does it work? (S40)

If I set the sharpness to more in the menu of S40, does it increase the sharpness in a reasonable way? did not try, but wanna know the answer sooner, better.

picotea said:

If I set the sharpness to more in the menu of S40, does it increase
the sharpness in a reasonable way? did not try, but wanna know the
answer sooner, better.

Click to expand...

There are 3 sharpness settings: (-) (0) (+)
The default is (0)

I set mine to (-) after I saw sharpening artifacts on my first photos. This is the second shot I took with this camera. It was taken full auto. Many sharpening artifacts are visible.

http://www.pbase.com/image/2852529/original

The artifacts are visible in the 4x6 print (fuju process), but not noticable to the uninformed. Since turning the sharpness down, I've noticed no digital artifacts in my images (well...that's not quite true...I did produce some strange noise recently when 25% of the frame was overexposed...). I generally apply a little unsharp mask when the photo is resized how I want it. However, I prefer not to have this happen in the camera.

I guess the point is that, yes, you can turn up the sharpening. However, since sharpening artifacts are visible at the default setting, why would you want to?

PS...note in the EXIF data that the camera focused at 13 m. Even with the focus miss, and with the wide open aperature, the print is sharper than what you typically see in 35mm prints from an auto-everything camera!

BTW...this was my camera's 2nd shot ever. The results improve with experience, I think.

Blimey, the sharpness setting doesn't work to well with peoples faces!

mango,
i've noticed from the exif data that you have firmware 1.0.0 -
not sure if that matters, but latest is 1.1.0 i think.
also, you shot in "fine" mode, not "superfine" so the
jaggies that you're seeing in the image might be due
to jpeg compression? just a thot...
submicron.

mango said:

...
I set mine to (-) after I saw sharpening artifacts on my first
photos. This is the second shot I took with this camera. It was
taken full auto. Many sharpening artifacts are visible.

http://www.pbase.com/image/2852529/original

The artifacts are visible in the 4x6 print (fuju process), but not
noticable to the uninformed. Since turning the sharpness down,
I've noticed no digital artifacts in my images (well...that's not
quite true...I did produce some strange noise recently when 25% of
the frame was overexposed...). I generally apply a little unsharp
mask when the photo is resized how I want it. However, I prefer
not to have this happen in the camera.
...

Click to expand...

submicron said:

mango,
i've noticed from the exif data that you have firmware 1.0.0 -
not sure if that matters, but latest is 1.1.0 i think.

Click to expand...

Yeah...I bought that camera about about an hour before I took that shot. I updated the firmware the next day, but ended up exchanging the camera because of bad pixels. The replecement came with the updated firmware and updated software.

submicron said:

also, you shot in "fine" mode, not "superfine" so the
jaggies that you're seeing in the image might be due
to jpeg compression? just a thot...
submicron.

Click to expand...

I believe the contrast lines are sharpening artifacts, not jpeg artifacts. However, thanks for the input. I posted the shot to demonstrate that (to my eye) sharpening should be turned down, not up from the default setting...I'm not worried about that photo or anything, and I know how to avoid the issue. I just posted such a lengthy response to a simple question because I've become something of a hack; experimenting with the camera, analyzing the results, reading/responding to issues that others are having with their digital cameras;-).

Anyway...thanks for the response.

BTW...why submicron? I've done a fair amount of imaging (STM & AFM, and TEM & SEM) at the submicron scale, and manipulations at the micron+ - range. Do you work in the sub-micron domain? Just curious.

submicron said:

submicron said:

...
I set mine to (-) after I saw sharpening artifacts on my first
photos. This is the second shot I took with this camera. It was
taken full auto. Many sharpening artifacts are visible.

http://www.pbase.com/image/2852529/original

The artifacts are visible in the 4x6 print (fuju process), but not
noticable to the uninformed. Since turning the sharpness down,
I've noticed no digital artifacts in my images (well...that's not
quite true...I did produce some strange noise recently when 25% of
the frame was overexposed...). I generally apply a little unsharp
mask when the photo is resized how I want it. However, I prefer
not to have this happen in the camera.
...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/mango

mango said:

BTW...why submicron? I've done a fair amount of imaging (STM &
AFM, and TEM & SEM) at the submicron scale, and manipulations at
the micron+ - range. Do you work in the sub-micron domain? Just
curious.

Click to expand...

no.... no... i'm a slave in silicon valley.
been working on a design for a .18 um chip...
got bored and decided to take a break one day...
started searching for digital photo forums...
found dpreview, and bingo! i'm hooked!!!

what kind of things do you image at submicron scale?
circuits? ICs? nanotech?

submicron said:

what kind of things do you image at submicron scale?
circuits? ICs? nanotech?

Click to expand...

Not doing it now...it was academic research. Mostly looking at the bahavior of surface-bound molecules as a function of electrochemical potential. The surfaces were generally atomically flat crystals of Au, or much rougher Au evaporated onto Si(1,0,0) wafers.

cheers