Beginner Needs Help Please

Hi there.

I’m new tophotography – I’ve recently been given a Canon Rebel T3i, which I’ve been
trying to use to take pictures of some miniatures I’ve painted.As you can see from the 3 pictures I’ve attached, my frontrow of miniatures is slightly out of focus. I’m hoping the community here could
offer me some advice please.I’ve taken thousands of pictures with different lighting andcamera settings, and these pictures are the best results I’ve been able to
achieve. I’m using a Neewart photo light box with adjustable lighting, and am
using a tripod on a timer to eliminate camera shake. I started by using the
camera’s auto settings, but quickly found out that I get better pictures using
the manual setting, and setting all of the options to how I think I need them. The
best results seem to come from 1/8 shutter speed with F14 aperture, and 100
ISO.  I have the camera set to auto
focus, and turned the stabilizer off. I’ve tried taking pictures with the room
lights on and off, and found I get the best pictures with them off. I’ve
snapped pictures at varying distances from 1 foot to 2 feet away. Do I need to
get closer and zoom out perhaps?  I
noticed the lens looked really dusty, so I picked up a cleaning kit, pulled it
all apart and cleaned it, and no improvement after that either. I’m not sure
what else to try. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

The shutter speed is way too slow, the lack of sharpness even using a shutter release could be due to shutter blur because it's moving so slow. The aperture is smaller than necessary for the depth of field of the subjects. 

You might do better to start at more midrange settings, maybe f8 and 1/125, then adjust from there. See if all the objects, from top to bottom and back to front are sharp and in focus. If not, go to f11 and then see. If you go too large such as f4 or f2.8 the depth of field might not be enough for everything to be in focus.

I think the ones that were zoomed in a little are nicer because they show the miniatures more up close to see more detail. Framing so you don't see the reflection along the front of the black worked better. I think these actually are pretty good and you're on the right track; the color is nice and shows your beautifully done miniatures nicely. The lighting looks fine except there's a stripe across the back, maybe see if you can adjust a little to lessen that. I think if you get your camera settings figured out you'll be good to go.

Thanks for taking the time to provide this awesome response. I'll try those settings!

Don't have time to elaborate a lot but you didn't specify which lens was used. First you need to check on the minimum focusing distance for your lens. If you are actually 1 foot away, that could be an issue. Second is your DOF. Even at f-14 with you being that close, you will likely not have enough DOF to cover from front to rear. If you are on a tripod, I don't see the shutter speed being an issue. If the camera has mirror lock up, use it to help prevent shutter shock. Use the link below to determine if your DOF is sufficient.

www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

icepics wrote: The shutter speed is way too slow, the lack of sharpness even using a shutter release could be due to shutter blur because it's moving so slow. The aperture is smaller than necessary for the depth of field of the subjects. 

You might do better to start at more midrange settings, maybe f8 and 1/125, then adjust from there. See if all the objects, from top to bottom and back to front are sharp and in focus. If not, go to f11 and then see. If you go too large such as f4 or f2.8 the depth of field might not be enough for everything to be in focus.

I think the ones that were zoomed in a little are nicer because they show the miniatures more up close to see more detail. Framing so you don't see the reflection along the front of the black worked better. I think these actually are pretty good and you're on the right track; the color is nice and shows your beautifully done miniatures nicely. The lighting looks fine except there's a stripe across the back, maybe see if you can adjust a little to lessen that. I think if you get your camera settings figured out you'll be good to go.

+1  Well said, not much further I would contribute to this.  

Blood Bowl. I didn't know that was still a thing.

Shadowfixer1 wrote: Don't have time to elaborate a lot but you didn't specify which lens was used. First you need to check on the minimum focusing distance for your lens. If you are actually 1 foot away, that could be an issue. Second is your DOF. Even at f-14 with you being that close, you will likely not have enough DOF to cover from front to rear. If you are on a tripod, I don't see the shutter speed being an issue. If the camera has mirror lock up, use it to help prevent shutter shock. Use the link below to determine if your DOF is sufficient.

www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Hi. I tried to enable the mirror lock it just took a black picture. So I disabled it, and now it's still just taking nothing but solid black images. Does anyone know how to reverse this? My camera basically doesn't work at all at this point. I have a 18-55mm lens, and I'm taking pictures from about 16 inches away. The lens also says MACRO 0.25m/0.8ft.

I noticed I have another lens as well. It's a 70-210mm. Would that perhaps be better to use for these types of pictures? Thanks!

I appreciate everyone's input. My lens says 18-55mm and MACRO 0.25m/0.8ft. Would it be the wrong lens for these types of photos? It looks like I also have a 70-210mm....would that work better?

I tried increasing my shutter speed with different aperture settings, and I'm still getting that blurry front row.

Use the DOF calculator I provided earlier to see if you have enough DOF for your settings. When you are 1 to 2 feet away from the subject, the DOF is very, very small. We don't know the distance between the near and far subjects to give you a better idea of what settings to use. 

I think I saw one was shot at 34mm and f-14. Using the DOF calculator, at 1 foot away your DOF is an inch and a half. At 2 feet away it's 6 inches. That is for acceptable focus and not pin sharp from front to back. It's a juggling act between focal length, aperture, distance to the subject and when using the higher f-stops, diffraction comes into play adding to the blurriness of the image.