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Beginner In camera sharpness setting
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Phil V
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What are you shooting?
Can we see some examples of 'not sharp'?
As a general rule not sharp images would be user error. And if what you're shooting is blurred through camera movement, subject movement or focus problems, no amount of 'sharpness' will help.
Then if you shoot raw, in camera processing is fairly pointless.
john.margetts
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Being ignorant, what does setting camera sharpness to 2 mean? There is no such setting on my 650D.
Alastair
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It should be in the Picture Style options, see p.130 of your manual.
f/20 is always going to be a potential problem for sharpness.
There are very few occasions when going beyond f/16 is ever required, and f/11 is plenty for most occasions.
john.margetts
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Thank you. Vaguely aware those exist - I set those all to zero when I first bought the camera in case I need to shoot JPEG.
Alastair
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If you look-up the depth of field in tables (e.g. the DOFmaster website) you'll find that you generally don't need to go as far as you think in stopping down.
Stop down too far and you run into issues with diffraction induced softness (Google will yield more than you could possibly want to know about diffraction).
petersmart
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Your ap is set to f20 which has resulted in a very slow shutter speed (1/40).
That in itself could be enough to give slight camera shake, especially if handheld.
The sweet spot for most lens/camera combos is about f8-f11.
That will give you sharpness without too much worries about diffraction limiting - unless you own a 5Ds.
But in fact looking at your image it doesn't seem too bad and I think some extra sharpening in PP would probably give you what you're looking for.
Here is an article on diffraction limited apertures:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm
Hope that helps.
That in itself could be enough to give slight camera shake, especially if handheld.
The sweet spot for most lens/camera combos is about f8-f11.
That will give you sharpness without too much worries about diffraction limiting - unless you own a 5Ds.
But in fact looking at your image it doesn't seem too bad and I think some extra sharpening in PP would probably give you what you're looking for.
Here is an article on diffraction limited apertures:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm
Hope that helps.
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Nawty
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As others have said, at f/20 you are into diffraction limited territory and any in camera setting wont compensate for that.
You are better off reading the link @petersmart posted and correcting technique/expectations.
You are better off reading the link @petersmart posted and correcting technique/expectations.
Phil V
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As above:
F20 is a bit much, I've only ever gone beyond f11 when it's been required to drop my shutter speed.
Which brings me on to 1/40 is 'hand holdable' with a wide lens, but I'd only ever settle for it as a necessity. I have my camera set to not drop below 1/250 so I don't have to worry about camera movement.
The other thing is, even when shooting for a large DoF, focus still matters. I would always focus on the 'subject' even if I was after front to back sharpness. Because the plane of focus is always the only thing 'critically sharp'.
F20 is a bit much, I've only ever gone beyond f11 when it's been required to drop my shutter speed.
Which brings me on to 1/40 is 'hand holdable' with a wide lens, but I'd only ever settle for it as a necessity. I have my camera set to not drop below 1/250 so I don't have to worry about camera movement.
The other thing is, even when shooting for a large DoF, focus still matters. I would always focus on the 'subject' even if I was after front to back sharpness. Because the plane of focus is always the only thing 'critically sharp'.