5 Helpful Tips to Taking Tack Sharp Photos

“How do I get tack sharp photos?”

This is the num­ber one ques­tion I get asked in my Face­book Group and as a pho­tog­ra­phy teacher. I find that tak­ing tack sharp pho­tos is the one thing most begin­ning pho­tog­ra­phers strug­gle with! Are you strug­gling with the same thing? You aren’t alone…it’s chal­leng­ing to achieve per­fect, tack sharp pho­tos at the begin­ning. It’s frus­trat­ing when your pho­tos are “soft” or out of focus. I know…it was my strug­gle as well!

But don’t you wor­ry, you can achieve those per­fect in-focus pho­tos. Today, I am going to break it down for you. I am going to give you 5 tips that will get you on your way to achiev­ing those per­fect, tack sharp pho­tos every time. After you read this, I want you to grab your cam­era and get out there and prac­tice. I’d be will­ing to bet that you see a dif­fer­ence in your photos. 

5 Tips to Taking Tack Sharp Photos

Shutter Speed

I find that many times peo­ple’s pho­tos aren’t sharp because their shut­ter speed is too slow. Remem­ber that your shut­ter speed is how long your shut­ter is open. The longer the shut­ter is open, the more room for shake or move­ment, result­ing in a blur in your images and a soft, out of focus pho­to. I teach my stu­dents, espe­cial­ly when begin­ning to keep their shut­ter speed above 1/125. If you go below, make sure you use a tri­pod. Take a look at this cheat sheet for a more in-depth look at what shut­ter speed you should be using for what situation.

Aperture

Remem­ber, Aper­ture is how large your cam­er­a’s open­ing is (think of it like your pupil). Peo­ple always want to cre­ate that blur­ry back­ground in your pho­tos, but what peo­ple don’t real­ize is shoot­ing wide open can cause your pho­tos to be a bit out of focus. Learn­ing to shoot “wide open” comes in time and with a lot of prac­tice, so when you’re start­ing out, try to shoot with a slight­ly small­er aper­ture (larg­er f stop).

ISO

So the third fac­tor is ISO. If you’re using a high ISO, you’re going to end up with more “noise” in your pho­tos, thus mak­ing the details appear fuzzy. When­ev­er you can, make sure that you are using the low­est ISO possible.

Single Point Focus

I have said it repeat­ed­ly when you shoot in man­u­al mode; you take con­trol of your cam­era and make the deci­sions. Decid­ing on what your cam­era focus­es on is just as impor­tant. Now, I don’t mean chang­ing from aut­o­fo­cus to man­u­al focus. I just mean choos­ing a sin­gle point focus set­ting. Switch­ing your cam­era to a sin­gle point focus mode gives you the con­trol to choose what you want in focus. You can move this point to where you want your focus.

Back Button Focusing

This last tip is a game-chang­er. When you use back but­ton focus­ing, you use a but­ton on the back of your cam­era to set and hold focus. You are sep­a­rat­ing the focus and the shut­ter into two dif­fer­ent but­tons. You sim­ply set the focus, and it stays. Set­ting back but­ton focus var­i­ous by the cam­era, so Google your brand or check your manual.

I hope this helps and begins to answer the ques­tion, “how do I get tack sharp pho­tos?” If you have more ques­tions, head over to my Learn Pho­tog­ra­phy with Dena FB Group.

Learn­ing how every­thing works togeth­er to achieve focus, and the per­fect pic­ture is com­pli­cat­ed. Like I said, I know…I’ve been there. If you’re ready to get focus in your pho­tog­ra­phy come join me in Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essen­tials, and watch your pho­tos go from snap­shots to amaz­ing pho­tos in no time!