How to Take Sharp Photos?

One of the things that makes photography frustrating is softness and blur in pictures. Sharp photos are much more appealing than soft images. It is very disappointing when you take a picture of a special moment and images come out soft/blurry or out of focus. So, in this article, I will go through the techniques I use to make sure that my images always come out tack sharp.

Let’s start with the reasons why an image might come out blurry:

1. A long shutter speed can capture camera shake, which would produce a blurry image
2. Your subject could be moving and causing motion blur, made worse by a long shutter speed
3. Poor focus acquisition would result in a soft image
4. You might have a bad lens or a lens that is not capable of producing sharp photos
5. Your ISO could be set to a very high number, resulting in lots of noise and loss of detail

How to Take Sharp Pictures

1. Set the Right ISO

Start with setting your camera to the lowest ISO “base” value (in my Nikon camera it is ISO 200). Remember that the camera base ISO will produce the highest quality images with maximum sharpness. The higher the ISO (sensor sensitivity), the more noise you will see in the image. I suggest reading my article on understanding ISO.

2. Use the Hand-Holding Rule

If you have a zoom lens that goes beyond 100mm, I would recommend applying the general hand-holding “rule”, which states that the shutter speed should be equivalent to the focal length set on the lens, or faster. For example, if you have your lens zoomed at 125mm, your shutter speed should be at least 1/125 of a second.

3. Choose Your Camera Mode Wisely

When I’m taking pictures in low light, 99% of the time, I shoot in Aperture-Priority mode and set aperture to the widest setting on my lens – the maximum aperture, AKA the smallest f-number. This is usually in the range of f/1.4 to f/5.6 depending on the lens. (For example, with the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens, I will set the aperture to its maximum value of f/1.8.) The camera automatically meters the scene and guesses what the shutter speed should be to properly expose the image. You can easily adjust the camera’s guess with exposure compensation. So, set your camera to aperture-priority mode and set the aperture to the lowest possible f-number.

I hope you liked this article on how to take sharp photographs with your DSLR or mirrorless camera.

If you have any questions or feedback, please post your comments in the comments section below.

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