Photography question

[Rawby]

A friend of mine came over yesterday to photograph my tank. Unfortunately both of us are pretty bad photographers. We could not get any close up shots of my coral without it being to blurry to even see. He is coming over again today for round two. Any idea what we should be doing?

He is using a:
Cannon 7D
200MM lens
50MM lens
28-128MM lens?
I think enough filters to get to 7, whatever that means. I'm very new to photography.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Luiz Rocha]

For close-ups you will need a macro lens... Photos are blurry probably because your lenses are out of focus when you get too close to the coral.

 

[tntneon]

It will most likely be not the lenses , but the settings of the camera.
try to choose a diafragm of f4 (or lower if the lens can do that) , iso 400-800 to have a faster shutterspeed .
This will result in more focus and sharp pictures.
If you are not happy with the colors you shall have set a custom white balance (i had to do that).


greetingzz tntneon

 

[Recty]

If you could post a picture, it would help us be able to tell you whether it's out of focus, motion blur... high iso... any number of things.

 

[408Reefer]

I think your problem is that you need a macro lens like stated above. Each lens has a minimum focusing distance, once you go past that you will not get a focused picture. The best you can do with a non macro lens is take the picture focused and then crop it in some kind of editing program.

 

[IPT]

Lens itself (macro or not) won't matter. Now, if you are trying to get closer than the minmum focusing distance of the lens that could be a problem (A true Macro lens has a much smaller minimum focusing distance - like 5-6 inches vs standard lenses that can be 12-18" or more). I am assuming (I know I probably shouldn't do that!) that you are not tripping the shutter if it looks unfocued thru the veiwfinder, right? If it looks sharp as you take it, but it comes out blurry, then some of the likely causes (as mentioned) would be too slow a shutter speed or not using a tripod. Like Recty said, posting an example (and the EXIF data) would be the best way to get specific help and problem solving.

 

[Rawby]

Thanks guys, had an early 4th party so I didn't get to check till now. I going out of town for awhile soon, but after I'll post the some shots that didn't quite come out and see if you guys can figure it out. I do not think he is using a macro lens so that could be part of the problem too.

 

[rogerwilco357]

macro lens needed .. I have tried getting shots of corals without one and same problem chalk it up to human error ,,you will be amazed when you get the macro and tripod setup ...

 

[Phuster]

Yeah it would be helpful to get a Macro lense mounted on a tripod. Usually with that setup you don't want to shoot so shallow depth of field so f8-f10 is good running it on Aperture Priority.