There are few things more frustrating in photography than coming home and downloading your photos, only to find that the ones you really looked forward to seeing and showing your friends…aren’t all that sharp. While there is software around these days that can do a pretty good job of fixing blurry photos, you might not want to go to all that trouble and anyways, its easier to get sharp pictures “in camera” than to mess around with trying to fix a fuzzy photo later.

What causes a picture to be blurry? Usually there are two causes. First, the camera moved as you pressed the shutter button. Second, the camera was focused on the wrong object. Let’s look at both causes.

Camera movement is most often caused by you moving it just as the shutter clicks. Perhaps your hand isn’t very steady, or the wind was buffeting the camera. You can manage this to a degree by increasing the shutter speed. A faster shutter implies that it will be open for a shorter time and so any motion will not be recorded as much. The issue here is that a faster shutter speed means less light gets to the sensor where the camera collects it. You can offset this lower amount of light in one or both of two ways: Open the aperture by using a lower F-stop number (IE f5.6 instead of f8) AND/OR increasing the ISO value. These settings will allow the camera to use a faster shutter speed and “collect” more light for a given shutter speed, thereby reducing the impact of motion.

Of course, the other way to reduce camera motion is to use some sort of tripod. Tripods allow you to carefully touch the shutter button and then leave the camera alone to sit on its steady perch. Going one step further, modern cameras will allow you to set a shutter delay. You simply set the shutter delay for, say, two seconds, then press the shutter button. The camera will wait those two seconds and then trigger the shutter. This allows the camera time to become motionless again after you touch the shutter button. Presto. Sharp focus.

In the absence of a tripod, you can use objects around you to steady the camera. Walls, trees, benches or anything else nearby that you can steady the camera against can help reduce motion. In desperation, I have been known to sit my camera on my wife’s head, got her to hold her breath and then take the shot. This isn’t ideal but any port in a storm, right?

The other common reason for a blurry photo is that your camera is focused on the wrong thing. This has to do with the camera’s focus settings and how your camera decides what to focus on. Think about taking a portrait photo of someone. They are right in front of you and the camera should be able to see them clearly, however if your focus system is aimed at something behind your subject, the background winds up in focus and your subject is a fuzzy mess. If you experience this, look into your camera’s focus system and ensure that it is set for a single focus point. By looking into the viewfinder or the rear screen, you should be able to identify where the active focus point is and move it to the center of the screen.

On my Nikon, I can choose the focus point in either of two ways. I can just touch the screen on the point where I want the focus to be (my subject’s eye, for instance) or I can look through the viewfinder and use a small joystick on the back of the camera to place the focus point. Your camera will have some sort of control button on the back to achieve the same. On my Samsung, I just touch the screen at the point that I want to be in focus and away it goes.

While it is very handy to be able to set the focus point by touching a spot on your screen, it also can explain why your camera isn’t focusing where you expect it to. If you touch the screen WITHOUT intending to change the focus point, you may well have caused the camera to focus on something you didn’t intend to focus on…that tree behind your subject rather than their face.

Another thing to keep in mind is the impact of aperture or your camera’s “F-stop”. For reasons beyond this blog, the smaller the f-stop number on your camera, the more wide open the hole (aperture) becomes while your shutter is open. Bigger hole – more light to the sensor and so faster shutter speed. The offset of this is the lower the F-stop, lower depth of field. From front to back in your scene, less will be in focus. If you find that your subject is actually in focus but the things in front of and behind are not, try increasing the F-stop.

When I am just walking around, I usually have my F-stop set at F8. I find that this is a good trade-off between enough depth of field with everything in focus and a shutter speed that isn’t so slow that I get motion blur. If I find myself in a darker scene, I might change to F5.6 or F4 and will increase my ISO from perhaps 100 up to 400. Don’t go nuts with higher ISO numbers as they can reduce the quality of your photo.

Finally, modern cameras and smart phone cameras today have a built in system that reduces the impact of camera motion. Nikon calls it Vibration Reduction (VR), Sony calls theirs Optical Steady Shot (O.S.S.) and Canon calls theirs Image Stabilization (I.S.) Newer Samsung and iPhone cameras have this feature as well. If you still find that your photos are not as sharp as you’d hoped for, check to see if your camera or phone has its stabilization system turned on.

Focus is definitely one of the important features of your camera or smartphone and it is well worth taking the time to learn and understand how yours works.