Taffy Closeup

[Miranda Waite]

As winter was ending, I wanted to get a shot of my cat in her full winter coat. This was her first year and I didn’t have any pictures of her. So I ran out on a beautiful cool morning and did a little photoshoot of Taffy.

The picture was taken with a Cannon EOS Rebel T5 using the EFS 18-55 MM lens with a High Definition AF Telephoto Lens attachment. I didn’t use any special settings, just no flash.

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[James Staddon]

Hey @mirandawaite, welcome to the community!

You know, it might seem like an odd comment for your first post, but I just wanted to say that I’m glad you are taking the time to get good pictures of your pet. My dog got old and died here recently and I’m grateful for the good pictures, the more-than-snapshot shots I tried to take of her when she was young and playful, if you know what I mean. 🙂

It’s so fun to see eyes close up like that! And you accomplished the objective of portraying the “warm and soft” feelings associated with a winter coat. What attributes to these feelings is the creative use of a shallow depth of field making the background nice and blurry. But make sure that eyes are always tack sharp. It’s sort of a combination of both front-focusing and camera shake that keep the eyes from looking perfectly sharp here.

More on “what keeps pictures from looking sharp” in the 3rd section of the Foundations Course, but I suspect the camera shake cames from too slow of a shutter speed while you were using the HD AF Telephoto attachment . . . sounds like a handy accessory! I’d like to hear more about it. Do you use it often? How does it work?

[Miranda Waite]

Thank you so much for the advice! I had noticed that her eyes weren’t sharp but I wasn’t sure what had caused it and what I should do about it.

After I read your comment, I did some research and found that the “no flash setting” I was using can cause camera shake. You were right on saying the shutter speed was too slow, it was. 🙂 Also, in my research I found that there were some other settings that I could have changed to get a clearer picture. Can you sharpen the eyes with Adobe Lightroom or some other photoshop program?

Yes, the telephoto attachment is a handy accessory! Actually, this was my first time using it. I just got it and thought I would experiment with it. The function of the lens is to take pictures of distant objects without having to move yourself or change the lens. It also emphasizes the subject without loosing quality and it is mostly used for wildlife, travels and adventure sports. It just attaches to the end of your lens. They are not very expensive and are a pretty worth while investment it seems like to me. I’ve really enjoyed it so far!

[Mr. Quebec]

Welcome to the forums, @mirandawaite!

I must say, I really like the posture of the cat. It makes it looks close and affectionate.

After I read your comment, I did some research and found that the “no flash setting” I was using can cause camera shake.

Well, using no flash does not necessary mean camera shake. It just means that if there is not enough light, the camera won’t allow the flash to pop up, and will have to compensate the low light with higher ISO, wider aperture and/or longer exposure (slower shutter speed). Just curious, what is the ”no flash setting” that you are using?

Can you sharpen the eyes with Adobe Lightroom or some other photoshop program?

You can sharpen the eyes to a certain limit, but, unfortunatly, editing software can’t just make up details that are not already there. 🙁 It can help, but it’s better to have already a sharp picture. I don’t have LR, though, but at least it’s the way it works on my editing software.

[Ezra Morley]

Speaking of sharpening, here’s a quick attempt at sharpening the picture a little. Actually, it’s sharpened a little too much, there’s some halo-ing visible (Look at the watermark or the whiskers at the top of the photo, and you’ll see what I mean). I was looking at the eyes though, trying to get them to look a little sharper. 🙂 I used GIMP and the “Wavelet Decompose” plugin to sharpen it. If I was going to do it right, I’d use a mask to add more sharpening just to the eyes without over-sharpening the rest of the picture.

But as @Mr-Quebec said, you’re way better off getting it right in the camera, you can’t always sharpen a blurry picture back into sharpness. 🙂

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[Ezra Morley]

Thank you so much for the advice! I had noticed that her eyes weren’t sharp but I wasn’t sure what had caused it and what I should do about it.

After I read your comment, I did some research and found that the “no flash setting” I was using can cause camera shake. You were right on saying the shutter speed was too slow, it was. 🙂 Also, in my research I found that there were some other settings that I could have changed to get a clearer picture. Can you sharpen the eyes with Adobe Lightroom or some other photoshop program?

Yes, the telephoto attachment is a handy accessory! Actually, this was my first time using it. I just got it and thought I would experiment with it. The function of the lens is to take pictures of distant objects without having to move yourself or change the lens. It also emphasizes the subject without loosing quality and it is mostly used for wildlife, travels and adventure sports. It just attaches to the end of your lens. They are not very expensive and are a pretty worth while investment it seems like to me. I’ve really enjoyed it so far!

There were a couple of things contributing to the “un-sharpness” of the eyes.

First, a shutter speed of 1/125 is not particularly slow, especially if your IS was turned on. It definitely would not have hurt to turn it up a little though, because the closer you are to the subject, the more motion blur is likely to occur.

Second, your camera may have a bit of trouble focusing through your “High Definition AF Telephoto Lens attachment”. (Despite the “AF” designation) 🙂 Anybody can throw “HD” and “AF” on a lens, that doesn’t necessarily make it any better.

Thirdly, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the “HD AF Lens Attachment” could be part of the sharpness problem. I used to own both a Telephoto and a Wide-Angle attachment, and their optical quality was anything but stellar, if you know what I mean. Actually I think the telephoto was better than the Wide-Angle, but both of them degraded image quality, not improved it.

Here’s an example photo taken with an old Canon Powershot with the Wide-Angle attachment screwed onto the front.

Now, on to another question:

Yes, you most certainly can sharpen in Lightroom, with the caveat mentioned above. Do you have a copy of Lightroom?

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