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D7000--Is this image sharp?

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mtoneill

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This is about the sharpest image I've been able to get from my D7000. It seems off to me, but maybe, after reading so many threads about the D7000, I've convinced myself that all my pictures are slightly out of focus.

The picture was taken handheld, with a Nikon 70-300mm lens.

Thanks





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Nikon D7000, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8, Nikon 70-300mm
 
I am no expert, but to me I see:

1. Overexposed - use Exp Comp.
2. Slightly OOF.

Try using AF fine tune.
 
Looks okay. Depends what you were focusing on. Depth of field at f/5 is reasonably narrow especially at a telephoto like 180mm! Parts of the stamen look perfectly focussed and if that's your focal point, it would make sense for the petals in front and behind the focal point to appear blurry.

Suggest increasing the apeture and upping the ISO instead to make up for it.

No blown highlights (I've only had a cursory glance) and think the exposure is okay. Easily fixed if shot in RAW unless you've clipped.
 
addit

Actually, yes, I think minus 1/3 may have helped with the highlight on the stamens that look slightly clipped from the way the sun is falling on them.
 
Consideing it's hand held, 180mm @ 1/200 sec. , I'd say it's about as sharp as you could expect.
 
Sorry but it dosn't look sharp to me. My canon S95 point and shoot does allot better then that.
 
the blur you are seeing is caused by the extremely narrow DOF. Stop your lens down to f11 and you will get the whole flower in focus.
 
I would agree that this is about right (at least relatively speaking) in terms of sharpness based on f5 and shutter speed. I find on mine that if you're out at 200-300mm, you need to jack up the SS to get really sharp photos. You were at iso 100, so you could have bumped that up a bit to increase SS without adding noticable noise.

And not a valid comparison with P&S b/c of the large depth of field on those. And I doubt the bee would have been in focus anyway on a P&S at that speed.
 
wlad said:
the blur you are seeing is caused by the extremely narrow DOF. Stop your lens down to f11 and you will get the whole flower in focus.
Click to expand...
Concur with Wlad. f11 for flowers works well. You should be getting tack sharp at that zoom setting with that lens. Don't be too proud to fire off a three or four shot burst if you're pushing the envelope for shutter speed. One of them is likely to be sharp:



 
you have blown the reds badly, which in turn does not give you definition around the edges of the flower, which doesnt bode well for sharpness in the image.
 
misterK said:
Consideing it's hand held, 180mm @ 1/200 sec. , I'd say it's about as sharp as you could expect.
Click to expand...
I agree. Don't forget that the standard formula of 1/focal length for the min shutter speed (1/180th in this case) isn't exactly correct because of the sensor size. Since this is a crop camera, at 180mm the min shutter speed should be 1/(focal length x 1.5) or 1/270th of a second.

Of course this is just a simple rule of thumb. Some people have very good technique and can hand hold at speeds less than that and other people have terrible technique and need to use even faster shutter speeds.
 
It's sharp where it is in focus. If you wanted the entire flower in focus, the depth of field is much too shallow.
 
Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.

So, here's what I did. I put the D7000 on a tripod, bumped up shutter speed to 1000, and aperature to f14. Here's what I got. Would you consider this image well-focused?





--
Nikon D90. Nikon 70-300mm, 18-85mm
Sigma 70-200mm f2.8
 
mtoneill said:
This is about the sharpest image I've been able to get from my D7000. It seems off to me, but maybe, after reading so many threads about the D7000, I've convinced myself that all my pictures are slightly out of focus.

The picture was taken handheld, with a Nikon 70-300mm lens.

Thanks
Click to expand...
Sorry. Unfortunately your flower picture does not look sharp to me, even though I prefer flower photos that are not too sharp. Personally, I found the Nikkor 70-300 VR a poor choice for photographing flowers. I still don't have a great close focusing flower lens, but as you can see, the Tokina 16-50 f2.8. will do in a pinch.





And this was shot with a Tamron 17-50 f2.8. Note also I used a D3000 for this shot because the CCD sensor does a better job in capturing fuchsia, red, and violet colors. Fuchsia is particularly difficult to capture the color correctly with a CMOS sensor (too easy to over-saturate the red channel), but with the CCD sensor of the D3000, it is very easy to capture the colors correctly without over-saturation of the reds.





For tiny flowers it is hard to beat a pocket camera. This flower is only about an inch in diameter and shot with a little Fujifilm pocket camera, hand held.





Best regards,
Jon
 
That's getting closer, but you want to stay at ISO 100 for flowers, otherwise noise starts to creep in. You certainly don't need higher than 1/350 with your VR on handheld or on a tripod. The depth of field at that long distance is pretty thin, such that the middle slice of the iris is in focus but enough is out to be a bit distracting. If I were taking this shot, I wouldn't go much further out than 100mm (the 70-300 is extremely sharp at that FL) and f11, which should get most of the subject in focus.

The 50mm 1.8 is what I use on flowers for the most part, it's insanely sharp. And cheap!
 
This one is underexposed. If you do not mind the loss of DOF, the sharpest aperture for the 70-300 @200mm is around f/8, see here

http://www.lenstip.com/229.4-Lens_review-Nikon_Nikkor_AF-S_70-300_mm_f_4.5-5.6G_IF-ED_VR_Image_resolution.html

If sharpness is your primary concern, that graph would suggest getting a bit closer and shooting at 135mm f/8. Also, if you are on a tripod, turn off VR, enable shutter delay to avoid mirror induced vibration and use a timer or remote to release the shutter.
 
Jack Hogan said:
This one is underexposed.
Click to expand...
It depends on your definition of overexposed. With much more exposure, the detail in the bright areas would have been lost. I think the exposure is fine; it just needs a different tone curve to increase the gamma.
 
You are correct: exposure is subjective and subject to artistic intent. Mine was just a little feedback to the OP, as he seemed to struggle with exposure on the previous image. On my calibrated/profiled screen, it looks undereposed to me - and in fact the top left of the histogram is empty. Simply adding a white control point to the image (5 seconds in CNX2), brings it up to a more pleasing level, imho, while correcting a slight color cast:



 
I think this is a very nice image. I like to shoot flowers pretty wide open to maximize the blurred background and narrow the depth of field to one small section. As you have done here. I would not, however, use such an image to judge sharpness. As others have stated, very little will be sharp at such a setting. The blown reds might be more important, but no one has identified the main reason the red channel overexposed: you were shooting in direct light. The colors still look good to me. The only thing I would have changed would have been a focus on the bee, but it appears to be in some shade so that would have been tough (getting focus with low contrast). Wait for a cloud to pass over and try again.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/brev00
 
I see several problems working against you. The first is the shutter speed. At 180mm the minimum shutter speed should be 1/270 (or roughly 1/300) rather than 1/1 because of the crop factor. In trying to keep the shutter speed up you were forced to use a larger aperture than you would have wished. These results were dictated by your choice of ISO, presumably because you wanted to use "the best" setting for image quality.

Shooting hand held can be difficult when shooting flowers or anything else fairly close with a lot of detail. You might try shooting a three shot burst. Sometimes the second or third shot will be better because of the disturbance of releasing the shutter.

All else failing, there is "old school"...a tripod with a remote release and the mirror locked up.

I agree that the exposure compensation should probably have been dialed downs bit, but it can be adjusted in LR.

Good Luck
 
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