Camera Simulator

Lessons 3 · Real situations

Why photos come out blurry

Lesson 12 of 185 min readA five-point checklist for sharp pictures.

"Blurry" has five different causes, and each has a different fix. Zoom into the photo and look at what is blurry. The pattern tells you which one it was.

1. The focus missed

Clue: something else in the photo is sharp, just not your subject. The background or the tip of the nose is crisp, the eyes are not.

Fix: use a single focus point or eye detection, put it on the subject, and check the green focus box before you press. At wide apertures the sharp zone can be a few centimetres deep, so precision matters.

2. The subject moved

Clue: the background is sharp, but the moving thing is smeared in the direction it was going.

Fix: a faster shutter speed. 1/250 s for people walking, 1/500 s for kids and pets, 1/1000 s or faster for sport. Use shutter priority, or Auto ISO with a minimum shutter speed.

Pigeons at 70 mm in shutter priority.

Try this: At 1/60 s the flying pigeons smear. Raise the shutter speed to 1/1000 s with Auto ISO on and take another photo. Then click a pigeon to make sure the focus is on it, not on the ground behind.

Pigeons at 70 mm in shutter priority.

3. The camera moved

Clue: everything is blurred the same way, often with a doubled outline on bright edges.

Fix: a faster shutter (at least 1 ÷ focal length, so 1/50 s at 50 mm), image stabilisation on, elbows in, and squeeze the shutter instead of stabbing it. For slower speeds use a tripod and the 2-second self-timer.

4. Not enough depth of field

Clue: one thing is sharp and everything nearer or further is soft. In a group photo, the front row is sharp and the back row is not.

Fix: close the aperture to f/5.6 or f/8, step back a little, or focus a third of the way into the group.

5. Too small an aperture, or a dirty lens

Clue: the whole photo is a bit soft, with no clear direction of blur and nothing crisp anywhere.

Fix: stay at f/11 or wider unless you need more depth (diffraction softens detail beyond that), and clean the front of the lens. A smudged lens or a cheap filter softens every photo and adds haze around lights.

The quick checklist

  1. Is the focus point on the subject?
  2. Is the shutter fast enough for the subject?
  3. Is it fast enough for your hands at this focal length?
  4. Is the aperture narrow enough for everything that must be sharp?
  5. Is the aperture no narrower than f/11, and is the lens clean?