D300s sharpness & grain

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topcatone

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Tony
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Hi everyone new to this forum (today), was wondering if anyone has suffered from sharpness or grain problems with there D300s. Seems like using iso400 with 16-85 lens gives me lots of grain and nothing is pin sharp.
 
Hello, and welcome to TP :wave:

I use a D300s but over all cant say i have any specifc issues. I have noticed some noise being introduced from ISO 400 but nothing that isnt manageable in PP.

There are many other settings that may have an influence, for instance, do you have the high ISO noise reduction on? This may soften the image and make it look less that pin sharp (i think this only comes into effect over a certian ISO - 800 i think but i cant remember as i dont use it :thinking:).

Also you need to consider DoF, shutter speed, focus point selection etc as these can count towards the overall sharpness of the image.

Im not familier with the 16-85 but you may find it soft at the wide open end compared with, for example f8.

Perhaps it would help if you could post an example of an image you have notice this on and a little detail about the settings you used.
 
Got any sample images to show? Can't comment until seeing the image. It could be technique, light condition etc
 
Wow thanks for quick reply guy's, will post some pics on here later when I have worked out how to do it....I think it may be my focus technique as I have everything else turned off like iOS NR and active d lighting etc. Have tested front to back focus with test chart which proved OK and have been playing around with aperture settings to get correct DOF. Nick may be right with the aperture settings as I expected everything to be pin sharp on some of my landscape test shots at f22, maybe this lens has a sweet spot at F8/f16 ?
 
Sometimes stopping down to f22 is too much. At this aperture you may start to get diffraction.
Just something else for you to cons!ider
 
You will defo get diffraction softening at f22 on the DX bodies, I wouldn't go beyond f16 on a cropper if sharpness was important. Also I noticed even at iso 200 on the d90/300/300s perfectly exposed blue skies would have some noticeable noise present, something to be aware of.
 
I would say this lens operates at its sharpest between ƒ5.6 and ƒ8 for general use. I'd be happy up to ƒ16 hand held on a sunny day, anything smaller and I would want as low an iso as possible, a long exposure and a tripod .
I have a D300, at 400iso I don't really see any noise unless I start pixel peeping.

Allan
 
Cheers Allan, think I'm guilty of a bit of pixel peeping.
Just going over some Raw files I taken recently and also noticed there's a difference between LR3 processing and the Nikon Capture that comes in the box with the camera, what do most of you use ?
Tony.
 
Also, take care to expose comfortably to the right if light is low. Even mild under exposure can introduce noise even at fairly low iso. Are you using D-Lighting at all? I was never too keen on that personally as I often thought that shadow areas looked noisy.

With care the D300/s is pretty good up to iso 1600 and even 3200 is useable if you nail the exposure.
 
topcatone said:
Wow thanks for quick reply guy's, will post some pics on here later when I have worked out how to do it....I think it may be my focus technique as I have everything else turned off like iOS NR and active d lighting etc. Have tested front to back focus with test chart which proved OK and have been playing around with aperture settings to get correct DOF. Nick may be right with the aperture settings as I expected everything to be pin sharp on some of my landscape test shots at f22, maybe this lens has a sweet spot at F8/f16 ?
Click to expand...

You don't really need to go over f/11 on a crop as the whole frame should be in the focal frame by then.
 
No not using D-Lighting, my exposure's were slightly under exposed and had to pull them back in Lr3, will try more to the right next time in low light. Camera is good in bright daylight.
 
topcatone said:
No not using D-Lighting, my exposure's were slightly under exposed and had to pull them back in Lr3, will try more to the right next time in low light. Camera is good in bright daylight.
Click to expand...
Under exposured pulled back will always give you more noise, as others have said try exposing to the right.
 
topcatone said:
Cheers Allan, think I'm guilty of a bit of pixel peeping.
Just going over some Raw files I taken recently and also noticed there's a difference between LR3 processing and the Nikon Capture that comes in the box with the camera, what do most of you use ?
Tony.
Click to expand...

I use Nikon Capture NX2 ... I think it works a treat on nef files, and I like the results I get from it.
 
Thinking of getting Capture NX2 but have heard stories of compatibility problems with MAC Lion operating system, anybody had any issues with Mac and NX2?
 
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