Reading mode: Light Dark

HELP: Trees, Fall Color, Poor Focus

Go to last post
R

RichO

Veteran Member
Messages
8,342
Reaction score
9
Location
San Antonio/, US
I went to Lost Maples yesterday, got there about 10 am...a bit later than I planned. Only spotty color on trees, but some were nice. I took a number of shots and all seemed really soft or poorly focused. I know the sun was really bright and over head most of the time, but even shots in the shade or away from the sun were all poorly focused.

Gee...I think I know how to focus my C2100UZ by now, but this was the first time I did shoot tree with reddish color...yet even the green trees were not focused well.

Odd thing is that other than the moon, I have mainly been shooting macros lately. This is the first time I have shot anything close to a landscape in some time.

Anyone had this problem?

Here is a shot I took just before I got to Lost Maples...(note the time on the image is wrong..should be 10am. - forgot to set for Daylight Savings Time).

This one was taken at f/7, 1/500s, 16mm, ISO 100...sun was overhead to the right. No filter other than UV. Outside temp

http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/large
http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/original



This is the best I got all day...with the exception of some close ups...

--
RichO :)
San Antonio, TX
http://www.pbase.com/richo/
http://www.richo.org/LearningCenter/digitalphoto/faq_olympus.htm
'Life is a dance, Love is the music.'
 
I've been experimenting. Sometimes my C2100UZ doesn't focus too well it seems to be a tad off.
Other shots are bang on
RichO said:
I went to Lost Maples yesterday, got there about 10 am...a bit
later than I planned. Only spotty color on trees, but some were
nice. I took a number of shots and all seemed really soft or
poorly focused. I know the sun was really bright and over head
most of the time, but even shots in the shade or away from the sun
were all poorly focused.

Gee...I think I know how to focus my C2100UZ by now, but this was
the first time I did shoot tree with reddish color...yet even the
green trees were not focused well.

Odd thing is that other than the moon, I have mainly been shooting
macros lately. This is the first time I have shot anything close
to a landscape in some time.

Anyone had this problem?

Here is a shot I took just before I got to Lost Maples...(note the
time on the image is wrong..should be 10am. - forgot to set for
Daylight Savings Time).

This one was taken at f/7, 1/500s, 16mm, ISO 100...sun was overhead
to the right. No filter other than UV. Outside temp

http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/large
http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/original

Click to expand...
 
Isabel,
Again...I realize that even taking shots of flowers.

There was no wind...and the shutter speed was 1/500s.

I went out and searched around for Sony 717 and D60 shots of fall color...they are ALL soft in focus on the trees.

I believe it is a weakness of present digital cameras. I know when I did shoot landscapes with my 35mm the leaves of trees were also soft...not enough detail in the grain of most 35 mm film.

I can now see why landscapes are most often shot with medium to large format cameras.

Someone show me digital images of trees at short (60ft) to medium telephoto (120-300ft) ranges that are tack sharp.

--
RichO :)
San Antonio, TX
http://www.pbase.com/richo/
http://www.richo.org/LearningCenter/digitalphoto/faq_olympus.htm
'Life is a dance, Love is the music.'
 
RichO said:
and the shutter speed was 1/500s.
Click to expand...
That would have to be SOME wind.. tornado? :-Þ
RichO said:
I went out and searched around for Sony 717 and D60 shots of fall
color...they are ALL soft in focus on the trees.
Click to expand...
Are they not better? I would have to say they are.
RichO said:
I believe it is a weakness of present digital cameras.
Click to expand...
I would agree with you totally on this! I have NEVER been happy with any of my tree shots when it comes to leaves and leaf details. They make for great background for DOF shots, but if trees are the main subject, they always look a tad blurry or over/under exposed.

Great point RichO!

--
Clicker
 
that with a shot like that, the smaller the aperture the better, but as the UZI like most Digicams has a shallow DOF for it's respective stop, F7 should have been more enough to snag the shot especially at 500th of a second - of course that example posted here is a vastly resized example and can't see the problem, Like the Nikon 950, I've found the UZI to be a good landscape camera (better than the E10 in fact) and you yourself are no slouch at landscape photopgraphy by any means.

The only thing I could put the problem down to was the AF not being able to lock on to anything properly and just guestimating something and the AF-OK light is Lying (the UZI, 950 and E10 are right nasty little buggers for lying when it suits them)..

--
Olympus C2100UZI +B300, Canon D60.

My Ugly mug and submitted Photos at -------->
http://www.photosig.com/viewuser.php?id=27855

 
Rich, I have the same exact problem with my cameras...It's very frustrating especially that this problem is a bit more obvious with IR images.
RichO said:
I went to Lost Maples yesterday, got there about 10 am...a bit
later than I planned. Only spotty color on trees, but some were
nice. I took a number of shots and all seemed really soft or
poorly focused. I know the sun was really bright and over head
most of the time, but even shots in the shade or away from the sun
were all poorly focused.

Gee...I think I know how to focus my C2100UZ by now, but this was
the first time I did shoot tree with reddish color...yet even the
green trees were not focused well.

Odd thing is that other than the moon, I have mainly been shooting
macros lately. This is the first time I have shot anything close
to a landscape in some time.

Anyone had this problem?

Here is a shot I took just before I got to Lost Maples...(note the
time on the image is wrong..should be 10am. - forgot to set for
Daylight Savings Time).

This one was taken at f/7, 1/500s, 16mm, ISO 100...sun was overhead
to the right. No filter other than UV. Outside temp

http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/large
http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/original



This is the best I got all day...with the exception of some close
ups...

--
RichO :)
San Antonio, TX
http://www.pbase.com/richo/
http://www.richo.org/LearningCenter/digitalphoto/faq_olympus.htm
'Life is a dance, Love is the music.'
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/psychephylax

Proud owner: Oly 2040Z, 2100UZ, B-300, WCON-08, OM-4, Tokina 35-105mm/3.5-4.5, Tokina 28-200mm/3.5-5.8, Vivitar 285HV

 
http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/original

Thanks for the replies and input. I guess I just have not been challenged to focus on a subject like trees before...odd cause I love trees.

Could part of this be due to the fact that digicams see green and red more than blue? ...so you get some kind of a blooming effect that reduces the apparent sharpness? This would be even in the grayscale images, but would it be with the B&W?
RichO said:
I went to Lost Maples yesterday, got there about 10 am...a bit
later than I planned. Only spotty color on trees, but some were
nice. I took a number of shots and all seemed really soft or
poorly focused. I know the sun was really bright and over head
most of the time, but even shots in the shade or away from the sun
were all poorly focused.

Gee...I think I know how to focus my C2100UZ by now, but this was
the first time I did shoot tree with reddish color...yet even the
green trees were not focused well.

Odd thing is that other than the moon, I have mainly been shooting
macros lately. This is the first time I have shot anything close
to a landscape in some time.

Anyone had this problem?

Here is a shot I took just before I got to Lost Maples...(note the
time on the image is wrong..should be 10am. - forgot to set for
Daylight Savings Time).

This one was taken at f/7, 1/500s, 16mm, ISO 100...sun was overhead
to the right. No filter other than UV. Outside temp

http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/large
http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/original



This is the best I got all day...with the exception of some close
ups...

--
RichO :)
San Antonio, TX
http://www.pbase.com/richo/
http://www.richo.org/LearningCenter/digitalphoto/faq_olympus.htm
'Life is a dance, Love is the music.'
Click to expand...
--
RichO :)
San Antonio, TX
http://www.pbase.com/richo/
http://www.richo.org/LearningCenter/digitalphoto/faq_olympus.htm
'Life is a dance, Love is the music.'
 
i took a whole bunch this fall, and the lighting is the key.some of mine washed out. then i realized, it cant just be sunny, to get the glow. the sun has to be shining ON the trees. then they take on demention.

a little gama adj & saturation on an editer helps a bit too.

see:



or like this:

 
Richo,take a look at the second photo on this page below. I was dissappointed as well with the leaves poor focus.(no wind) This is what spurred me to start thinking about getting a 5 mp camera (will it help?)
http://www.golfballs2000.com/icestorm.html
RichO said:
I went to Lost Maples yesterday, got there about 10 am...a bit
later than I planned. Only spotty color on trees, but some were
nice. I took a number of shots and all seemed really soft or
poorly focused. I know the sun was really bright and over head
most of the time, but even shots in the shade or away from the sun
were all poorly focused.

Gee...I think I know how to focus my C2100UZ by now, but this was
the first time I did shoot tree with reddish color...yet even the
green trees were not focused well.

Odd thing is that other than the moon, I have mainly been shooting
macros lately. This is the first time I have shot anything close
to a landscape in some time.

Anyone had this problem?

Here is a shot I took just before I got to Lost Maples...(note the
time on the image is wrong..should be 10am. - forgot to set for
Daylight Savings Time).

This one was taken at f/7, 1/500s, 16mm, ISO 100...sun was overhead
to the right. No filter other than UV. Outside temp

http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/large
http://www.pbase.com/image/6937457/original



This is the best I got all day...with the exception of some close
ups...

--
RichO :)
San Antonio, TX
http://www.pbase.com/richo/
http://www.richo.org/LearningCenter/digitalphoto/faq_olympus.htm
'Life is a dance, Love is the music.'
Click to expand...
--
Bill C
c-2100,C-700
 
Wow! When was this? I see what you mean, but the second one is still a dramatic shot.

I am not convince that 5MP will help to correct this...in print yes, but on the screen probably not. I think that there are min pixel sizes need to probably display certain items...leaves having curved lines around the edges need more than thin straight lines....

I need to find some of my 35 mm slides to see if they are any better.

I think another problem I had was that it was a very bright and clear day...oddly enough I think this is very very bad for digital cameras...they do not handle bright reflected sunlight very well.

Sunlight is too blue...and what seems to happen is the red blooms and the blue peaks...you see a spreading in the red channel in little dots all over the blue channel....

Yesterday the sky was really blue...we had a cold front follow on the heels of a cold rain...the next day the air was dry and clear...the sky was deep blue without even a polarizer. I put on a polarizer and the sky became almost dark blue.

--
RichO :)
San Antonio, TX
http://www.pbase.com/richo/
http://www.richo.org/LearningCenter/digitalphoto/faq_olympus.htm
'Life is a dance, Love is the music.'
 
Hi, Rich! Reading your post, it occurred to me that the answer to your question is hinted at when you talk about mostly taking macros lately. In closeup photography, you're concentrating the available pixels in a relatively small and circumscribed area. Conversely, in landscape photography your dispersing these precious photo building picture elements over a much broader area. If you think of your digital photo as analagous to a mosaic composed of 2 million tiles of uniform shape, with each able to represent a single color, then I think it logically follows that using these 2 millions tiles to represent a single leaf will allow you to achieve great detail and subtle variations in color and shape within the leaf, but using these tiles to represent a landscape containing thousands or millions of leaves, trees, blades of grass, etc. can only mean that you can create an "impressionistic" rather than "realistic" rendition of the scene before you. It really boils down to simple mathematics! Nothwithstanding the marvelous ability of your eyes to detect and discern detail in the scene and of your fabulous UZi lens to resolve this detail, you still have only two million tiles to create your photo mosaic. I really like the photo, by the way!

Bob
http://www.pbase.com/caseus
 
Hello again, Rich! I don't have and answer to this question except to say that the more pixels you have to work with the more detail you will see in the photos. Personally, I've always loved the Impressionists!

Bob
 
I really haven't taken shots concentrating on trees yet. I'll have to try that. In a few days when our trees start turning more, I'll give it a try. I would think more pixels would help, but I don't know if you are ever going to get tack sharp images of each leaf.
 
You are probably right about digitals and leaves...they never do look great...even with my new Sony 717.
Isabel
 


I've never been satisfied with foliage from ANY of my 7 digitals!!!!

This photo was taken early one morning before the fall foliage deepened in color. It was a dull day with a slight breeze. On checking the EXIF info, the shutter speed was only 1/20 and f stop 5.6. The camera was brand new and I probably took it totally automatically. I used a multiply layer and unsharp masking. I think it's quite acceptable...of course looked slightly better not resized and compressed so much.

Took some pics this mornign with the 2100. It was absolutely still out...the foliage wasn't great.

I'm expecting the Sony back any day now. As soon as I have it I will take some more leaf pictures...assuming there'll be some left...they're falling fast.
Isabel
 
Isabel, I'am not sure how this stacks up against the uzi. While you can see the individuall leaves in your photo they do seem a little out of focus
Isabel Cutler said:


I've never been satisfied with foliage from ANY of my 7 digitals!!!!
This photo was taken early one morning before the fall foliage
deepened in color. It was a dull day with a slight breeze. On
checking the EXIF info, the shutter speed was only 1/20 and f stop
5.6. The camera was brand new and I probably took it totally
automatically. I used a multiply layer and unsharp masking. I
think it's quite acceptable...of course looked slightly better not
resized and compressed so much.
Took some pics this mornign with the 2100. It was absolutely still
out...the foliage wasn't great.
I'm expecting the Sony back any day now. As soon as I have it I
will take some more leaf pictures...assuming there'll be some
left...they're falling fast.
Isabel
Click to expand...
--
Bill C
c-2100,C-700
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top