shallow dof and focus points

[86JR]

Ok im trying to get to the bottom of my focus issue.

When i take a picture at say, F8 for my lens to be sharp, people tell me i should do it at F1.4 to bokeh out the background, but if i do this, and focus on the eyes of the model, the rest of the model will be blurred out.

But here in one of raymonds pictures we see that the background is blurred as it should be however the suit, and the camera and the strap are all sharp, even though the background on all heights of the picture are blurred.

On that picture we know the focus point is they eyes and that the aperture was F1.6.

On this picture, the aperture was F1.4 and yet the smaller object is blurred out, the focus point was on the middle of the air freshner.

Now I do not understand why my subject is blurred literally less than an inch away from the focus point, whereas raymonds isnt... almost a foot away from his focus point.

The setting for my camera is 51 point AF +3D however its set to the same setting as this picture :
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d300/images/d300-back-up.jpg

So it should focus on what I focus on using the red square in my viewfinder, and not the outer focus points.

I have read the manual and its not really helping the situation.

 

[86JR]

Ok i get that, but why would my focus be off ?

 

[86JR]

So why is the right of the freshner in focus when the left isnt, yet the distance between left of it to focal point and right of it to focal point is the same ? surely both sides would be OOF or both sides would be in focus ?

 

[86JR]

Arrrgh, your focus isn't off. Only 1cm in front of your point of focus is actually within the DoF, the car freshener is at an amgle which means the edges are OOF.

If my focus isnt off, why are 4 people telling me it is in my "50mm prime shots" thread (which is why i have created this)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17595976&postcount=7

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17596952&postcount=8

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17597267&postcount=9

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17598773&postcount=10

Everytime i post up im trying to learn, so when people say all my shots are OOF then people say "argh, they arent OOF" i cannot learn and hence cannot progress.

 

[86JR]

Im sorry for being an annoying **** with this thread but if i dont get through this ill have a lifetime of taking soft pictures even when i finally figure out composition

I wish you had the red square for focusing and could simply press buttons to make the square larger in the viewfinder, then just put everything you want sharp and in focus inside that square/rectangle and everything outside it would be nice and blurred.

 

[86JR]

Thanks for the help, everyone

 

[86JR]

Im basically rubbish at photography, i jumped from a d70 to a d300s and my shots got 10x better (but still rubbish) its all about composition and less about tech specs, lately ive been turning my 51 point af back onto minimum which i think is 7 or 9, same as a D70.

But every time i pick up the camera i feel more serious as its heavy and made from metal as apposed to a light peice of plastic.

Feels even better with the grip!

 

[86JR]

What do you think to this ? I put the light into the 1/3 following the rule of thirds, i stood back a bit, put iso to 200 and selected aparture priority. Set it to F4 so i could get the whole lamp into the image, but the background bokeh on the 3/3rd.

Thats straight off camera (RAW) no modifications other than resizing it then saving it max quality JPEG.

Then i cross processed it using a custom action to a look i liked better:

And added the black border.

Any critique, any improvements to my last shot ? D300s + 50mm F1.8D

Thankyou.

 

[86JR]

Technically it's much better, the composition doesn't work for me (there's nothing there, no drama and no interesting subject) but on the technical side you've not done anything obvious wrong...

Ill take that as a compliment

Just a case of practising the tech stuff for me to get into good habits then start thinking about subject matter I think ?

 

[86JR]

Much better i think, i would still shot at 2.8 though. As 2.8 on crop has quite a deep DOF anyway.

But the point is, i am glad its better. The processing is actually okay too

This is F2.8

And F4

 

[86JR]

The light changed in 2.8, you can see the sun has gone.

Shot from the same place within 2 minute time difference

 

[86JR]

Could you not see the background?

I guess at 5pm the sun goes down quicker than i would imagine it too!

 

[86JR]

Fair enough, I think use of F4 hasnt ruined it though right ?