I have recently started photography. I have completed web course in beginner photography, but I am completely hopeless in getting sharp photos. I have Nikon d5300 with 18-70mm lens. And I want to take sharp photos of flat lays where all objects are in focus. I know that I need to use small aperture in order to have all objects in focus and that I need to compensate it with longer shutter speed to let in more light since it is indoors, but I feel like I have used all possible combinations of ISO, shutter speed and aperture, but the objects are never sharp when photo is later zoomed to 100% on computer.
In order to make things better, I:
- use tripod (Benro)
- set shooting to 10 sec timer to make sure I don't shake the camera when I release the shutter
- take photos in daylight, near a huge window
- use DIY foil reflectors from 3 sides
One of the photos:
The camera is 30 cm away from flowers. Flowers are the tallest object, approx 20 cm high. On the lens, autofocus is enabled. (the photo looks blue because I messed up with white balance, it seemed as the correct color on camera display, but it turned out to be blue on computer screen). I don't use zoom at all or go max 30mm
1.What can I do to improve sharpness? 2.What aperture would you recommend for the given scene? 3.On which object should I set focus?
Thank you,