Question on sharpness . . .

[StanTom]

I wish my soft ones looked like that !
ones I have like that I usually just "unsharp mask " since my skills suck
I might heal or clone or patch fist but that I is all I have done

I did save one image that I tossed . even shrunk for here you can probably tell mine are more blurry than soft ( I end up with more like this all the time)
I know people have different computers and monitors , but would you agree that images like this are more than soft ?

[StanTom]

OOPS !!

forgot to THANK YOU for the wonderful tutorial in the post [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[StanTom]

I need to do some test shots again with different settings on the D100

but did any of your shots START like this ??


To me , this is just plain blurry , not soft ( straight out of camera resized and saved as jpeg )
any sharpening from here seems to add a LOT of noise/grain

[StanTom]

WOW !

don't know what I am doing wrong , I used to be able to get better pics [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[jtsmith]

First thanks for the kind words and I am glad you enjoyed the workshop.

Even at 1600 it will not be more blurry just more noise.

Ok, so it's a camera/lens/camerashake issue?? vs anything else.

Suggestions that a lens has a sweet spot is correct. Generally that sweet spot is two stops up the widest aperture.

I will be the first one to tell you that the D100 sucks but this is not about camera criticizing because the camera is capable and like anything else, glass seems to be the most important thing.

Camera shake also happens more then out of focus issues. I would check shutter speeds on shots that you are producing to compare where you are at with lens choice. Believe it or not we shake the camera more now with how light in weight these suckers are. The rule of match the shutter speed with the focal length of your lens kind of goes right out the window with the use of lighter body camera's and lenses, the reverse effect happens.

Keep in mind digital seems soft in the first place so sharpening techniques in post are probably the reason you see sharper images from others....

There are several sharpening techniques everyone uses for this and I will email you one just as soon as I am done with my session today which I hope the end results are sharp.

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

J T

[StanTom]

No , JT is wrong , HA! I got to say that about JT.
NO , really I wasn't talking about sharpness when resized

UUMMM... you being one of the pros (ANY image in your portfolio lets say),
the crispness of almost all your images , did they start off straight out of the camera NEAR the final product OR not until a ton of PS was done?

I agree that 1/60 is to slow ( that damn 1.6x factor ) always forget it [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]
I think there is more to it than that though , a few more trials are in the works for my equipment

Thanks
Stan

[StanTom]

Now I feel worse than before , I wasnt talking about any pics I have online [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
(I went bad and looked at my stuff on here and agree they are a "little soft")

I was talking about most of my images right out of the camera
THESE are the ones that I throw out because I think they are to far gone to work with .

example:

[R_Fredrick_Smith]

Your example photo looks fairly typical of an out of the camera shot (but general technique may have made it slightly softer than it needed to be), but it can still sharpen up nicely. Here is the photo after I used CSPRO (plugin for Photoshop) which is what I use for most of my overall sharpening.



This was pretty much just using the automatic setting.

How did you shoot your shot. Was it handheld. What was aperature and shutter speed? What was your exact focus point? Did you focus on one point, lock focus, and then re-compose?

Cheers,
rfs

[StanTom]

VERY IMPRESSIVE [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

That is what I was trying to ask .

Next question : Is this something you would do to ALL your photos or just a few "bad" ones ??

Thank You
Stan

[R_Fredrick_Smith]

Cheers,
rfs