The equipment I brought that night was my 5D Mark III and a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. That's it. When I first gave her the camera to shoot with I had forgotten to let her know that the lens was set in manual mode. Several shots later she came back to me asking why the picture her friend took of her was blurry. Since the background was in focus but she was not, we determined that her friend focused just behind her. That is what the second photo represents, a wrong focus point. The last photo in this post is a representation of her last photograph before she gave the camera back to me. That photo turned out blurry not because of the focus point or being in manual mode. She used the live view mode and took a shot that was almost in focus. Being in live view mode at night and hand held, the slightest movement of the camera caused her photograph to be slightly blurry.
The above three examples of blurry photos can be fixed easily. The manual mode error: turn the lens's auto focus feature on or turn the focus ring until your subject is sharp. The wrong focus point: compose your shot, press the shutter button half way to focus then take the shot. When looking through the view finder, the square represents where your focus point will be, the beeping sound indicates you are in focus. If your subject moves, just recompose the shot, focus and fire away. Camera shake: in my wife's case using the view finder instead of the live view can help correct camera shake. In most cases live view the camera operator is holding the camera with arms extended somewhat. Any slight movement will create blur. By using the view finder and creating a more stable platform by bringing your elbows into your chest will more than likely create sharper images.
Other types of out of focus shots may be because of the subject moving while the shutter is being pressed. This can be corrected by increasing the shutter speed to freeze the action. Another situation may be that your camera's aperture is wide open. Having that bokeh in portrait photography is super cool but other times you may want to close that opening, so increase the aperture to at least f/8 to get sharper images.
As I said before, neither my wife nor I are professional photographers. We make mistakes and through those experiences, I hope I can help you learn a few things about not just taking photographs but recording life's memories.
Next on the wife's wish list is the Canon 70D. This new camera system has a dual processor, so the focusing system is just amazing. Stop by any one of Lighthaus Camera's four locations to see how fast it really is.
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