E-PL1 blurry photos

Alan, i really doubt you could get much better with another similar camera in that example of the house - and your dog pic is on further looking at it quite excellent imo.

Can you upload a "good" photo you have taken?

Alan Pine said:

One more example. This seem overall blurry and not clear at all. The leaves of the tree have no detail at all in them

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Did you see my post???? Where are the original resolution pics? You posted all the resized pics. They all look sharp!

The cloest conclusion so far is you are just trolling.

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My photos: http://www.fluidr.com/photos/testdasi/random

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

Not everything in the picture is going to be sharp.

Yep - I know what you mean - I felt this in exactly the same way comming from a 4mpix SZ to the 12Mpix EP1....

I think it is because the resolution is so high that even the smallest of movements makes a noticable (at pixel level) blur.... I know what you seek and that is the kind of crispness that can cut steel!! - EPL1 should be able to deliver

First off Try a tripod shot with IS off, ISO 200 and say @14mm with f3.5.... (do this on somthing at a close to mid distance - to rule out atmospheric softness)

If that is not sharp then may be a cam problem!

But now try zooming to 42mm and move the appature to f8 - is that sharp? - should be...

If these come out sharp then the cam is ok...

Next step IS...

Try some hand helds (no IS) with same settings but get your shutter faster than 1/640 sec (will need good light)...- should be nice and sharp - but maybe very (i mean very very very) slightly softer than tripod (I notice these cams can pick up seriously small movement)...

Now same settings just turn on the IS - results should be the same kinda sharpness...

If all that has gone ok - start bringing down your shutter speed (probably to around 1/60) or so if you keep very still) - at this slower speed I find IS better than at high speeds... You should with care get good shots at 1/60 - 1/80 sec ... I know this is way faster than most people will quote, but to elimenate the smallest blur it is very very dificlt at the clasic 1/focal length speeds - I belive with the high sensitivity of the new cams and the power to pixel zoom this rule is adiquit, not best guide....

Also you may find this still is not producing the sharpness you want - in that case use multi shot 3fps - when taking a shot, keep as still as poss (obviously) and hold down for at least 3 shots - in most cases you will find 1 a fair bit sharper than the other 2... micro blur/movement is diffrent at each shot so 1 comes out better (most of the time).

I think that these tests should establish a fault if it exists or enable you to home in on a sharper image!













This last image illustrates a worst case sharpness for the kit (and most other) lens, with a small as possible appature, which should be softnening the hell out the image due to diffraction (which on a 4/3 sensor just starts setting in from F11 up)

aex,

I dont even know what trolling is but it doesnt sound good. I am not trying to make this camera sound bad. I havent been a member of dpreview before so i didnt even know that it was being resized. It showed the same size upload 2.5 mb so I assumed it wasnt resizing

maybe you guys can help me sort this out. If I look at the same photo on my local system, which happens to come up in Picasa photo viewer, it looks terrible. If i go to the dpreview forum and click twice on the photo to make it around the same size it still doesnt look that good. If i go to my photo gallery in dpreview and select 'original size' it looks great, almost like it came from a different camera. Is there some kind of sharpening that goes on in the dpreview gallery that doesnt show elsewhere?

aex, i dont know where your getting the idea about the reduced size. If i look at the photo in the dpreview gallery it shows as the 12mp resolution

are you shooting at highest jpg quality? 2,5mb is about half as big as it should be...

i am so shocked... I am displaying my images in the microsoft photo viewer and they look totally different. They are much better. I've never had a problem with the picasa photo viewer and would have believed that could be the problem.

these photos are on the Large/Normal setting which is the default. I will try with Large/Fine but in the past, with other cameras, I couldnt tell the difference except the file was twice as big

alan

you are a head scratcher

why do you have an viewer to start with????

just copy your pics into a folder on your computer and click on it.

in windows it just opens up default windows viewer...

actually thats all i am doing is double clicking the photo. I guess the default photo viewer became picasa when i installed that at some point. Up to now its been a fine way to view images

i appreciate all of your comments and apologize for not realizing sooner what was going on

Thanks
Alan

Alan Pine said:

i appreciate all of your comments and apologize for not realizing sooner what was going on

Thanks
Alan

Click to expand...

Hi mate,

Firstly my apology for saying you're trolling. Just that it has been relatively common lately.

Only you can access the original pics from the gallery, I believe. The best resolution I can get was 1600x1200. That's why I asked for the original pics.

And you don't have to apologize. Most of us here want to help other MFT users get the best out of their cameras. I screw up all the time, for example, so I'm glad you find out it's nothing to do with the camera.
Now go out enjoy taking pictures.
Cheers
Aex

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My photos: http://www.fluidr.com/photos/testdasi/random

Glad you found a solution. Enjoy your excellent camera.

Alan Pine said:

i am so shocked... I am displaying my images in the microsoft photo viewer and they look totally different. They are much better. I've never had a problem with the picasa photo viewer and would have believed that could be the problem.

Click to expand...

I remember that on my old pc certain images looked awfull (similar to heavy compressed divx movies) in Photoshop when viewed for example at 66% but looked fine when viewed both at larger and smaller sizes- the same effect didn't happen with other programmes or on other computers. I never found an answer why, wheter it was the (lousy) graphic card in combination with Photoshop or something else, but it had definitly to to with the original image size and how much reduced it was displayed.

Software and display is important.. When i view pics on the Laptop HD LCD it doesn't deliver the wow effect. Now i use my LED TV as my primary monitor through a HDMI connection.. Picture now look lot better with full HD. Also default Microsoft picture viewer is not that good better to view it with Photoshop or FS Viewer (My new favorite)..

Alan Pine said:

i am so shocked... I am displaying my images in the microsoft photo viewer and they look totally different. They are much better. I've never had a problem with the picasa photo viewer and would have believed that could be the problem

Click to expand...

I had the reverse problem. Picasa always looks great. There seemed to be a problem with anti-aliasing on the MS product.

Alan Pine said:

these photos are on the Large/Normal setting which is the default. I will try with Large/Fine but in the past, with other cameras, I couldnt tell the difference except the file was twice as big

Click to expand...

If the photog doesn't get the exposure or focus quite right, there's a problem. If you're saving to a smaller file, then the problem is aggravated. Then maybe you decide to crop down some, losing still more. And when you resize for the web, you more still. So it goes on down the line. Then at some point a viewer may not really have enough info...

Honestly, I don't begin to understand all that stuff but large-superfine is the highest quality (next to RAW, if you're developing) that you can get. And you have to access it from menu...I can look it up if you need. As the adage goes, garbage in garbage out. I can set for the largest file and if I screw up taking the image later on, maybe starting from quality can save the day for me. Certainly if you decide to start making enlargements, you'll want bigger files.

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Gear listed in profile under "plan."

Someone stop me before I buy again, please!
Dave

I own an E-PL1 camera on a certain combination of settings(proposed by Oly HQs) I do get blurry images far worse than those from Alan.

I am not trolling believe me I do get blurry images. Nowadays they don't occur so often, and Oly does not want to admit it. I am still not 100% sure when they occur, most of the times when my speed is at 1/60 or 1/80 and any higher it does not occur.

ttan98 said:

I own an E-PL1 camera on a certain combination of settings(proposed by Oly HQs) I do get blurry images far worse than those from Alan.

I am not trolling believe me I do get blurry images. Nowadays they don't occur so often, and Oly does not want to admit it. I am still not 100% sure when they occur, most of the times when my speed is at 1/60 or 1/80 and any higher it does not occur.

Click to expand...

Coming from Oly DSLRs, I agree that the AF is trickier with EPL1. Have you tried using magnified view to make sure your AF spot is on what you want?

--
Gear listed in profile under "plan."

Someone stop me before I buy again, please!
Dave

yes I tried many options, including magnifications(I use it in most situations), OLy dist. sugest that I don't use Sat. set to +1 and contrast set -1 and sharpness set +1, this combo MAY cause the problem, what a bunch of b_ll is that. Instead use standard setting!

Some from this forum suggest use anti-shock setting to 1/8 and in critical situation shoot 3 continuous shots to reduce the effect.