My 15 minute challenge

Girlfriend challenged me to photograph as many things as possible in our local church yard that I regarded as pure in 15 minutes came us with these but the door handle was just for fun.

1. Church


Church by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

2.Rose1


Rose by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

3. Knocker


Knock-Knock by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

4. Rose 2


Church Rose by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

5. Daisy


Daisy by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

Door handle is the way the best shot IMO. but it also looks way out of focus.

Looking at it again it does seem way out of focus, hmmm was using the 55mm f1.4 and think i was just a bit to close and wobbly

It isn't the focus that is the problem. The JPEG compression is clearly visible as squares all over the photo

I Like 5

None of them look particularly sharp to me.

Does this look sharper to you??




5759569138_a64ce1b0dc_o 1.psd by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

That's oversharpened - you can't really 'fix' an out of focus shot like that (although FocusMagic does a reasonable job)... Rose2 is nice though, and sharp in the right places!

What aperture did you use ( no EXIF ) ?

Have you calibrated the AF on the camera for that lens?. You can't see the DOF of f1.4 in your viewfinder.

I use Contrast focus through live view for for critical shallow DOF shots these days, as I don't trust Phase AF even when the lens is calibrated

I'll have to check exif data on my camera tomorrow as i've gone and left it at work, I would have checked the details in Elements 9 but like a complete prat i've just deleted all the photo's from my pictures album thinking they would still be in elements and of course it does not work like that so now i've got to find someway of restoring them from my emptied trash bin in mac osx!!

As I'm a complete newb can you please tell me in simple terms how i would calibrate the AF on the camera for that lens. it's the smc da 55mm f1.4

Set the lens to F/1.4 and auto focus on something at an angle. take a picture. you can then see if it's front focussing or back focussing. Then adjust accordingly in parameter #26 ( last page of menu system.

I normally take several shots of a few different things to double check

Right I set the camera to 1.4 and set 3 pens up on the table - both shots taken from approx 3-4 away.

1. Standard 11 point focus on and aimed into centre of picture produced this



Pen by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

2. Set focus to single selective centre point and pointed it at back pen produced this



Pen2 by Richard_Hurst, on Flickr

no it was handheld 3-4 foot away from subject. Yes on the last shot I set the camera to 1 centre focus point and aimed at the back pen and it focused on that. 1st shot was aimed dead centre with all 11 focus points set.

Question - if all 11 focus points are selected and the subject is dead centre eg pic 1. Set at f1.4 should if focus on that 1st pen like that?

With respect, Richard, your equipment is so very good that I suspect you'll soon be posting pictures which are much more technically sound than these. At least you can "see" a photo. That door handle, for instance, would be well worth shooting again. I'd try to review the shot on the screen and zoom in a bit. I understand that the K5's screen has a wonderful resolution so you should be able to see if it's all sharp. When getting close I generally take three or four shots and usually one will be up to scratch.

Yes just use single centre focus. tripod isn't necessary to be honest, and don't have the batteries quite so close along the perpendicular plane