I use Manual Focus to take pictures. I find picture to be of high quality(clarity) when i see the picture in the camera screen. But if i import the picture to my PC it becomes blurry and not that great in details. I have tried with L, RAW+L, L (Day and Night). Still the image when viewed in bigger screen looks blurry. I use Canon 700D (18-55 IS II and 55-250 IS II, AP:3.5 - 5.8) to take pictures. I am new to photography. Seeking some inputs from peers over here with regard to take better quality pictures.  Sample Picture:
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I use a Canon EOS Rebel T3i (600D) with the kit lens. I have experimented a lot with different settings and modes, but I feel like I have wasted many good shots that could have looked amazing, if only they were a little bit sharper.  I use auto-focus on most of my pictures and make sure to choose the right focus point, but all of my photos are still a little bit out of focus. When I zoom in, I can see that the pixels are not very crisp or well-aligned.  I am not sure if this issue is caused by my equipment or skills.
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I just purchased a brand new Canon Rebel T3i kit from Costco.. I used it for a couple of days, but now when I have the 18-55mm lens attached and the camera on auto-focus, it will not take a picture. Still will take a picture in manual focus. And will take a picture in either focus with the other lens on (55-250mm).  I've been told by a friend that the lens may not be seating right.  Are there any other settings I can check? I am very new to the camera and I probably messed with some settings or accidentally bumped something I shouldn't have.  Or I can take it back to Coscto and exchange it.
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You probably know Scott Schuman and his blog (). What kind of lens (that is not expensive) would you recommend for Canon 550D to achieve similar effect (in terms of DoF etc.)? I'm a newbie so I'm not sure how to properly interpret those photos' EXIF info. My guess is, that a similar effect can be achieved using .   PS:   Update: Thank you guys for all the answers, it's much more clear for me right now. I think I'll try the Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens.
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I sometimes find I want to photograph a room showing the view outside the window. This is tricky — either  you adjust the shutter speed so that the the window is so bright  you can see no detail, or the room looks very dark and gloomy.    Are there any techniques I can use to get the best photo showing as much as possible of both room and view?   My camera is a Sony Nex3, and for this sort of thing I usually use it with an elderly Pentax-M 1:2.8 / 28mm manual focus lens with an adaptor, although I would be prepared to buy another (cheap manual!) lens.
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I will be getting a point-and-shoot camera for taking portraits and only portraits.  Specifically portraits with a shallow depth of field.   Groups portraits sometimes.  It's just too much work to add lens blur at post-prod.  I understand that setting a P&amp;S on macro mode gives a shallow focus and DOF.    How do I read P&amp;S camera specs to shortlist those with the shallowest depth of field?   Added: By point-and-shoot, I mean a camera that is easy to use -- Not necessarily compact, inexpensive, or current.  Also, if there are two or three factors/specs to get a shallow depth of field, then which spec contributes the most to bokeh? which is second most contributing? the third, etc.?
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I have been taking some photos with my new camera, and have found that once I import them to my laptop, the colors look washed out, and not as nice and vivid as on the camera LCD display.  It's a Sony HX60, and I am importing them into an HP dm4, running Fedora.  I've read about color profiles, and made sure that the calibration on my monitor was set.  The thing is that the issue arises with just importing them from the camera iteself (using Shotwell) and diplaying them with the standard Image Viewer, it's not even an issue with Gimp or an image editor with a color profile not set.  I am wondering if my camera is using some of color profile that is being lost when imported, or is it that the display on my camera is much better than the one my laptop?  I can then open the image in Gimp, and then use some enhancements to make the image look better, but I just want them to look the same as on my camera.  Any ideas?  Update:  Here is an example image I took:   And here is a photo of the comparison of how the Sony HX60 &amp; the HP dm4 render the output. This photo was taken with a cheap Lumix, but still clearly shows the difference:
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I see a lot of questions about low light, and one of them which stood out to me was   All my flash pictures tend to turn out great, but my shots in low light without flash are always terrible   blurry bad colors under exposed   My setup is: Nikon D3200 with a 35mm f/1.8 prime.  After reading the above question, it seemed that I should have gotten a good photo, but below is what I got in RAW. Settings: ISO 800, 35mm, f/1.8 1/15sec.     Can someone give me a suggestion of what my settings should have been, perhaps? (Remember that I don't want to use the flash, so I can capture the ambient). It's typically situations or candid portraits like this I would be taking. Also any advice on what quick adjustments I could make if I get a dim result like below?  I don't want to ask for the subject to stand still until I get a great shot, so if I get a poor result on my first trial, what settings should I immediately switch to in order to hopefully get my second shot closer to a likeable shot?  Note: getting another body or lens would be a last resort if I run out of options.
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I've bought a  to use with my EOS 200D and while I love the wide aperture, it appears to be quite difficult to achieve sharp focus on people's faces when shooting at f/1.8. I've tried both using Dual Pixel focus in Live View and using the center focusing point in the viewfinder, but it doesn't get me perfect results.  Is this simply a characteristic of cheap wide-aperture lenses? Or is it impossible to get sharp focus with a fully open aperture?  When I'm at at home using a tripod and focusing on a still subject I do get good focus (so it's not a camera or lens issue). But it's hard to do with people who are slightly moving between shots.
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Hai.  I have a question, I switched from Canon to Sony a while ago and I found out that if I shot bright places, like the sky, the cloud that is supposed to be seen clearly, looks like a blown-out highlight (like real crazy), as you can see on my picture.  I have to set a low exposure just so the highlight is not blown out, and it’s only happening on Sony, not on Canon. On Canon the object is visible, but the background (cloud) is still seen all just fine.  Do you guys know what to change on the Sony to get that good look? Is it the setting or the lens? (BTW, I’m using a Sony 35mm f/1.8 lens.)
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I ordered a Canon 7D mark II (to replace a stolen 7D),and shot a friend's  wedding in RAW. But now, I can only view the pictures in very poor quality on my computer's photo viewer. I am not able to import the pictures into Lightroom 3 or my PSE 13. The software says no updates are available. What is wrong and what can I do?
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I'm trying to see how  correlates with practice. That answer basically says I need to let enough light into the camera and then use the highest ISO value and I'll get the lowest noise then.  So I make two shots with the same camera. Camera has aperture set to a specific value, fully manual mode, camera is on a tripod and focused onto a specific faraway object. Shooting is done around midnight, so it's rather dark. The scene is a large industrial building standing faraway across a field from the camera. The field has no light sources, all lights are on the industrial building.  I dunno if it's important but images are written as JPEG inside camera - no shooting to raw and external post-processing. Maybe that's why I see my unexpected result.  Camera highest ISO value is 3200 (not using extended ISO values).  So I first shoot with ISO 1600 and shutter speed set to 1/125 second and then I shoot with ISO 3200 and shutter speed set to 1/250 second. The amount of light should be identical and indeed both shots look properly exposed and exposed the same way.  When I open the pictures in an image viewer and zoom in to one hundred percent  I see that ISO 1600 shot is much cleaner than one with ISO 3200. I checked that several times and I'm sure - it's not the other way around.  Why is this? Is this because of post-processing difference?
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I have had my Nikon D40 for a while, and some of the pictures are coming out distorted. Two examples are below:   So my questions are:    How do I fix them after the fact? - i.e. after they have been imported from the camera - if possible How do I prevent future pictures from being distorted like this?   Thanks   and
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I've found that when you load a RAW image into an editing program such as Lightroom/Aperture, the image is usually worse than if you just took the image as JPEG. Now I understand that the camera does some magic during the JPEG conversion. But I'm trying to understand what that "magic" is.   If I'm looking to implement that "magic" myself on the desktop, what kind of settings should I be trying? I find that the RAW files have more extreme contrast. The dark areas for example are way darker than JPEG. Why is this? And what is the best way to fix this?
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I am primarily an amateur photographer but I do take small jobs from time to time.  I'm looking to upgrade my equipment but I'm not sure if I should be spending money on my body, glass, or both.  I have two common issues that I'd like to improve.   I shoot a lot at ice rinks and find that even in servo mode I get a lot of shots that are slightly out of focus.  I try to keep the AF target on face masks but many shots will come out focused an inch or two off (ears, hands, etc).  I'm shooting F/1.8-F/2.8 to get action stopping shutter speeds so you can really tell when the focus is even a hair off.  I don't know if this is a limitation of my camera, lens, or the human operator. Most of my paid work is indoors shooting candids where a flash is inappropriate.  I feel like I need to use a higher F-number to get more subject in focus but I usually can't do it without upping to ISO 3200 unless I'm using a flash.  By the time I clean up the high ISO noise in Camera Raw I end up with an image lacking detail.  So far this hasn't been a big problem because the photos are typically used in magazine prints only an inch or two wide but it's still driving me nuts.   Here is the equipment currently in my bag:   Canon Rebel T2i Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II (no IS)   Collecting dust, came with my old Rebel XTi.  Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS   Purchased with my T2i.  This is my workhorse lens but I'm disappointed with the soft images it produces at higher focal lengths.  Stopping down makes the images acceptable but that's not always an option.  My eyes want more contrast and color but considering how inexpensive this lens is I can't really complain.  Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM   This was purchased with an older camera and doesn't get used much anymore.  The images are too soft beyond 200mm and the AF seems sluggish.  Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM   I am extremely happy with the images I get from this lens.  I use it indoors all the time and also paired with extension tubes for some macro work.  Some of my best ice hockey images have been from this lens even though I didn't have sports in mind for this lens.    My initial plan was to upgrade to a 60D or 7D body but after doing some reading it occurred to me that I might invest in better glass first.  I'm unsure of what will help improve focusing, image quality, high ISO shooting, etc.  Maybe it's a new camera, new glass, photography lessons, or a little of everything?  I'm looking to keep my next round of purchases under $3,000 and am willing to trade in some of my used equipment to offset costs.  Would anyone care to make a recommendation?  I'm looking at the EOS 60D and 7D bodies.  Not sure if the 7D is overkill for my needs.  I'm also looking at the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens to be my new workhorse but I'm concerned that it may not be wide enough on an APS-C body and the lack of IS might be an issue.  There's also the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM but I'm thinking it wouldn't be wise to spend all my budget on that lens right now (or maybe not?).
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I have a fairly new Nikon D7000 (I've taken about 2000 pictures).   Something happened during my last trip, where thew viewfinder never gets sharp anymore. It always looks out of focus, regardless if i am in manual or automatic mode.   Pictures still come out sharp, and when I switch to the LCD screen I can see the focus, but not in the viewfinder.   Is there some sort of tuning that needs to be done?
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I have wondered how to get some parts of the image out of focus when using smartphone cameras (or if it can even be done). Recently found out about the concept of bokeh, and am interested in techniques to use it in image composition for cell phone cameras (the typical 8MP low aperture size digicams prevalent in recent Android devices).
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Probably a novice question, but how do I correctly diagnose from a photo for what reason that camera wasn't able to focus properly?  It can be any 1 of the following   Unsteady hand Lens issue Metering Re-Calibration required in camera or ...   Is there a set of unsaid protocols that needs to be followed by a photographer?  Goal is to get a sharp and crisp image prior to editing.  [PS: I own a Nikon D5200.]