 I want to start by asking you a question. Have you ever missed the perfect shot because it's slightly out of focus or not as sharp as you'd like it to be? Now, if that's ever happened to you, in this video, I'm going to share five tips with you to help you get sharper, more accurate, focused images that are going to look way better than the ones you're currently taking regardless of the current camera or lens that you're using. All right, let's get started with tip number one and make sure you stick around to the end because I have a bonus tip number six and bonus tip number seven. All right, let's start with tip number one. Let's switch your camera to one focus point. So I know your camera might have 500 different focus points. Alls you really need is one focus point and then you can choose exactly what you're focusing on the image. So for example, if it's a portrait, then you want to focus on the closest IDU. If it's a flower, you want to focus on the flower. Regardless of what type of photography, whether it's portrait or landscape, use one focus point for more accurate focus. That's tip number one. Now, tip number two is to use a tripod. Now, I don't like using a tripod. It's a lot of gear to bring with me. Then I feel like my movement's restricted. I really don't like using a tripod, but my images are so much sharper. I'm going to show you some examples in this video of an image right here that I shot just standing using a 105 millimeter lens and I had a little bit of camera shake. Now, here's an image here where I used a tripod and you can see it's the same aperture f1.4, but this one is more sharp. It's because it restricted my movement. So let me sort of explain that a little more. Now, you can see the camera. It's on a tripod. It's steady. Now, if I were to hold it in my hand and I press the shutter halfway down, I'm focused. But if I move just slightly forward or just slightly aft and I'm shooting at an aperture like f1.4, that could make all the difference, especially if you're shooting at 100 millimeters or 200 millimeters. So really, there's some camera shake. There's some movement in my body. I might move forward. I might move back. If you use a tripod, that's going to keep you in a stable stance. You can't beat a tripod. So that's tip number two. Use a tripod. Okay, tip number three. What if you don't have a tripod? Okay, so tip number three. If you don't have a tripod, then you want to create a stable stance within your body. So I'll give you some tips for that. So one, let's put the weight of the camera on your left hand and then get a firm grip and then your right hand right here. Then you want to bring your arms into your body and bend your knees a little bit and then just sort of practice proper breathing techniques because your breathing can also affect the movement as well, especially if you're shooting at low apertures. So get that stable stance as if you're a tripod. If you have something to lead against like a wall or a ledge where you could brace your arm or if you can kneel and put your elbow on your knee, something like that, just think if you were shooting a rifle, you're going to have more shake if you're standing up. If you get down on one knee, it's going to be a little more steady. If you're lying on the ground, which you probably wouldn't do, but if you're lying on the ground, you're going to have some more stability. So really think about your stance, look around, see if you can sort of shore that up, make it more stable. That's tip number three. If you don't have a tripod, use proper form, proper stance. That's going to help you. So tip number four. Now let's say we're using a prime lens. Now traditionally prime lenses are sharper than zoom lenses. Just because there's a lot of different moving parts in a zoom lens, you have, you know, 35 to say 70 or 24 to 70. That's a more common lens size. And you've got all these moving elements. It's going to be harder to get each range sharp. So sometimes a prime lens is a better choice if sharpness is something that's important to you. Now also two prime lenses can go down to f 1.4. Now usually two to three stops above that minimum aperture is the sharpest point of the lens. So what I mean is, let's say this is a f 1.4, which it is. Now if I shoot this two to three stops above that, so f 1.4, we go up one stop f 2. We go up two stops. It's f 2.8. We go up to three stops f 4. Now if I shoot in the f 4 range, that is going to be sharper than if I shot this at f 1.4. So look for that sweet spot of your lens. Now you can do a test. You can take your lens out. You can focus on one point and shoot at 1 4 2 2 8 4 f 5 5.6 f 8. Go in that range, take these images to your computer and say, Hey, which one looks the sharpest? And what am I comfortable shooting at? So don't just accept people saying, shoot at 5.6 or shoot at f 8. Really see, because each lens is going to be slightly different than the other. Now that's tip number four. Now tip number five is you should calibrate your lenses. So let me just show you something that you can use to calibrate your lenses. So this is the spider lens cal. And you can use this to calibrate your lenses. So how it works is, you would put your camera on a tripod, then you would put this on a tripod, you would balance everything. And then you would go to the minimum aperture of your lens, let's say f 1.4, and you would shoot this target. Now, if you look over here, you can see a zero. Now if your lens is properly calibrated, it should be sharp at zero. But often, when you get a lens out of the box, it's either going to forward focus or it's going to aft focus on this target. So no matter what you do, whether you use a tripod, one focus point, proper technique, you're never going to have accurate focus. And I've had every lens I've ever used, I've always had to make an adjustment. So to get proper sharp focus, make sure you calibrate your lenses. It's well worth it. Now bonus tip number six is to shoot at double your focal length. So what I mean by that, this is a 50mm lens. So I would set my shutter speed to 100. Now some people are going to say, oh, that's an old rule. It doesn't apply if you have image stabilization or if you have image stabilization in your body, like a mirrorless camera might. Yes, that might be partly true, but it's not going to hurt you to shoot at 100 unless it's going to really wreck your exposure. So think about that when you're shooting. Say, while I'm shooting with a 50, I should keep my shutter speed at 100. I should use a proper stance. Considering all of those things, those are all going to help you to get sharper focus. Now in the next part of this video, I want to give you another bonus tip, and that's about lens selection. So choosing the sharpest lens to give you that extra chance of getting sharper images. Now I use a site called DXO lab to do some of my research, as well as B&H photo. So we're going to go to the computer. I'll walk you through how to use their interface and how to make a proper choice when it comes to choosing your next lens. All right, let's head to the computer. All right. Here's a site I use to do my lens research. It's called DXO mark. I'm in no way affiliated with this site, but you can do lens research. So for example, let's say we have a Nikon DA10 camera, and we want to check out the sharpest lenses in a certain range, for example, from Nikon, from Sigma, from Zeiss, let's say. Okay. So we put Nikon here mounted on. We pick our camera. So you can just click on these boxes. You can pick different things. Let's say we want to check out a prime lens, and we want it to be a standard lens. So I'll uncheck these two and maybe a telephoto lens. And then you can come down here and you see mount type. So depending on your camera, you might have a Canon EF mount. You might have an EFS mount. You might have a Sony mount. You might have a Nikon F mount. So I've got a Nikon FFX mount. So just make sure you've got the camera brand, the proper camera body, or the closest thing you can find to that. Check primer, zoom, check standard, whatever you want to look for. You can even just use the slider for a focal range or aperture, and then make sure it's the right mount for your camera. Now, once you do that, you'll see that they have ratings for different lenses. So you can see right here, the Sigma 85mm F14. Although it's a third-party lens, you can see it's scoring very high. It's got a 50 here, and it's got a sharpness of 36. And then you've got your Carl Zeiss. And then if you look down here, you see the Nikon 105, and that's not rated as high as, say, the Sigma 85. Now, I know there are different focal ranges, but this is just giving you a rough idea that if you were looking for an 85mm lens, this will give you some options in price. And you could say, wow, look, the 85 Sigma is only 12 compared to the Carl Zeiss, $4,000. So it kind of helps you to get in the ballpark about what lenses might be sharper. I've had some pretty good results going on their recommendations. I've looked at this site, and I said, well, for the value, and the sharpness, I'll give it a try. Now, another site you can use is B&H Photo, and then read some reviews for the lens. Once you've narrowed it down to three lenses, let's see how everybody else is thinking about these lenses. So let's go to that site next. So here we are on B&H Photo. You just type in the lens that you want it to look at. So on DXOMark, they rated this as a very good lens. You can see right here, it's almost five stars, four and a half, 46 reviews. We can look at the reviews, we can see the different ratings here. And then we can read the most helpful and the most critical. And then you can get more of an idea of what everybody thinks of this lens. And some of them may be the potential drawbacks of the lens. You can see some image samples of the lens. So I use these two sites, DXO Lens Database, and then I look at the reviews on B&H Photo. I find them a little bit better than the reviews on Amazon for the same type of lenses. And then I kind of make up my mind. I say, well, for the price, everyone seems happy. It seems pretty sharp. And it gives me a more well-informed decision when it comes to purchasing a new lens. So hopefully these tips were helpful. All right, thanks for watching this video. If you found these tips helpful, give me a thumbs up. If you're not already a subscriber, I come out with new videos every week. Just hit that subscribe button and make sure you hit that bell notification, because then you'll get updates of every video I release. You can also follow me on Instagram, I'll have that pop up right there. And you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook as well. I'll put all those links below in the description box, and you can follow me on different platforms. All right, thanks for watching this video. If you have any focus tips or sharpness tips of your own, you can put them in the comment section below. I'd like to hear from you. So go ahead, type in there as well. All right, don't forget to subscribe, hit that like button, give me a thumbs up, and I'll see you in the next video.