S2 sharpness not all that...

David Moyses · Oct 30, 2002

I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for white balance.

Thanks

old photography man · Oct 30, 2002

I also just bought the camera and am quite satisfied with it. Of course, satisfaction is a very subjective expression. What kind of lense are you using (important factor)? Also, I seldom hear the complaint about pictures being underexposed. In my case, most of my underexposed pictures are operator error, such as: using the wrong metering mode, dialing in a wrong compensation factor, etc. I use the built-in flash all the time, and it works out quite well. For sharpness, I also experience a bit soft. However, I am trying to convince myself that I have a "relatively" soft lense. But for the most part, the resolution is great, and I am printing tons of 8x10s that can't distinguish from film. I suggest you to test your lens using a tripod and do so a different apertures and see if it makes any difference. Also, consider dialing in more "sharpness" under sharpness and see if it makes any differences.

For more info, type in a search, there are tons of post regarding soft focus.

David Moyses said:
I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I
have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing
this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering
returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any
settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG
STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

Thanks

Teski · Oct 30, 2002

I agree with ourcookie that the lens is a big factor. The other thing to think about with regards to sharpness is camera shake. I'm not saying that this is the answer, but to test your camera, try putting it on a tripod and see if there's a difference.

Teski

ourcookie said:
For more info, type in a search, there are tons of post regarding
soft focus.

David Moyses said:

I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I
have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing
this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering
returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any
settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG
STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Ken Mai · Oct 30, 2002

David Moyses said:
I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp.

You could try upping the in-camera shapening to hard. Or shoot RAW and sharpen in post-processing. Can you post some samples of the un-sharp images? Are you shooting from a tripod? What lens are you using?

David Moyses said:
I have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed.

Can you post some samples of the underexposure? Does the S2 meter read the same as your F100?

David Moyses said:
My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering returning it to ythe store.

Did you shoot print or slide film with your F100? If it was print film, the lab may have been correcting your exposures.

David Moyses said:
Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

This will help, since in some cases the auto whitebalance will not make the right choice. Please post some examples of the problem shots, so that we can have more info.

David Moyses · Oct 30, 2002

Im using a Nikkor 28-105 F3.5-5.6 lense. I have never had any sharpn3ess problems with it on the F100. Is it different with the S2?

ourcookie said:
For more info, type in a search, there are tons of post regarding
soft focus.

David Moyses said:

I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I
have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing
this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering
returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any
settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG
STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

Thanks

Click to expand...

old photography man · Oct 30, 2002

I have read that the 28-105 is a very sharp lense; therefore, I can rule out the lense issue. Try take some samples shot with a tripod, or upping your shutter speed and see.

David Moyses said:
ourcookie said:

For more info, type in a search, there are tons of post regarding
soft focus.

David Moyses said:

I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I
have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing
this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering
returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any
settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG
STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

David Moyses · Oct 30, 2002

Thanks I'll try a few more sample shots using available light today and try and upload the photo's to show. I just saw David Blecmans thread and images and mine don't even come close with sharpness, so much so that I beginning to rule out my abilities as a fault. Im pretty sure there is something wrong with the S2 I was sold. Any ideas how long Fuji take to rectify the problems if it is sent back? I can't afford to be without it for long.

ourcookie said:
David Moyses said:

ourcookie said:

For more info, type in a search, there are tons of post regarding
soft focus.

David Moyses said:

I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I
have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing
this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering
returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any
settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG
STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

rick decker · Oct 30, 2002

David:

There can be some variance in exposure and your camera may shoot under a little. Have you double checked all the appropriate settings? It's hard to visualize colors too bright if the camera is underexposing. Have you shot Velvia before? The S1 and S2 tend to oversaturate colors and that may be what you are seeing. The images are similar to velvia. Yes they are not "true" but as Fuji (probably marketing) has not put it, that is what people want to see. My S1 tends to underexpose and I have a hard time trusting the meter so I bracket. I have found that what looks good on the lCD may wind up looking underexposed on the monitor. If you want to judge sharpness, set your camera on a tripod and shoot some fine newspaper print and see how it looks with the various settings. IMHO sharpness is thet next most controversial issue after getting the correct color when printing!

David Moyses said:
I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I
have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing
this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering
returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any
settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG
STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

Thanks

stuart82021 · Oct 31, 2002

Most of us, upon using the S2 for the very first time, have complained about sharpness issues. Coming from a medium format camera, the Contax 645, we were not used to having to tweak up sharpness with software! I too thought the S2 was VERY unsharp in the beginning. Once I played around with images in PhotoShop 7.0 and utilized Unsharp Mask, I found that I could crank up sharpness to more than I would ever need. Initially, I bought and returned four lenses and wound up buying a ($1,500.00 ) 28-70 ED IF AF-S lens, just so that I would not have doubts about using a lesser quality lens. It takes a "getting used to" this type of technology! It no longer involves looking at a negative or print and seeing sharpness! Good luck....give it a good try with Unsharp Mask. Stuart.

robinchee · Oct 31, 2002

try setting the sharpness setting on the s2pro to hard sharpening .. this is what gary fong recommends .. and it works great for me too ..

Fred Braun · Oct 31, 2002

David,

I have used the S1 since It first came out and now the S2. I'm not a proffessional photographer, but I do have a little experience with shooting for my 3rd year of all the soccer and laccrose pictures for my kids high school. 1000s of files and I'm still learning how to use the S2. When I first got the S2 I was very dissappointed. I thought I had a bad camera. Others suggested I buy better glass. So I did and that helped some. But I sold my S1 and I could'nt go without a camera in the middle of soccer season. So I had to work with what I had. Which meant alot of post prossesing. Now that soccer is over my S2 has been sent back to Fuji. It's been 2 weeks now and no response. I hope they replace it. Below is why I returned it.

This was shot with Tamron 28-105 2.8 on a tripod.

$2400.00 for this???

Kind Regards

Fred

.Ray · Oct 31, 2002

Many reviews suggests the 12mp pics gives about 8mp worth of detail, could this "lack" of detail at 12mp be the cause of complaints of sharpness at 12mp?

Think of it the other way, take a 6mp pic and resample it to 12mp in Photoshop and you'll end up with a blur looking image, which isn't actually blur, just doesn't have 12mp worth of fine details.

I now shoot mostly at 6mp and find most my pictures are as sharp as I'd expect.

Ray

robinchee said:
try setting the sharpness setting on the s2pro to hard sharpening
.. this is what gary fong recommends .. and it works great for me
too ..

Paul F Caldwell · Oct 31, 2002

Hello Stuart,

I have not shot much medium format, but I am interested in your post as I have scanned quite a bit of film. Your medium format negative or slide shouldn't need any sharpening, however if you scanned it in, it should have at least based on my experience. Scanning is alot like Digital capture since you have all the same problems, like aliasing. Of course alot depends on the scanner being used and all mine work was with lower end units, never a drum scan.

As for the S2 work, actually I have a question for you also. The main reason you have to sharpen anything from the S2 is the AA filter. I feel that on the S2, the AA filter is rather harsh, ie. it softens up the images quite a bit. If you just transfer the image from the camera to your PC with no sharpening they will look very soft indeed. Now this is true for any digital camera DSLR I know of however. If you are shooting jpgs, then make sure you have at least standard sharpening turned on. If you are shooting raw, which is all I shoot, then you can control the sharpening during the conversion. I always sharpen during the raw conversion no matter what the software I am using, then will add possibly some more sharpening later in PS depending on the image.

Now my question, what is your opinion on the S2 vs. medium format. Are you shooting medium format in studio or outdoors.

Thanks
Paul Caldwell
[email protected]

stuart r. nadelson said:
Most of us, upon using the S2 for the very first time, have
complained about sharpness issues. Coming from a medium format
camera, the Contax 645, we were not used to having to tweak up
sharpness with software! I too thought the S2 was VERY unsharp in
the beginning. Once I played around with images in PhotoShop 7.0
and utilized Unsharp Mask, I found that I could crank up sharpness
to more than I would ever need. Initially, I bought and returned
four lenses and wound up buying a ($1,500.00 ) 28-70 ED IF AF-S
lens, just so that I would not have doubts about using a lesser
quality lens. It takes a "getting used to" this type of
technology! It no longer involves looking at a negative or print
and seeing sharpness! Good luck....give it a good try with Unsharp
Mask. Stuart.

Joe Passante · Oct 31, 2002

Fred Braun wrote:
Fred:

Something is definitely wrong. There was no exit info. What was your shutter speed. Could be motion blur espeically looking at the how much more unsharp the womans face is compared to the other subjects.

Fred Braun said:
This was shot with Tamron 28-105 2.8 on a tripod.

$2400.00 for this???

Kind Regards

Fred

Paul F Caldwell · Oct 31, 2002

I agree that your image is blurred, and too soft. However from my experience the Tamron 28-105 at F2.8 is also very soft. Not soft enough to cause that amount of softness, but it is a soft lens wide open. That is why I got rid of mine.

I guess your camera is in the shop now, but I am interested in one thing. When you took the shot were your sure that the focus indicator showed a lock? Reason being I have found that in many cases, if you don't use the center indicator, that many times in lower light, the other four indicators have trouble getting a lock. However this info is not transmitted back to the camera as fast as I would like to see.

The other test, and I wish you had done this before you sent it off, is a manual focus vs AF focus on several test subjects. So far I have had some quality issues with my S2, but Focus hasn't been one of them.

Since you shot with the S1, I am sure you adding some sharpening during the shooting.

With my old 28-105 Tamron, I did several tests at F 2.8 and up and found that mine lens didn't really get sharp until around F4. Since I really needed it for the low light shooting, I sold it.

Paul Caldwell

Fred Braun said:
David,
I have used the S1 since It first came out and now the S2. I'm not
a proffessional photographer, but I do have a little experience
with shooting for my 3rd year of all the soccer and laccrose
pictures for my kids high school. 1000s of files and I'm still
learning how to use the S2. When I first got the S2 I was very
dissappointed. I thought I had a bad camera. Others suggested I buy
better glass. So I did and that helped some. But I sold my S1 and I
could'nt go without a camera in the middle of soccer season. So I
had to work with what I had. Which meant alot of post prossesing.
Now that soccer is over my S2 has been sent back to Fuji. It's been
2 weeks now and no response. I hope they replace it. Below is why I
returned it.

This was shot with Tamron 28-105 2.8 on a tripod.

$2400.00 for this???

Kind Regards

Fred

mhawker · Oct 31, 2002

If I could add my un-educated view, I agree with the comment about motion blur. Could it be that the shutter speed was set too low due to shooting in low light. i.e. it looks like the flash went off, but could the camera not have "seen" that?

With the shutter speed slowed down (due to low light) that blur would make sense.

BTW, just received my S2 (for my girlfriend) and from the first few pics, I am also disheartened about having to "adjust" a picture after I take it.

Mike

Kevin Wenker · Oct 31, 2002

David,

I had a 28-105 that developed a real focus problem. I was using it on a D1X and thought it was the camera. Put it on my F100 and found out it was the lense. Either the focus mechanism is bad or a lens shifted because it will not focus properly beyond 25 feet. Before you blame the S2, look at the lense.
Kevin

David Moyses said:
Im using a Nikkor 28-105 F3.5-5.6 lense. I have never had any
sharpn3ess problems with it on the F100. Is it different with the
S2?

Richard L.McKean · Oct 31, 2002

David Moyses said:
I have just purchased an S2 and frankly im not all that happy. The
sharpness is a little disappointing shooting in Jpeg Fine 12mp. I
have also found the colours too bright and every shot is about a
stop under exposed...not what you'd expect from a camera costing
this much. My F100 did a much better job, and I am considering
returning it to ythe store.

Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone help me with any
settings to improve these problems. I am currently using ORG ORG
STD settings.

Does manually setting whitebalance each time you use the camera
help in colour balance, as I have only tried the auto mode for
white balance.

Thanks

David

Change the camera settings to ORG, STAND, STAND. to start with, try using the color balance #1, we have been doing some extensive test shooting and when doing a color balance #1 is the best. #3 causes to much blue color. not sure about #2. Anyway, try using the histogram setting where by you first shoot the camera on a 18% gray card, then adjust the F-stop so that the white peak in in the middle of the histogram, them shoot the S-2 and do a custom white balance, check the historgram so that what you are ultimately looking for is that the R,G, and B will be evenly distributed across the botton of the histogram. One you have done this it basically puts the CCD chip in Sync. If you don't know each CCD chip in each camera has it's own individuality, for lack of a better work. This customizes the color spectrum so that all the colors fall into place. I have seen 40 x 60 prints from the S-2 shoot in Fine JPEG and the large prints looked fantastic!!. Anyway, I hope all this helps, for I feel the S-2 far out classes the Nikon D-100 and the Canon D-60.
Sincerely
Richard
DennyelectraVision
E-mail [email protected]

Fred Braun · Oct 31, 2002

Full EXIF Info
Date/Time 12-Oct-2002 18:54:29
Make FujiFilm
Model FinePix S2Pro
Flash Used Yes
Focal Length 57 mm
Exposure Time 1/125 sec
Aperture f/2.8
ISO Equivalent 400
Exposure Bias
White Balance
Metering Mode center weighted (2)
JPEG Quality (3)
Exposure Program shutter priority (4)
Focus Distance

rick decker · Oct 31, 2002

Paul: Although not addressed to me and although I have done only 3 or 4 S2 prints as I am not an S2 owner (so take it for what it is worth), the 6mp cameras are more equal to 35mm not medium format (IMHO). Another factor is the quality of scan or print and lens. I have done 24x36 from an 80-200 Tokina ATX AF N8008S with Velvia. Yes some S2 shots will print as well as MF but my feeling is not all.

Paul Caldwell said:
I have not shot much medium format, but I am interested in your
post as I have scanned quite a bit of film. Your medium format
negative or slide shouldn't need any sharpening, however if you
scanned it in, it should have at least based on my experience.
Scanning is alot like Digital capture since you have all the same
problems, like aliasing. Of course alot depends on the scanner
being used and all mine work was with lower end units, never a drum
scan.
As for the S2 work, actually I have a question for you also. The
main reason you have to sharpen anything from the S2 is the AA
filter. I feel that on the S2, the AA filter is rather harsh, ie.
it softens up the images quite a bit. If you just transfer the
image from the camera to your PC with no sharpening they will look
very soft indeed. Now this is true for any digital camera DSLR I
know of however. If you are shooting jpgs, then make sure you have
at least standard sharpening turned on. If you are shooting raw,
which is all I shoot, then you can control the sharpening during
the conversion. I always sharpen during the raw conversion no
matter what the software I am using, then will add possibly some
more sharpening later in PS depending on the image.
Now my question, what is your opinion on the S2 vs. medium format.
Are you shooting medium format in studio or outdoors.

Thanks
Paul Caldwell
[email protected]

stuart r. nadelson said:

Most of us, upon using the S2 for the very first time, have
complained about sharpness issues. Coming from a medium format
camera, the Contax 645, we were not used to having to tweak up
sharpness with software! I too thought the S2 was VERY unsharp in
the beginning. Once I played around with images in PhotoShop 7.0
and utilized Unsharp Mask, I found that I could crank up sharpness
to more than I would ever need. Initially, I bought and returned
four lenses and wound up buying a ($1,500.00 ) 28-70 ED IF AF-S
lens, just so that I would not have doubts about using a lesser
quality lens. It takes a "getting used to" this type of
technology! It no longer involves looking at a negative or print
and seeing sharpness! Good luck....give it a good try with Unsharp
Mask. Stuart.

Click to expand...

--

S2 sharpness not all that...

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