Why is this image soft?

CompleteUtterNonsense · Oct 26, 2022

Out of camera jpeg:

Focus peaking (FastRawViewer):

Edge contrast (FastRawViewer):

I don't know how useful the focus peaking and edge contrast are, but they seem to tell me that the camera focused on the bird, sort of.

Things I think are could be contributing:

1. The lens is at its max focal distance where things tend to get soft

2. Possibly slightly front focused?

3. I'm using a good but budget 100-300 zoom

I'm pretty sure #1 is a contributor, but to what extent, I don't know.

It looks to me like the sharpest focus is on the wing and the branch just in front of the bird.

I also find that pretty much all of my bird images are soft compared to what I see here hence #3. Again, this is a good, but comparatively budget lens.

Your thoughts?

phil from seattle · Oct 26, 2022

...

CompleteUtterNonsense said:
Things I think are could be contributing:

1. The lens is at its max focal distance where things tend to get soft

2. Possibly slightly front focused?

3. I'm using a good but budget 100-300 zoom

I'm pretty sure #1 is a contributor, but to what extent, I don't know.

It looks to me like the sharpest focus is on the wing and the branch just in front of the bird.

I also find that pretty much all of my bird images are soft compared to what I see here hence #3. Again, this is a good, but comparatively budget lens.

Your thoughts?

Could also be technique. Telephoto lenses have more learning curve than you would think. Here's what I would do

Test the lens using a tripod. The "brick wall" test is a good one. Pick a wall with lots of texture so you can tell if it is in focus or not. Make sure you are perpendicular to the wall (er, on the wall's normal in technical terms). Looking at the photos, you can tell if you get consistent focus across the entire frame. Try 100-300mm in steps of 50. Also try 275mm. Be aware that the DoF zone is curved, btw.
If you find that 300mm is softer than 275, that's your answer. I use a PL100-400 and often try to shoot at 375mm rather than 400mm. I did a brick wall test with it but didn't see any difference between 375 and 400, though.
If you have good sharpness at 300mm, I would look at upping the shutter speed. 1/250 is a bit of a challenge for even sitting birds. I typically use 1/1000 or faster, 1/1600 or faster for BIFs. Don't know if you had IBIS on, though. I'd kick my ISO up or use autoISO with a 1600 or 3200 cap and shoot shutter priority (or even manual mode - not manual focus, though). I wouldn't worry too much about ISO, better to get a sharp photo than anything else. A noisy sharp photo beats a blurry, low noise one by a mile. And NR is pretty easy these days.
I didn't see a place in that photo where your camera had really sharp focus so I don't think it's your focusing skills. But, in general, I would try to use a single point AF target and put it squarely on the bird's eye. That takes a fair amount of practice - part of the learning curve. So, get out there and shoot!
Also, if you are using burst mode (drive mode? whatever...), look to see if your camera has a shutter priority setting. Some cameras will prioritize FPS timing at the expense of AF lock. Seems like a dumb default. Focus uber alles...

--
"That's why we're photographers. We're preservationists by nature. We take pictures to stop time, to commit moments to eternity." Ben Ryder, Kodachrome
https://www.flickr.com/photos/146289229@N02/albums

DavidWright2010 · Oct 26, 2022

CompleteUtterNonsense said:
Out of camera jpeg:

Your thoughts?

Invest in a sharpening app.

Here I used Topaz Sharpen AI, and sharpened the whole image. Probably better to just sharpen the bird..

(edit: I would probably 'dial back' the AI-calculated best settings)

David

JEO126 · Oct 26, 2022

A couple of observations...

The shot is significantly overexposed, presumably the result of +1.66 EV exposure compensation shown in the exif. I pulled the jpg into lightroom and reduced the exposure by the same amount just for comparison. It actually recovers some detail and results in a more natural looking shot.

On the adjusted shot, it's more clear that the sharpest part of the bird is the wing and the body just below. The eye and head are still soft but show a little more detail than in the overexposed original. It looks like the focus point may have been on the wing/body and not the eye, where it should have been. Not an easy target to hit, especially when you're shooting through leaves and branches. Also, 1/250th of a second is maybe a little slow, although there really doesn't appear to be any motion blur or camera shake.

The shot might be improved further with more adjustments to exposure, highlights/shadows etc, and possibly a bit of sharping as long as it's not too heavy handed. Better of course, to get the exposure closer and the focus on the eye to start with.

--
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeo126/

phil from seattle · Oct 26, 2022

DavidWright2010 said:
Invest in a sharpening app.

While this is not bad advice per se, I would first work to figure out where the problem is coming from. There is no substitute for having the best quality images to start with before PP.

DavidWright2010 · Oct 26, 2022

phil from seattle said:
DavidWright2010 said:

Invest in a sharpening app.

Click to expand...

While this is not bad advice per se, I would first work to figure out where the problem is coming from. There is no substitute for having the best quality images to start with before PP.

CompleteUtterNonsense · Oct 26, 2022

phil from seattle said:
...

phil from seattle said:

Things I think are could be contributing:

1. The lens is at its max focal distance where things tend to get soft

2. Possibly slightly front focused?

3. I'm using a good but budget 100-300 zoom

I'm pretty sure #1 is a contributor, but to what extent, I don't know.

It looks to me like the sharpest focus is on the wing and the branch just in front of the bird.

I also find that pretty much all of my bird images are soft compared to what I see here hence #3. Again, this is a good, but comparatively budget lens.

Your thoughts?

Click to expand...

Could also be technique. Telephoto lenses have more learning curve than you would think. Here's what I would do

phil from seattle said:
Test the lens using a tripod. The "brick wall" test is a good one. Pick a wall with lots of texture so you can tell if it is in focus or not. Make sure you are perpendicular to the wall (er, on the wall's normal in technical terms). Looking at the photos, you can tell if you get consistent focus across the entire frame. Try 100-300mm in steps of 50. Also try 275mm. Be aware that the DoF zone is curved, btw.

I guess I should probably do this since I do suspect the lens is a little soft.

phil from seattle said:
If you find that 300mm is softer than 275, that's your answer. I use a PL100-400 and often try to shoot at 375mm rather than 400mm. I did a brick wall test with it but didn't see any difference between 375 and 400, though.

If you have good sharpness at 300mm, I would look at upping the shutter speed. 1/250 is a bit of a challenge for even sitting birds. I typically use 1/1000 or faster, 1/1600 or faster for BIFs. Don't know if you had IBIS on, though. I'd kick my ISO up or use autoISO with a 1600 or 3200 cap and shoot shutter priority (or even manual mode - not manual focus, though). I wouldn't worry too much about ISO, better to get a sharp photo than anything else. A noisy sharp photo beats a blurry, low noise one by a mile. And NR is pretty easy these days.

I should probably have mentioned my settings:

Aperture priority, auto iso, auto white balance, minimum shutter speed 1/250.

I've been experimenting with manual focus so that I can use focus peaking as an assist. That works for big birds that sit still, but does not for these little buggers that constantly flit about.

I may have used single focus on this shot. Can't remember. CAF does not work well with this camera with all the other stuff like branches and such around the bird.

FWIW, I use back button focus so that I can use CAF as a single focus like setting. Focus, release back button, shoot.

phil from seattle said:
I didn't see a place in that photo where your camera had really sharp focus so I don't think it's your focusing skills. But, in general, I would try to use a single point AF target and put it squarely on the bird's eye. That takes a fair amount of practice - part of the learning curve. So, get out there and shoot!

I've also been trying single point AF on this camera, but find that the camera still seems to use a larger area for focus. Hmm, I also have animal detect enabled, so maybe this overrides single point AF?? Will have to experiment more.

phil from seattle said:
Also, if you are using burst mode (drive mode? whatever...), look to see if your camera has a shutter priority setting. Some cameras will prioritize FPS timing at the expense of AF lock. Seems like a dumb default. Focus uber alles...

Yup, burst mode, 7fps, focus priority.

When I bought this set up, I was not sure how I would take to bird photography, so I went with the least expensive lens people were recommending to get into this.

It turns out I really like this and, with my daughter really getting into birding, I'm having a blast.

I wish I had gone straight to the 100-400 now.

Red Barchetta · Oct 26, 2022

What David said but be careful not to over sharpen or things start looking a little weird. Also, you could simply increase the clarity and contrast and that should help.

CompleteUtterNonsense · Oct 26, 2022

JEO126 said:
A couple of observations...

The shot is significantly overexposed, presumably the result of +1.66 EV exposure compensation shown in the exif. I pulled the jpg into lightroom and reduced the exposure by the same amount just for comparison. It actually recovers some detail and results in a more natural looking shot.

I was being lazy posting the OOC jpeg. The camera significantly brightens the image when it creates the jpeg. I have found that, with this camera, I need to adjust the brightness up by between 1 an 2 ev greater than 90% of the time. I'm using the histogram to adjust so I don't blow out any highlights and can adjust in post-processing

JEO126 said:
On the adjusted shot, it's more clear that the sharpest part of the bird is the wing and the body just below. The eye and head are still soft but show a little more detail than in the overexposed original. It looks like the focus point may have been on the wing/body and not the eye, where it should have been. Not an easy target to hit, especially when you're shooting through leaves and branches. Also, 1/250th of a second is maybe a little slow, although there really doesn't appear to be any motion blur or camera shake.

I'm using both IBIS and lens stabilization, which seems to work very well. From what I can tell, the focus is from just in front of the bird to the wing, but the eye is just a little out of focus. I'm still new to this though, so was looking to see what those with a more experienced eye would see.

I also wonder if stopping down one f-stop might have helped. I did that on other shots, but did not remember to here.

JEO126 said:
The shot might be improved further with more adjustments to exposure, highlights/shadows etc, and possibly a bit of sharping as long as it's not too heavy handed. Better of course, to get the exposure closer and the focus on the eye to start with.

I do try to improve my images with post processing. I think the Topaz sharpened image DavidWright2010 posted is over sharpened: more sharpness, but less detail.

I'm using DarkTable for post processing, but am still early in the learning curve. Most of my processed images are pure trial and error.

JEO126 said:

CompleteUtterNonsense · Oct 26, 2022

phil from seattle said:
DavidWright2010 said:

Invest in a sharpening app.

Click to expand...

While this is not bad advice per se, I would first work to figure out where the problem is coming from. There is no substitute for having the best quality images to start with before PP.

Yeah, but I can't afford that equipment. :-D

Seriously, the most recent gen autofocus that the OM1 and similar cameras offer would solve a lot. Unfortunately I have not yet won the lottery. Maybe in a couple of years when all those OM1 users get gas I'll be able to afford that gear ...

I'm also realizing that a zoom lens is useless for these flitty little birds I like to take pictures of. To get this shot and captures of the kinglets sharing this tree, I just kept the lens at a fixed distance and tried my best to get them in view before they were off to another branch.

CompleteUtterNonsense · Oct 26, 2022

Red Barchetta said:
What David said but be careful not to over sharpen or things start looking a little weird. Also, you could simply increase the clarity and contrast and that should help.

I'm not sure what the DarkTable equivalent of clarity would be. Sigh, yet one more thing to spend endless hours figuring out.

DavidWright2010 · Oct 26, 2022

I took another go at improving this photo. I darkened it a bit before letting Topaz have a go, and got this:

With regard to gear, I too started out birding with an inexpensive 70-300 lens. There were just not enough 'pixels' on the bird. I bought the Sigma 150-600 mm (C) lens ($900) with the idea I would be using it for astrophotography. But the day it came was in winter, and there were a bunch of goldfinches in a leafless tree that I practiced on. So it turned out that 90% of my images with this lens was birds, at 600 mm.

I put up feeders and let the birds come to me.

Female hummingbird, puffed up for the cold

David

CompleteUtterNonsense · Oct 26, 2022

DavidWright2010 said:
phil from seattle said:

DavidWright2010 said:

Invest in a sharpening app.

Click to expand...

While this is not bad advice per se, I would first work to figure out where the problem is coming from. There is no substitute for having the best quality images to start with before PP.

Click to expand...

Absolutely! But I don’t see any indication of motion blur, or missed focus, so I’m thinking it’s the lens. I guess I could I could’ve suggested getting a 100 to 400 lens or a 150 to 600 lens. The sharpening software is a lot cheaper than that.

At the end of the day the images we have are the ones we took. We may never get that shot again. So something that can improve the shot we got is definitely worthwhile.

Thank you for that. I have a hard time distinguishing between motion blur and other sources of softness.

CompleteUtterNonsense · Oct 26, 2022

DavidWright2010 said:
I took another go at improving this photo. I darkened it a bit before letting Topaz have a go, and got this:

David

Much better! Interesting. Was that with default Topaz settings? The image no longer has an over sharpened look.

I wrote earlier that I thought the image might be a little front focused. Given that the head is a little closer than the wing/body, that is actually not the case. It would seem that to get the whole bird in focus I really needed to stop down a little to f7.1 or f8?

phil from seattle · Oct 26, 2022

CompleteUtterNonsense said:
phil from seattle said:

DavidWright2010 said:

Invest in a sharpening app.

Click to expand...

While this is not bad advice per se, I would first work to figure out where the problem is coming from. There is no substitute for having the best quality images to start with before PP.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but I can't afford that equipment. :-D

Seriously, the most recent gen autofocus that the OM1 and similar cameras offer would solve a lot. Unfortunately I have not yet won the lottery. Maybe in a couple of years when all those OM1 users get gas I'll be able to afford that gear ...

I'm also realizing that a zoom lens is useless for these flitty little birds I like to take pictures of. To get this shot and captures of the kinglets sharing this tree, I just kept the lens at a fixed distance and tried my best to get them in view before they were off to another branch.

I really think you can get great photos with the gear you have unless you've got a bad copy of the 100-300, which is fully knowable. You are clearly learning and obviously have great motivation. Don't give up. It took me a long time. I only recently bought the OM-1. I started out with an EM-1 "classic" and move up to an EM-1 mk ii about 5 years ago. It was definitely challenging when I started out. Over time, my keeper rate got better as I learned how to manage the gear I had and work around its limitations. I think it was about a year before my keeper rate got to the point where it wasn't a source of abject frustration. (You can't believe the number sea gulls that I shot getting there.) It has continued to improve over time. I still get oof shots all the time. Nothing more frustrating than getting the perfect shot only find later at home that it wasn't that good. I was really excited about a shot of a Trogon in Botswana but found later that it was a little blurry. No do overs on that one. sigh.

FWIW, I would recommend going to a better lens long before a new body. You might also think about a buying a used PL100-400 and selling your 100-300. The net damage might not be too bad. The extra reach is helpful. Though, be careful, there seems to be a fair amount of sample variation.

DavidWright2010 · Oct 26, 2022

CompleteUtterNonsense said:
DavidWright2010 said:

I took another go at improving this photo. I darkened it a bit before letting Topaz have a go, and got this:

David

Click to expand...

Much better! Interesting. Was that with default Topaz settings? The image no longer has an over sharpened look.

I wrote earlier that I thought the image might be a little front focused. Given that the head is a little closer than the wing/body, that is actually not the case. It would seem that to get the whole bird in focus I really needed to stop down a little to f7.1 or f8?

Topaz lets you choose the model you prefer, or you can let Topaz do it. In either case, you can also override the settings (The strength of blur removal and the amount of noise suppression.). It remembers the model and settings

The previous images I had processed I chose the model. So Topaz used that model on your image.

The second time I allowed it to choose the model, and that's this version of the image.

Your f/5.6 is probably adequate. The PhotoPills DOF calculator says that a 300 mm lens, 20 feet from the subject, has a DOF of 2.6 inches. at f/5.6

David

bflood · Oct 26, 2022

I have found Topaz Sharpen AI to be a decent diagnostic tool. I've owned my lenses long enough to have test and field experience that tells me how sharp they are. But I am nagged by focus accuracy and hand-holding limitations (arthritis ain't for wimps), and Topaz AI can give me a good idea what affected a shot the most.

I will load a suspect image into Topaz and run the Focus correction routine, typically using the default settings and then again with the sharpness goal turned up. I save each image as it is produced, and then I run the same original image through Topaz's stabilize corrections, again using default and then with increased intensity.

Viewing the images onscreen side by side (including the original image) allows me to see which routines gave me the best results, giving me a best estimate of where the Topaz algorithms think my shooting errors arose.

So I ran this approach on the original image posted to this thread. I found that the focus corrections didn't help much at all, and the sharpen helped a bit more but still not too much. The stabilize correction offered the best result. That makes me think that camera shake is probably the largest contributor to the softness, but not the only contributor.

Then I ran all three corrections on a single copy of the original image, with the intensity turned up to about 75% of the max available.

THE ORIGINAL, UNEDITED IMAGE

IMAGE WITH TOPAZ SHARPEN AI CORRECTIONS FOR FOCUS, SHARPENING, AND STABILIZATION

Where would I suggest going from here? First, increase your ISO enough to shoot at 1,000th or faster. Don't worry about ISO-related noise - deal with that later once the image sharpness question is answered to your satisfaction. A monopod or tripod would help a lot, too. Second, shoot similar shots to this with the focal length carefully set to less than 300 - try about 275 to start, then maybe 250. You may find that backing away from the max focal length will give a worthwhile improvement in sharpness.Experiment at these focal lengths and with the faster shutter speeds to see if you find the results more satisfying. I think there's a good chance a 250-275 mm shot cropped to show a 300 mm field of view will be sharper than a 300 mm shot.

If these tests don't give you the image sharpness you desire, then different glass would be the next step. And that's where this starts to cost money.

BTW, I also recommend Topaz Sharpen AI - it really can help.

FujiJon · Oct 27, 2022

CompleteUtterNonsense said:
Red Barchetta said:

What David said but be careful not to over sharpen or things start looking a little weird. Also, you could simply increase the clarity and contrast and that should help.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what the DarkTable equivalent of clarity would be. Sigh, yet one more thing to spend endless hours figuring out.

There's a clarity preset in "contrast equalizer", but I don't like the result, maybe just me. Try it, then use the "mix" slider to increase or decrease the effect. Alternatively, try increasing only the two centre nodes on the luma tab of CE *a little*...then play with the mix slider to increase or decrease.

If you haven't already found them, Bruce Williams and Boris Hadjukovic have done some very good tutorials on youtube.

WildAbhijit · Oct 27, 2022

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WildAbhijit · Oct 27, 2022

Apart from contrast equalizer, levels can be used in DT to achieve clarity like effect.

Why is this image soft?

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