sharpness

hayley.price

hayley.price

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hayley
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hey guys, just a quick question.


I have been noticing when comparing my pictures, to those of others on here my images seem to be lacking in sharpness, and well the stand out factor that some of the pictures i have seen on here and other sites.

I was wondering if its something that i'm doing wrong?


take my canine shots for instance, this shot

DSC_0413 by Hayleyprice photography, on Flickr

when i look at it i see a good image but not one that stands out, its lacking something but i cant pinpoint what it is. i'm thinking the sharpness but then i'm not 100% on that.

then i see other peoples shots like the number 2 shot in this recent post,

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=388189

i have linked as its not my photos.

any ideas on how i can improve my image to something like that or where I'm going wrong when taking my own images.

my images were taken on the d5100 on full manual settings, i have only recently started using full manual settings but am improveing is this the reason?

thanks for reading and sorry for the bit of an essay.
 
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Hi Hayley,

You are comparing a Tamron 70-300mm to a Canon 70-200mm L lens. Unfortunately the Tamron is not a great performer, AF speed, aperture size, and sharpness at the longer focal lengths, so you will struggle when you compare with Pro kit.

Personally I don't think that there's anything technique wise that is particularly letting you down, you seem to have the basics pretty much nailed down.
 
Okay well as I'm currently only working part time, the cost of the canon lens or NIKON alternative are way out of my current league, but if that's the main reason I'll start saving.
 
hayley.price said:
Okay well as I'm currently only working part time, the cost of the canon lens or NIKON alternative are way out of my current league, but if that's the main reason I'll start saving.
Click to expand...

One thing to try is to close the aperture a little to F/8, and maybe smaller, and bump the ISO up a bit to keep the shutter speed high.

You are currently shooting wide open which will be a weak point of the lens.
 
Better processing skills will help a picture IMHO

dog.jpg
 
I'm in the same boat hayley and see no point in taking my sigma 70-300 out on anything less than a sunny day. PP can help, but try to work out the limits of your equipments capability with regards to outdoor lighting.
 
It looks like a focus miss to me. You are shooting into the shadow side of a dog, which is not especially contrasty, and the centre of the frame is over a black patch of fur at the top of the front right leg. I don't know how you had your AF set up but it's quite possible the camera really had nothing it could focus on. Compare that to the lighting on the dog which you linked to and you will see it's worlds apart.

Shooting running dogs is tough, but you might improve your success rate if you have the light working in your favour instead of against you and make sure you are aiming your focus point(s) at an area of good contrast rather than relatively featureless black.

There are more doggy examples in this thread - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=388435 - and some comments about my approach to shooting running dogs.
 
KIPAX said:
Better processing skills will help a picture IMHO
Click to expand...

That improved it :thumbs:

Something else to try is to think about the light, try and have the sun behind you, ideally coming over a shoulder so it strikes the subject at a slight angle, this will improve the perceived sharpness of an image (and costs nothing).

In your image above the sun is to the right, so the whole right flank of your dog is in shadow, and that is the majority of what is in shot and visible on the final image.
 
Thanks will take a look at that link and the focus was aimed for the face witch I think I have caught quite well. As for pp will have to keep working on that as it is a vast improvement thank you.
 
How much sharpening are you adding? Every digital photo needs sharpening as the process of converting photons to electrons and back has a softening effect. This will happen regardless of the lens/body you use. You can set the camera to sharpen every shot, or do it in PP, or use a mixture.

But you need to add sharpening.
 
jon ryan said:
How much sharpening are you adding? Every digital photo needs sharpening as the process of converting photons to electrons and back has a softening effect. This will happen regardless of the lens/body you use. You can set the camera to sharpen every shot, or do it in PP, or use a mixture.

But you need to add sharpening.
Click to expand...

Did you look at the original size photo on Flickr? I don't know if that is a 100% crop, but this is how I would hope for a keeper to look at 100%, and this is from a 7D in flat light, so kind of pushing it for pixel peeping without a few tweaks....

20120223_180253_000.jpg


OK, so that's with a prime lens, but not a dear one.

Here's one with the 7D and a zoom, wide open at full stretch....

20120223_180744_000.jpg


Sure it's an expensive zoom, but there are limits to how much salvation you can apply just by adding sharpening. It really is better to start with a sharp photo to begin with and then use sharpening to enhance it, not to fix it.
 
jon ryan said:
How much sharpening are you adding? Every digital photo needs sharpening as the process of converting photons to electrons and back has a softening effect. This will happen regardless of the lens/body you use. You can set the camera to sharpen every shot, or do it in PP, or use a mixture.

But you need to add sharpening.
Click to expand...

Never knew that
Does my d3100 have this function on board? I use picasa for pp and the sharpen tool on it doesnt seem to have any effect

I know I should really read the manual, but
A, my head hurts reading serious techno stuff
B, I get a better understanding reading brief guides or how to videos
C, that would count as camera time, and I'd much rather be shooting
 
If you shoot to JPEG you can have the camera set up to apply sharpening before the image is saved. Indeed that would be the most common default for most cameras. If you shoot to raw then your raw software might already apply some sharpening, but it will typically be quite modest sharpening and more may be needed. However, it is also possible that raw software will not apply sharpening. It really depends on how you have your camera and workflow set up.

Once you get a bit more savvy with your processing you may come to appreciate that there are different types of sharpening applied at different points in the workflow. Typically you have....

1. "Capture" sharpening to overcome the softening effects of the AA filter, before you really set to work on the image;
2. "Creative" sharpening to enhance parts of the image to look really crisp and to make them pop;
3. "Output" sharpening which is the very last step after resizing the image and before saving it. This restores some of the sharpness which gets lost when you resize an image for viewing on a screen.

You don't need to do all three, but you will typically get the best results if you do apply some sharpening somewhere along the line.
 
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tdodd said:
Did you look at the original size photo on Flickr? I don't know if that is a 100% crop, but this is how I would hope for a keeper to look at 100%, and this is from a 7D in flat light, so kind of pushing it for pixel peeping without a few tweaks....

20120223_180253_000.jpg


OK, so that's with a prime lens, but not a dear one.

Here's one with the 7D and a zoom, wide open at full stretch....

20120223_180744_000.jpg


Sure it's an expensive zoom, but there are limits to how much salvation you can apply just by adding sharpening. It really is better to start with a sharp photo to begin with and then use sharpening to enhance it, not to fix it.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! No amount of sharpening will rescue a poorly focused shot, but even a perfectly focused shot will still come out soft.

BruceMo said:
Never knew that
Does my d3100 have this function on board? I use picasa for pp and the sharpen tool on it doesnt seem to have any effect

I know I should really read the manual, but
A, my head hurts reading serious techno stuff
B, I get a better understanding reading brief guides or how to videos
C, that would count as camera time, and I'd much rather be shooting
Click to expand...

You'll have to ask another Nikon driver, but I'd say `yes` with 99.999% confidence. It'll be in the...manual. Try reading in short bursts with a lie down between them. :D

And for pp, try looking at your shots on screen at 100% and then add the sharpening.
 
jon ryan said:
Absolutely! No amount of sharpening will rescue a poorly focused shot, but even a perfectly focused shot will still come out soft.
Click to expand...
Quite, but look at the starting point for Hayley's image and compare it to my examples. This is a crop from her Original sized file...

20120223_175730_.JPG


Which category would you say that falls into?
 
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jon ryan said:
Absolutely! No amount of sharpening will rescue a poorly focused shot, but even a perfectly focused shot will still come out soft.



You'll have to ask another Nikon driver, but I'd say `yes` with 99.999% confidence. It'll be in the...manual. Try reading in short bursts with a lie down between them. :D

And for pp, try looking at your shots on screen at 100% and then add the sharpening.
Click to expand...

Ha ha, I know. Its probably a bit ridiculous I havent yet, I think you just gave me the inspiration to start :thumbs:
It'll probably be a bit easier going, now I understand my camera
I also have photo shop cs5 (i think thats what it is), but my technophobia only allows for so much at a time, or my head will explode
Cheers
 
As Tony's edit shows, there's more to a good picture than sharpness - composition and light is what really makes photos stand out.
 
tdodd said:
Quite, but look at the starting point for Hayley's image and compare it to my examples. This is a crop from her Original sized file...

20120223_175730_.JPG


Which category would you say that falls into?
Click to expand...

Dunno. A bit of image blur?
 
BruceMo said:
Ha ha, I know. Its probably a bit ridiculous I havent yet, I think you just gave me the inspiration to start :thumbs:
It'll probably be a bit easier going, now I understand my camera
I also have photo shop cs5 (i think thats what it is), but my technophobia only allows for so much at a time, or my head will explode
Cheers
Click to expand...

Have a look at my photoix.co.uk website. Several videos on there dedicated to the D3100.
This one briefly covers in camera sharpening.

http://youtu.be/4L6TSvSm1sA?hd=1
 
jon ryan said:
Dunno. A bit of image blur?
Click to expand...
Hard to be certain, but usually you would expect to see some directional component to the blur (or shake). I don't see any sign of that in this image. It just looks soft.

I did check the EXIF (only just this moment) and I see it was shot at 260mm, 1/640, f/5.6 and 100 ISO. I do think there is an opportunity to at least go to 200 ISO and get that shutter speed up to 1/1250 and maybe even go to 400 ISO and stop the lens down to f/8. That should help out in a variety of ways, I think.
 
A bit under-exposed as well; easily done with all that snow around. Spot metering would help. Faster shutter, get closer...right, we're going again, everyone. First positions please!
 
TCR4x4 said:
Have a look at my photoix.co.uk website. Several videos on there dedicated to the D3100.
This one briefly covers in camera sharpening.

http://youtu.be/4L6TSvSm1sA?hd=1
Click to expand...

Very helpful, thanks
So why dont you just whack sharpen up to max?
Maybe I should start a new thread or look more
Sorry for hijacking the OP thread
I'll but out now

That site looks really informative, think I've just lost another few hours studying videos, its just not happened yet :lol:
 
The main thing - regardless of what lenses you use - is to take care what you focus on.
If, for instance, it's an animal or a human, focus on the eyes and make sure you get them as sharp as possible.
Psychologically, the whole thing will look a lot sharper if the eyes are clear and bright, even though the back of the head or the body is slightly out of focus.
Good photographs are made by the photographer and the equipment he uses is secondary.
 
BruceMo said:
So why dont you just whack sharpen up to max?
Click to expand...

Because that's like sticking duct tape over a hole in your ship instead of avoiding the submerged rock in the first place.

Also, if you have a noisy image you will have the devil of a job to sharpen the edges you want sharpened without also sharpening the noise. If your image is already sharp, but a little noisy, then you have much better prospects for a decent image after it's been tidied up.

And quite honestly, if your image is so soft or blurry that the edges which should be sharp are spread over a few pixels then you're not going to be able to make a very large reproduction from that file. I wouldn't call it a win to only be able to produce a 400x400 pixel image from a 16 megapixel starting point.

There's absolutely no problem to apply some sharpening, but you cannot polish a Richard. If, on the other hand, you have an image that is just a little soft - almost sharp - to begin with then the world is your lobster.

Here's a before/after example of something which wasn't quite there when shot, but can be spruced up reasonably well with some sharpening tweaks....

20120223_193614_000.jpg
 
tdodd said:
Because that's like sticking duct tape over a hole in your ship instead of avoiding the submerged rock in the first place.

Also, if you have a noisy image you will have the devil of a job to sharpen the edges you want sharpened without also sharpening the noise. If your image is already sharp, but a little noisy, then you have much better prospects for a decent image after it's been tidied up.

And quite honestly, if your image is so soft or blurry that the edges which should be sharp are spread over a few pixels then you're not going to be able to make a very large reproduction from that file. I wouldn't call it a win to only be able to produce a 400x400 pixel image from a 16 megapixel starting point.

There's absolutely no problem to apply some sharpening, but you cannot polish a Richard. If, on the other hand, you have an image that is just a little soft - almost sharp - to begin with then the world is your lobster.

Here's a before/after example of something which wasn't quite there when shot, but can be spruced up reasonably well with some sharpening tweaks....

20120223_193614_000.jpg
Click to expand...


Tim i found your posts informative on the other thread and they are on this one too:thankyou::thankyou: forget all the rubbish that sometimes goes down on this forum, this to me is what TP is about, someone who is happy to share their knowledge in plain english and without being condescending:):):)
 
Thanks, Liz. I may not know much, but it's always a pleasure to help people who are keen to improve, if I am able to.
 
I agree with Liz, I really enjoy this site for the friendly, knowledgeable lot
I see what you meen Tim, now I just need to get that photoshop working, it all gets a bit daunting at times
You guys certainly lighten the load tho
 
One of the things I have found recently is that I shoot in raw and use Aperture (mac user). I can sharpen a bit, but it never seems to do enough. I have just got a noise reduction program so I can shoot higher ISO and it can also do sharpening. It seems to do a much better job than Aperture does!
 
Back to the original photo, I downloaded the largest version from Flickr and had a fiddle in Lightroom. Here you can see a 50% crop of the image as a before/after. Hopefully it is a bit of improvement and maybe those more skilled than me could do more, not least by processing the dog separately from the background. FWIW I actually think the original exposure was pretty good, and it's the lighting that is creating more of a challenge, but I have given a teeny left to the exposure just to add slightly more pop to the dog.

20120223_211814_000.jpg



However, while a bit of fiddling has improved it, compared to this unedited example of roughly comparable size (both 100% viewing) you can see that the extra work has not closed the gap completely.

20120223_214042_000.jpg



In other words, it is better to shoot sharp in the first place than to edit soft images to sharp ones afterwards. That's why I think it's worth trying to help Hayley to capture sharper images to begin with and then by all means add to her processing skills to finish the job.
 
wow really didn't expect this much in ways of reply so thank you for that.

okay so i have read all this and pretty much understood what you are all saying and i think i can use that information and improve, got a day of work tomorrow so will head out with the dog and see what i can get, will post the results once i have done so, although should be easier as there's no snow and the suns decided to make an appearance quite brightly the past couple of days so lets hope for the same

thanks guys.
 
rackhs said:
One of the things I have found recently is that I shoot in raw and use Aperture (mac user). I can sharpen a bit, but it never seems to do enough. I have just got a noise reduction program so I can shoot higher ISO and it can also do sharpening. It seems to do a much better job than Aperture does!
Click to expand...

Sorry to hijack OP's thread.

I use aperture as well but I don't think so it's very good in sharpening pics (or may be I'm missing something). Can somebody please suggest another software for sharpening. I see most of the pics in this thread have been shapened using lightroom.
 
If you want competent and fairly cheap then you could take a look at Photoshop Elements which, given the layers and masks feature, will allow you to selectively sharpen different areas by different amounts and also apply selective NR and/or blurring to your backgrounds. I got Elements at Xmas, primarily for those features rather than anything more complex. Of course Elements has a lot more up its sleeve as well. Unfortunately for me I really struggle to get to grips with the Photoshop interface, so I stay within Lightroom whenever possible.
 
I have elements but just don't know how to use it properly :-( wish I could get some kind of course as think I could do things so much better.

I now have 'neat image' which is primarily a NR software that also has a plug-in for aperture or as a stand alone product. It seems to also do a good job on sharpening!

Heard a lot use Lightroom and like it. No idea on how good it is for sharpening.
 
rackhs said:
I have elements but just don't know how to use it properly :-( wish I could get some kind of course as think I could do things so much better.
Click to expand...

Shame you don't live closer to Somerset...
 
jon ryan said:
True. I used to live up that way (Killamarsh). Sheffield isn't the same since they filled in t'hole in't road.
Click to expand...

And got rid of the cooling towers near meadowhall!

Sorry, going a bit too far OT now :-)
 
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