Camera shake?

DrGed

DrGed

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Ged
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In the last couple of months I've been trying to improve my photograhy and have taken more photos during this time than in the last twenty years.

Unfortunately, my efforts have been marred by an inconsistent and slight but noticeable "softening" of quite a few of my images. The inconsistency makes it harder for me to diagnose the problem but I'm beginning to think it could be camera shake. Having said that it still happens when I use a tripod and although switching the image stabilisation off helps a lot in this case it can still be present.

I know that at lower shutter speeds camera shake can be a problem but I've taken hand held pictures at 1/200th and they've been soft. The use of a high pass filter in Photoshop improved things quite a bit but I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't need to be doing this all the time.

I've actually got a photo taken at 1/10th that is sharper than one I took at 1/200th, believe it or not. Both were hand held.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hmm I'm thinking if you could post one of these offending images with EXIF intact, you may get a better response fella :thumbs:


Les ;)
 
What happens if you take a shot at 1/4000th? If image is still soft that would rule out camera shake and you can then start to look at focus issues, lens issues or a fault somewhere.
 
It's a bit under exposed, other than that it could do with a bit of tweaking in LR, but it looks ok to me regarding camera shake.
 
How sharp are you expecting it to be and based on what. What lens are you using, the kit lens?
 
Yes, I am using the kit lens.

As for how sharp I'm expecting it to be, well, I have to say that's not an easy question. My honest answer would be that my photos somehow don't seem as sharp as other peoples.

Would I be right in thinking that perhaps my expectations are too high given that I'm using a kit lens?
 
A lot of what you are seeing in others peoples is adjustments in lightroom or some other software being used, plus thousands of pounds spent on some lens.

Do you use any software like lightroom?
The clarity slider and sharpening and smoothing and all that stuff helps a lot with any image.
I can show you if like, I will upload your image with some adjustments?
 
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I use Serif PhotoPlus X5 which is basically a PhotoShop clone : nothing like as good but a fraction of the cost.

It would be helpful if you could show me some adjustments.
 
Here you go.
Adjusted in lightroom
05f5b4edb55273dcb7ef54b237a8ed75.jpg


and original
7cc25fe0a12d8915fcf3cf52d8037590.jpg
 
Thanks, Ivan, I appreciate your help.

What's currently going through my mind is the question "Do I buy Lightroom or a 50mm f1.8 lens?"

I am, of course, assuming that even an inexpensive 50mm f1.8 lens is better than the kit lens.
 
You can download a trial of lightroom 4, not sure how long it lasts though, and yeah, the 50mm f1.8 should be sharper than the kit lens.
 
Lightroom 5 has just been released today, and there's a 30-day trial. Give it a go! I haven't been taking photos very long, but the biggest eye-opener for me so far has been just how much some adjustment of levels/sharpening/etc can transfer "meh" into "hmm, not bad!". "Wow, that's amazing" might take me a few more years of experience, though. :-)
 
abdoujaparov said:
Lightroom 5 has just been released today, and there's a 30-day trial. Give it a go! I haven't been taking photos very long, but the biggest eye-opener for me so far has been just how much some adjustment of levels/sharpening/etc can transfer "meh" into "hmm, not bad!". "Wow, that's amazing" might take me a few more years of experience, though. :-)
Click to expand...

:agree:
 
I can also recommend looking into best techniques for hand holding camera/ using shutter release. I now use the back button for focusing and have fine-tuned the AF in the menu. I get much more consistent results and sharper.
 
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