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Unhappy with 9000 part II

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Cobrax1

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As I said I would post a couple of pictures that show quacky resolution / focus. Tell me what you think? So, these two photos are of an old motorcycle hill about a mile away. Both were shot at 200MM. The first shot was taken ISO 100, std color, hard sharp, high saturation, hard contrast, 220/5.6 - I feel that it has a good focus...

The second shot: ISO 100, std color,std saturation, std contrast, 1/600/ 5.6. - I feel this is way out of focus... in fact way blurred...

Can someone tell me why there is such a difference and I can produce other photos that have that first setting that look like the second setting...



 
Hi,

If it is not too much trouble, can you please post images with the exif intact?

There are too many variables here for me to determine what the issue could be. For instance, the resizing is incredibly different between the two. Also, the exposure time is totally different (if I read your figure of 220 being 1/220 of a second compared to 1/600 of a second) I also see some harsh jpeg compression artifacts in both photos.

Maybe, with the exif and, if possible, links to the originals, someone here might be able to give some good advice.

--
S9000, Gimp, S7RAW, Neat Image
Proponent of free software
 
Sorry the originals are gone. I'm going to shoot tomorrow. Come up with more examples. It baffles me. I just want to find a setting that gives me some consitancy. One minute the picture is clear the next is water color...
 
Cobrax1 said:
The first shot was taken ISO 100, std color, hard sharp,
high saturation, hard contrast, 220/5.6 - I feel that it has a good
focus...

The second shot: ISO 100, std color,std saturation, std contrast,
1/600/ 5.6. - I feel this is way out of focus... in fact way
blurred...
Click to expand...
Are these hand held? and 9mp?

If so, you've probably given us all we need.

Most folks can't hand-hold a 9mp shot at 1/focalLength and get it even close to sharp.

Test: do the same thing with a tripod and 2-sec timer.

Then... note that you used "hard sharp" on the first one, which may well be compensating for camera shake

Finally, try using f4 instead of f5.6. If that change (alone, not changing everything at once) radically changes your result, you have a defective camera. If it slightly improves things, you have a normal camera.

Hope that helps a bit. Don't know when I'll be able to stop in again...
 
QUOTE: Sorry the originals are gone. I'm going to shoot tomorrow. Come up with more examples. It baffles me. I just want to find a setting that gives me some consitancy. One minute the picture is clear the next is water color...

REPLY:

Here's my 2¢. You may be having an issue with camera shake (try a tripod to rule that out, if it still comes out blurry your camera may be defective). Second to that, I can only report that from my own experience not all digital cameras are created equal. I had to exchange my first digital camera over six years ago two times (the third was the charm and still works — a Panasonic). When I bought my first F10 a month back I had horrible pictures (many overexposed outdoor shots and indoors fuzzy focus, particularly in low light). I ended up joining this site to figure out what was going wrong. I spent a lot of time looking at gallery images to see how it SHOULD look. Basically, everything I was seeing/reading contradicted all the praise from the reviews. After not one but TWO exchanges I finally got one that works reliably in terms of focus, metering, etc. The same may be true for you. So if the tripod doesn't make a difference in your pictures (to rule out camera shake) then by all means exchange your camera before it is too late!
 
I think tghis may help you to understand the effect of camera shake on the 9500. Although the Fuji is not a DSLR, the same effect applies to it as well.
--
Regards,
Taffy.
I loved my six oh two, now loving seven thousand.
 
...that you took a 100% crop of the upper left hand corner. I apologize if this is not the case. Expect to see some distortion and softness at the edges. Is it 'soft' in every corner or just this one? Could indicate a misaligned sensor if it's only one corner or side. I've looked at alot of S9000/S9500 images before picking up an S9000. Alot of them had some softness at the edges at full resolution. My experience shows that the S9000 is not perfectly sharp edge to edge. Is it acceptable at normal viewing or printing? That just depends on how critical you are. It satify my needs. -Norm
Cobrax1 said:
As I said I would post a couple of pictures that show quacky
resolution / focus. Tell me what you think? So, these two photos
are of an old motorcycle hill about a mile away. Both were shot at
200MM. The first shot was taken ISO 100, std color, hard sharp,
high saturation, hard contrast, 220/5.6 - I feel that it has a good
focus...

The second shot: ISO 100, std color,std saturation, std contrast,
1/600/ 5.6. - I feel this is way out of focus... in fact way
blurred...

Can someone tell me why there is such a difference and I can
produce other photos that have that first setting that look like
the second setting...



Click to expand...
 
I said:
Ray Jeffery said:
Ray Jeffery said:
Most folks can't hand-hold a 9mp shot at 1/focalLength and get it
even close to sharp.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
And Ray replied:
Ray Jeffery said:
Can you please elaborate on this, I'm curious I have assumed if you
shoot over about1/200 you will not get camera shake, how do more MP
affect this?
Click to expand...
There's a good discussion somewhere in the forum, back in January (?).

Essentially:
  • Camera "shake" is all about whether motion blur is noticed. Let's assume you hand-hold the more-MP camera just as steady. I.e., the camera moves a certain tiny angle during exposure; that's the same as saying a certain distance of your subject will be blurred. (e.g. subject's nose moves 1mm during the exposure)
  • All else being equal, with more MP's, that 1mm of picture subject now has more pixels in it. 1MP-> 9MP, approximately 300% more pixels in a linear cm or inch or whatever.
  • Let's assume you are doing something (ANYthing) to display/view in a way that takes advantage of those extra MP's (e.g. your printer will make more detailed prints with more MP's, or you are printing larger, or cropping more, or...)
  • Given these three things, the same amount of camera "shake" will produce motion blur across more pixels.
  • To keep motion blur the same, you must reduce camera shake in the ratio of the linear pixel ratio.
So, if your rule was 1/focal (1/200 for 200mm zoom) with an old 1mp camera, then at 9mp you would use 1/(3*focal) (1/600 for 200mm zoom).

The "rule" 100% depends on your shooting style, equipment, purpose etc etc etc. Most 35mm photog's trusted the "1/focal" rule in the past, probably assuming 4x6 or 5x7 prints.

I'm curious what s9500/9000 owners are finding workable today, for 9mp shots that are cropped and/or enlarged to actually make use of all those pixels. (Note: a commercial 4x6 print doesn't make use of more than 3mp, and a web image uses less than 1mp in most cases.)
 
Let's keep it simple.

At the same focal length equivalency the same amount of movement [degree wise not pixel count] will produce the same amount of blur in a same sized photograph or other display without regard to whither the camera is 3mp or a 12mp.

Now I am not saying that one will be a better photo than the other and I actually believe the larger mp file will actually have the oppertunity to [after postprocessing] produce the better print [also assuming all other things are equal; however, things are almost never truely equal so this may be hard to prove].

Perhaps a better way to put it is the number of pixels are not as important as how far each will be magnified to produce the final print in this instance the 3mp file will have to be magnified 4X larger than the 12mp pixels for the same size print or other display.

Of course I might be all wet.
--
Ray
RJNedimyer
 
RJNedimyer said:
Let's keep it simple.

At the same focal length equivalency the same amount of movement
[degree wise not pixel count] will produce the same amount of blur
in a same sized photograph or other display without regard to
whither the camera is 3mp or a 12mp.
Click to expand...
That's a reasonable simplificationas far as it goes; I can run with that and the same thing holds true...

There's one thing hiding in Ray's model: what benefit are you getting fromthe extra MP's?

If the print size is identical, the only way you get a benefit from more MP's is if your printer is capable of showing the extra detail.

Let's assume it is.

Then, to get 3x more detail in the print, you will need 3x tighter control over camera shake.
RJNedimyer said:
Perhaps a better way to put it is the number of pixels are not as
important as how far each will be magnified to produce the final
print in this instance the 3mp file will have to be magnified 4X
larger than the 12mp pixels for the same size print or other
display.
Click to expand...
I guess I just get confused easily but the "magnification" idea confused me for a long time. The practical reality is that if we're actually going to do anything useful with those extra pixels, then by definition we're going to do something that makes them visible. Either we magnify more, or display with finer detail.

It works out the same: even if the print is the same size, it takes four "12mp pixels" to cover the area of one "3mp pixel."

Bottom line: if you expect to actually take advantage of your more-MP's camera, you've got to reduce camera shake -- by 2x in each direction when going from 3mp to 12mp.

Lots of folks assume they've done something significant by taking a shot at 9mp then resizing the whole thing to 0.5mp for display on this site... and expect that the resulting sharp photo is an indication of their photographic skill. A waste of time -- only with 100% crops can you really see if you are shooting carefully enough for the resolution of your camera.
RJNedimyer said:
Of course I might be all wet.
Click to expand...
Naaahhh... we're all a little damp though! :)
 
Pete Holzmann said:
Lots of folks assume they've done something significant by taking a
shot at 9mp then resizing the whole thing to 0.5mp for display on
this site... and expect that the resulting sharp photo is an
indication of their photographic skill.
Click to expand...
Not to be picky but "photographic skill" involves a lot more than taking "sharp" pictures. For some reason too many of us are hung up on sharpness as an end all. What about lighting, composition, subject matter, color etc? WITHIN REASON sharpness falls down the list of importance. Many pictures I've seen have too much PP sharpening added making them unnatural and unpleasant to look at.

--
Tom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/
 
tbcass said:
Not to be picky but "photographic skill" involves a lot more than
taking "sharp" pictures. For some reason too many of us are hung up
on sharpness as an end all. What about lighting, composition,
subject matter, color etc? WITHIN REASON sharpness falls down the
list of importance.
Click to expand...
I'll sign up for that class wholeheartedly! I think a lot of folks would benefit by learning to take great photos with a 640x480 CellPhone cam... then they'll be ready to do something with the extra resolution of a higher end camera like the s9000 ;)
 
I count sharpness in the area of "image quality". When composition, lighting etc. is ok or good and the sharpness is all wrong because of camera shake or whatever other reason, than for me the picture is a failure. I agree with you that the aspects you mentioned can make a picture great with almost any camera, but even so, when you or the camera ruins the image quality, alot is compromised.

Lack of sharpness and too much noise can really ruin the picture no matter what else.

Of course it differs per person how much softness and or noise is acceptable...enter the endless debates :)
 
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