Help. Not pin sharp at 100% in RAW

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diddiewombat

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HI, new to this forum,:wave: have been searching all morning for the reason for my current woe! :bang: I have a 550d, always tripod, a range of lens, and i shot in RAW, AV fastest shutter speed i can get away with. Why are images not showing as pin sharp at 100%, also use a cable release......... Any suggestions Many Thanks
 
Really need to see the image and exif data to advise. There may be a issue, but you may just be pixel peeping.

Welcome to TP:)
 
In camera JPEGS do some sharpening and colour adjustment, meaning a RAW file usually looks worse anyway.
 
DogBiscuits1_web_edited-2.jpg


This is an edited one, converted to jpeg

Not sure why that has not worked will try again.
 
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Cant get an image up at the moment... But for checking my work flow is. open in raw editor and check at 100% Not a single image is coming through what i would consider as pin sharp, i am currently preparing images for stock submissions

Should i be resizing images, shooting in JPEG?
 
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Would someone be able to put a 100% crop up of say a flower or something, so i can compare what i have, at least i will know if i am pixel peeping?
 
Really need to see a full size image which you will need to link to due to image size restrictions.

As said raw files always need sharpening but there could be depth of field issues, camera shake etc.
 
diddiewombat said:
Would someone be able to put a 100% crop up of say a flower or something, so i can compare what i have, at least i will know if i am pixel peeping?
Click to expand...

can't compare different images.
 
Psi fox, i understand what you are saying, meant more interms of a small section with what some one regards as sharp pixals at 100%. def no camera shake as tripod and cable release always. I have been playing with different settings all morning, even using my 50mm 1.8 at everything from F1.8 - F22 something seems to be off.
 
Well I shoot Jpegs virtually all the time with in-camera sharpening turned off to minimise noise and never really get a pin sharp image at 100% until I sharpen them.

I usually sharpen in 2 stages - one at full size image then again in the final pic.

That way I end up with (mostly) perfectly sharp pics.

As already said RAW will always look soft anyway but it's the final pic which counts.

.
 
diddiewombat said:
Psi fox, i understand what you are saying, meant more interms of a small section with what some one regards as sharp pixals at 100%. def no camera shake as tripod and cable release always. I have been playing with different settings all morning, even using my 50mm 1.8 at everything from F1.8 - F22 something seems to be off.
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You can get shake on a tripod from the mirror moving.

What shutter speed are you set on and assume you are using flash as well?
 
The shot posted above was taken at f/32 according to the Exif, which could lead to a loss of sharpness due to diffraction.
 
petersmart said:
Well I shoot Jpegs virtually all the time with in-camera sharpening turned off to minimise noise and never really get a pin sharp image at 100% until I sharpen them.

I usually sharpen in 2 stages - one at full size image then again in the final pic.

That way I end up with (mostly) perfectly sharp pics.

As already said RAW will always look soft anyway but it's the final pic which counts.

.
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Thankyou petersmart. Interested by your comments on your two stage sharpening.... can you expand on that? and do you shoot Jpeg, then edit in tiff? Thank you
 
PsiFox said:
You can get shake on a tripod from the mirror moving.

What shutter speed are you set on and assume you are using flash as well?
Click to expand...


Suggestions on getting rid of shake from mirror moving! Not something i had every considered!!
 
diddiewombat said:
Suggestions on getting rid of shake from mirror moving! Not something i had every considered!!
Click to expand...

Mirror lock up if your camera allows it and agree with the above about not using f.32. What shutter speed were you using?

For most of my product shots I am shooting at the high speed flash sync of either 1/250 or 1/320 with aperture varying from f8 to f16.
 
Pretty much all digital images require some sharpening to combat the loss of sharpness due to the AA filter over the sensor. Raw normally doesn't have sharpening added by default from camera like jpeg so may look softer.
Some people favor a 2 or 3 stage sharpen.
1 capture sharpen, a mild sharpen to replace the loss from the Aa filter.
2 creative sharpening, this is where part of the image is sharpened, maybe the eyes in a portrait, or the foreground in a landscape.
3 output sharpening, this is a final sharpen at output size and type (web/print/etc as it will vary.
Try and get hold of a copy of real world sharpening, it's by Bruce Fraiser and Jeff Schewe, these guys wrote the book on sharpening, Jeff is still involved with both adobe and PK sharpener (well worth the money IMHO)
 
swanseamale47 said:
Pretty much all digital images require some sharpening to combat the loss of sharpness due to the AA filter over the sensor. Raw normally doesn't have sharpening added by default from camera like jpeg so may look softer.
Some people favor a 2 or 3 stage sharpen.
1 capture sharpen, a mild sharpen to replace the loss from the Aa filter.
2 creative sharpening, this is where part of the image is sharpened, maybe the eyes in a portrait, or the foreground in a landscape.
3 output sharpening, this is a final sharpen at output size and type (web/print/etc as it will vary.
Try and get hold of a copy of real world sharpening, it's by Bruce Fraiser and Jeff Schewe, these guys wrote the book on sharpening, Jeff is still involved with both adobe and PK sharpener (well worth the money IMHO)
Click to expand...

Thank you!
 
PsiFox said:
Mirror lock up if your camera allows it and agree with the above about not using f.32. What shutter speed were you using?

For most of my product shots I am shooting at the high speed flash sync of either 1/250 or 1/320 with aperture varying from f8 to f16.
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Will have a look for that setting.

Going to walk away and go back fresh to the images tomorrow. taking everyone points in to consideration!

Thank you all for all of your comments.
 
diddiewombat said:
Thankyou petersmart. Interested by your comments on your two stage sharpening.... can you expand on that? and do you shoot Jpeg, then edit in tiff? Thank you
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Well I have a simple editing program which I've used for years - Serif PhotoPlus X2 (which cost me the princely sum of £12.50 approx!)

I firstly convert all my JPEGs to TIFFs in DPP then put them through Neat Image noise reducing program in batches.

After that I put them into PP X2 and simply press the "sharpen" button on the full size image.

I then crop it and add contrast etc as required then simply sharpen it a second time to get it really crisp - this usually involves the Unsharp Mask set fairly low so as not to overdo it.

Hope this helps.

.
 
petersmart said:
Well I have a simple editing program which I've used for years - Serif PhotoPlus X2 (which cost me the princely sum of £12.50 approx!)

I firstly convert all my JPEGs to TIFFs in DPP then put them through Neat Image noise reducing program in batches.

After that I put them into PP X2 and simply press the "sharpen" button on the full size image.

I then crop it and add contrast etc as required then simply sharpen it a second time to get it really crisp - this usually involves the Unsharp Mask set fairly low so as not to overdo it.

Hope this helps.
Thank you, that is very useful. I use elements 9, post production skills in need of some extra skill.
.
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What shutter speed were you using at f.32?
 
petersmart said:
Well I have a simple editing program which I've used for years - Serif PhotoPlus X2 (which cost me the princely sum of £12.50 approx!)

I firstly convert all my JPEGs to TIFFs in DPP then put them through Neat Image noise reducing program in batches.

After that I put them into PP X2 and simply press the "sharpen" button on the full size image.

I then crop it and add contrast etc as required then simply sharpen it a second time to get it really crisp - this usually involves the Unsharp Mask set fairly low so as not to overdo it.

Hope this helps.

.
Click to expand...
Off Topic now...

Sorry, but this is a totally crazy PP strategy. If you are going to put all your JPEGs through DPP to convert them to TIFFs you are losing so much information it is unreal. I think the 1DsII is 12 bits/channel so your processing steps are:

Camera 12bit -> in-camera processing (including noise reduction as turning into a JPG means you have to "develop" the photo) -> 8bit image -> DPP to convert to TIFF (16 bit?) -> Neat Image -> PPx2.

AT LEAST shoot RAW so you can get the full benefit of the 12 bit when you drop into TIFF. DPP (I hate it, but there you go) will replicate exactly the processing applied to the JPEG but still give you extra data you lost on the in camera processing.

Whilst your post processing flow may "work for you" I can guarantee that you can produce better processed photos if you keep the raw file to start from. At the very least you will completely replicate what you already do.

You may also find that a more modern processing program (e.g. Lightroom) would give you improved quality from your photos. The processing game has moved on A LOT in the last few years.
 
Can I suggest going back to basics. Here are some thoughts in a random(ish) order.

  • if you are using a long lens (i.e. 90mm), even at F32 and viewing 100%, the images will not be sharp front to back. A small zone, wherever focus has locked, will be in focus but it is unlikely to cover the front to back of your subject. As has been mentioned above, your camera will be making this worse due to diffraction.
  • What tripod are you using? A flimsy tripod will move as the shutter is fired. You will never get a decent picture if that is the case.
  • If you want critical focus, and as you are on a tripod, use a part of the item that has some decent contrast and then use live view focus. "Normal" focus can be out depending on the body and lens combination and if you are taking shots you need to be critically sharp at some point, you need to get the bit you want critically sharp to start with. Live view will do this whereas phase detect (the through the lens focusing) can cause problems and errors.
  • Are you using flash or just ambient? Artistically a couple of flash heads are going to do more for the photo than achieving critical sharpness will ever do.
  • If you shoot flash, the flash takes the photo, not the shutter. The shutter exposes for the ambient light. You can put your shutter at any value within reason and you will be fine.
  • The 550D is an 18Mpix sensor. It needs decent lenses to be termed "critically sharp" IMHO.

Bottom line is that it's probably your technique at fault or your expectations are too high for what can be achieved with the setup you have. Just as an example, here is a 100% crop of what you can achieve hand held with flash (focus was at the centre of this 100% cutout) at 70mm full frame lens equivalent (I've cropped as forum rules are 800 pixels max side).

P1000395-800.jpg


and if you want to see what the depth of field is like at f9 (this is on a micro 4/3 camera - the 550D will have slightly shallower depth of field) see the full image here:

http://www.arad85.co.uk/hosted/talkp/P1000395-full.jpg
 
arad85 said:
Can I suggest going back to basics. Here are some thoughts in a random(ish) order.

  • if you are using a long lens (i.e. 90mm), even at F32 and viewing 100%, the images will not be sharp front to back. A small zone, wherever focus has locked, will be in focus but it is unlikely to cover the front to back of your subject. As has been mentioned above, your camera will be making this worse due to diffraction.
  • What tripod are you using? A flimsy tripod will move as the shutter is fired. You will never get a decent picture if that is the case.
  • If you want critical focus, and as you are on a tripod, use a part of the item that has some decent contrast and then use live view focus. "Normal" focus can be out depending on the body and lens combination and if you are taking shots you need to be critically sharp at some point, you need to get the bit you want critically sharp to start with. Live view will do this whereas phase detect (the through the lens focusing) can cause problems and errors.
  • Are you using flash or just ambient? Artistically a couple of flash heads are going to do more for the photo than achieving critical sharpness will ever do.
  • If you shoot flash, the flash takes the photo, not the shutter. The shutter exposes for the ambient light. You can put your shutter at any value within reason and you will be fine.
  • The 550D is an 18Mpix sensor. It needs decent lenses to be termed "critically sharp" IMHO.

Bottom line is that it's probably your technique at fault or your expectations are too high for what can be achieved with the setup you have. Just as an example, here is a 100% crop of what you can achieve hand held with flash (focus was at the centre of this 100% cutout) at 70mm full frame lens equivalent (I've cropped as forum rules are 800 pixels max side).

P1000395-800.jpg


and if you want to see what the depth of field is like at f9 (this is on a micro 4/3 camera - the 550D will have slightly shallower depth of field) see the full image here:

http://www.arad85.co.uk/hosted/talkp/P1000395-full.jpg
Click to expand...

Thank you! In regards to tripod i have a manfrotto 190xprob and a manfrotto 322rc2 head.
Thank you for posting the image, my probs seem to be three foldfold, one is technique with lighting, and the other post production, and the third seems to me being very critical of myself, i have rejected images with the noise pixels less then what you have, as i was unsure as to what was expectably i think i have also been blowing my images 100% and then peering at them from a 1cm away and freaking out.
In regards to lenses, i have 3 cannon (although not L series) all with good reviews, a Tamaron 90mm Macro with Very good reviews and a Sign,a 70-300.
Really appreciate you taking the time to try and help.
 
diddiewombat said:
Thank you! In regards to tripod i have a manfrotto 190xprob and a manfrotto 322rc2 head.
Thank you for posting the image, my probs seem to be three foldfold, one is technique with lighting, and the other post production, and the third seems to me being very critical of myself, i have rejected images with the noise pixels less then what you have, as i was unsure as to what was expectably i think i have also been blowing my images 100% and then peering at them from a 1cm away and freaking out.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can be very self-critical. I've realised that when I upload photos for here (I use Lightroom) I sharpen them with maximum sharpening in LRs output as 99% of the images I upload are not 100% crops so could do with some extra sharpening. The original has less noise - and the lens hood/body does have some texture to it anyway so it shouldn't be perfectly flat.

Also, be aware that a tripod on a wobbly surface (wooden floorboards for example) may also pick up vibrations which cause blurriness. Learned this when I used to do astrophotography with the equivalent of 7metre lenses. We live about 100 yards from a train track. Every time a train went past, the whole image in the scope would shake!

Depending on the tools available to you, the image sharpness is a combination of focus, ISO (use as low as you can get to), shutter speed (which is effectively in the '000ths when you use flash), steadiness of the sensor as the photo is taken and post processing. In Lightroom, the post noise is a tradeoff between sharpness and smoothing together with masking. LR has some seriously good tools to help you with this with the ability to control how the sharpness is applied to the image (ability to mask out areas that are noise in the image).

Are you using any flash or is this all ambient light?
diddiewombat said:
In regards to lenses, i have 3 cannon (although not L series) all with good reviews, a Tamaron 90mm Macro with Very good reviews and a Sign,a 70-300.
Really appreciate you taking the time to try and help.
Click to expand...
They should be fine.

You might like to read this thread: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=365254

which shows the dramatic improvements that can be made (compare the pics at the start of the thread with those at the end) using controlled lighting. It also illustrates just how much the environment around the subject matters to lighting the photo (have a look at the bits in the middle of the thread when the table was close to a wall).
 
Thank you that was a VERY informative thread. My lighting set up is very poor man indeed. :( It includes backgrounds reflectors and two day light bulb mini lamps that cam with the most awful mini studio. I only have on camera flash at present, which i have been advised (possibly incorrectly not to use). I would like to buy some proper lighting, but it is a minefield of products.
 
diddiewombat said:
I would like to buy some proper lighting, but it is a minefield of products.
Click to expand...
Post in the studio lighting section describing what you want to do. There's a load of helpful people there who will point you in the right direction.

Depends how much you want to pay, but for product-style photography, you probably should be looking at studio lighting and some softboxes as opposed to flash guns. You need to control the light and where it goes - the thing that should have come across from the thread you read is that with that sort of photography the photographer creates the light. In the photos I posted (if you looked at the full sized one) the lighting setup described in that thread was used. One above with large softbox, one to camera left with smaller softbox and a reflector to the right of the lens to kick back some light on the right hand side. There is also another light under the table to lighten the table to make post processing easier. Having said that, you can start small and build up if you want to do this and find it interesting. The key thing is to learn about light and how it affects your subjects and how that works in photos.

BTW: I still use my on-camera flash but ONLY for a bit of fill in flash when I have a subject that is dark. On-camera flash is abysmal for doing anything properly creative (i.e. beyond bouncing the flash off the ceiling to get an even light at weddings).

Back to your original question about sharpness. I'd forget about whether your set-up photos are OK - what is the lens like when you use it normally. Is it OK then? Does it focus properly? What about when you use it for macro? If you are happy that the lens/camera are working well, take a step back and think about what you need to create the look you want.
 
Hi, thank you again.

I am slowly working my around this forum, which is a really a huge gold mine of information, very glad I found it.

Having spent some time in the garden this morning doing test shots, I am now happy that my camera and lens seem to be fine, feel much happier about the sharpness issues. Light is an obvious work area for me and I have ordered some books. Also some additional posts production training is

Thank you to everyone on the thread that has helped. I will read some more of the forum posts.


arad85 said:
Post in the studio lighting section describing what you want to do. There's a load of helpful people there who will point you in the right direction.

Depends how much you want to pay, but for product-style photography, you probably should be looking at studio lighting and some softboxes as opposed to flash guns. You need to control the light and where it goes - the thing that should have come across from the thread you read is that with that sort of photography the photographer creates the light. In the photos I posted (if you looked at the full sized one) the lighting setup described in that thread was used. One above with large softbox, one to camera left with smaller softbox and a reflector to the right of the lens to kick back some light on the right hand side. There is also another light under the table to lighten the table to make post processing easier. Having said that, you can start small and build up if you want to do this and find it interesting. The key thing is to learn about light and how it affects your subjects and how that works in photos.

BTW: I still use my on-camera flash but ONLY for a bit of fill in flash when I have a subject that is dark. On-camera flash is abysmal for doing anything properly creative (i.e. beyond bouncing the flash off the ceiling to get an even light at weddings).

Back to your original question about sharpness. I'd forget about whether your set-up photos are OK - what is the lens like when you use it normally. Is it OK then? Does it focus properly? What about when you use it for macro? If you are happy that the lens/camera are working well, take a step back and think about what you need to create the look you want.
Click to expand...
 
arad85 said:
Off Topic now...

Sorry, but this is a totally crazy PP strategy. If you are going to put all your JPEGs through DPP to convert them to TIFFs you are losing so much information it is unreal.
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Don't bother going there. :shake: You can explain why you think a different method is better and try to help, but it falls on deaf ears. I know, I've been there before. :shrug: :bonk:

He's happy, leave him to it. ;)
 
so did you try shooting at f9 or similar? someone suggested this earlier
peak sharpnes is not always at the smallest aperture possible
 
redhed17 said:
Don't bother going there. :shake: You can explain why you think a different method is better and try to help, but it falls on deaf ears. I know, I've been there before. :shrug: :bonk:

He's happy, leave him to it. ;)
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I only posted it to avoid anyone else following the same strategy (and pointing out why it was so wrong) ;)

If you want to shoot JPEG, fine, but get it right in camera and only doing light work in post - e.g. cropping and rotating. The development has already been done and that is what the in-camera settings are for. Think of it like sending getting your prints back from the developers and using a pair of scissors to get it to fit the photo frame you have.

And with a 1Ds II too.... :shrug:
 
diddiewombat said:
Light is an obvious work area for me and I have ordered some books.
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Have a look at Strobists Lighting 101: http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/lighting-101.html That's all done with hotshoe flashes, but the techniques are the same with any lights (it travels in a straight line wherever it comes from). I'd still say studio flash is the way to go for you if the photo of the hearts is anything to go by your typical subject matter.

diddiewombat said:
Also some additional posts production training is
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What post production s/w do you use? If it is something mainstream, there are LOADS of tutorials online which I find better than any book as you can see what people are doing.
 
diddiewombat said:
Thank you that was a VERY informative thread. My lighting set up is very poor man indeed. :( It includes backgrounds reflectors and two day light bulb mini lamps that cam with the most awful mini studio. I only have on camera flash at present, which i have been advised (possibly incorrectly not to use). I would like to buy some proper lighting, but it is a minefield of products.
Click to expand...

there're a few diy projects to make the on camera flash more usable. Here's one for example
 
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