps this is a little of the problem, I thought that was just part of the camera and not an option. I guess I can cut back on the coffee too ;)

Been playing around with the shutter speed spinning a quarter on my desk and think I got it down.

 

point and shoot...

 

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