How can I get crystal-sharp pictures?

[mmullen]

Go here, all taken with a 70-200 / 2.8 @ 2.8 and sharp as a tack:

The EXIF data says 36 of the 49 shots are taken at an aperture other
than f/2.8. Most of them say f/6.3, f/7.1, or f/8. Is the EXIF
data incorrect?

Aha, Grasshopper, you are learning that you can't always trust what people will tell you on Internet forums....I noticed this too. In fact, many people who purchased one of the 70-200mm f2.8 zooms will tell you they take almost all of their pictures at f2.8 but when you read the EXIF you find out the truth. The pictures I find most pleasing and easy on the eye were not taken with the f2.8 wide open.

On the other hand, I am quite pleased with the images wide open from the 70-200 f4. It does sharpen up a little stopped down to f5.6 but at f4 it is sharper and has better contrast than the f2.8 stopped down to f4. I also like the images from the 17-55mm f2.8 wide open although, if I can, I stop it down to f4 or more to increase sharpness although the difference is not as much as the 70-200mm f2.8.

I played a little game, covering the EXIF and looking at each photo,
guessing "sharp" or "not sharp". 90% of my "not sharp"s were f/2.8
or f/3.2 Very few f/6.3, 7.1, 8 were not sharp.

I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago but did not mention the results. What's notable is this difference is readily apparent even on the tiny web sized photos.

While I have, and love, my 70-200/2.8, this supports my experience
that it's sharper at f/4-11 than 2.8

True, the f2.8 is great if and when you NEED f2.8 as long as you can afford it and don't mind hauling around all that weight. I prefer to use primes when the light gets that low.

--
Mike Mullen

 

[cyberslave]

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Getting-The-Most-From-Your-EOS-1-Series-Camera.pdf

They recommend:

Amount: 300%
Radius: 0.3 pixels
Threshold: 0 pixels

So some sharpening is always required.

I realize that per photo sharpening is best and that these are just guidelines, however, would you or anyone else care to take a stab at what in-camera settings for sharpness, contrast, saturation, etc. (e.g. "Picture Style") these unsharp mask settings might represent?

Regards,
Mike

 

[hockeynut]

Moving subject, you need 1/1000 to stop movement no matter the lens length?

If you take photos with an f2.8 lens at f2.8, they "usually" aren't that sharp?

Where do you get your info? From generalizations made by employees at Best Buy?

The truth is that there are many reasons for out-of-focus or not-sharp images.

Shutter speed (or lack thereof), lens (or camera) shake, moving subject, not sharp lens, camera body, or a photographer with a lack of experience.

There are bad copies of lenses. There are bad cameras. There are bad photographers. Photography is much like flying an airplane. Pilot error is the number one cause of all crashes. Improve your skills, and you'll improve your photography. And when your skills outgrow your camera, you'll know it's time to upgrade to something that matches your skills. Most people in these forums are not being held back by their equipment. They're being held back by their own inexperience.

And, there are people with unreal expectations.

People who examine every shot at 200% on their computer monitor are going to be disappointed. People that do some prints at 8x10 are going to be surprised at how little post-processing is required to get a good looking 8x10.

I have a pair of L zooms, and a 50 f1.4. I do very little post-processing. I don't have unrealistic expectations. If I look at RAW images at 200%, they don't look all that hot. If I drop down to 100%, they start looking a lot better. If I look at them at full screen on my laptop, they look fantastic. If I dump them to the printer at 8x10 or smaller, they look as good as anything you'll find.

If I am not doing prints, I frequently don't do any post processing except re-size and crop for the web. If I'm printing, I'll do a llittle sharpening, but 8x10 and smaller frequently doesn't need it.

There are lenses out there that do require more work. There are lenses that are NOT sharp wide open. There are very sharp lenses that are NOT Canon L lenses. The 50 f1.4 is a perfect example.

If you want to find a solution. go outdoors in good light. Take a portrait at 10 feet. Try several different f-stops. Use a tripod, and make sure your subject can hold reasonably still. Post 100% crops complete with EXIF data, and let these forums look at the images, They'll give you plenty of feedback. Some of it will be useful. Some of it will be from newbies who will offer up such gems as, "Me too!"

Good luck.

--

'Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.'

• Mark Twain

 

[Jim Forbes]

I think we may have a whole generation of photographers (?) - question mark intended - that only know the digital world of the subject; Present company excluded!

They never had to worry about exposure/flash meters, flash guide numbers, "Rule-or-thirds" for in-camera, pre-shoot, composition. They've never heard of the 'sunny-16' guide.

They never had to worry about film types, film develop chemical types, strengths, temperatures, and/or agitation. They never had to worry about the same stuff, and more, when printing and developing.

What the in-camera film saw we got - RAW - period! If we screwed the exposure we couldn't just fix one image with the tweak of a computer dialog box slider and sync the rest.

If we screwed up the film developing it was mostly not reversible. We had some more latitude in printing - but not a lot.

Today we want instant, perfect results. It ain't going to happen in 99.99% of cases. The King of Black & White (Ansel Adams) would/could spend hours/days waiting for the right light to snap a shot. He'd could then spend days/weeks in the darkroom simply to produce one print.

Today, in order to sell their products, the camera manufacturers have to make bodies with more features and functions than a very large % of it's buyers ever use and, most likely, don't understand.

Let's give then (say) a Pentax K 1000, a bulk roll of Tri-X film and tell them to go produce prints. "How"? 'Don't ask me - I'm not your teacher'. 'YOU figure it out'! What fun that would be to see them learn!!

--
Jim F

 

[vividworld]

That's just what we need. An elitist who believes only those who shoot film are photographers and the rest are junk.

Here are my photos (I have never used film and I respect those who use it but I definately do not believe the usage of one or the other makes one a better photographer at all. It is the photos that count)
Where are your shots?



















fsfgsdgdfh4y456rtty34t6eg

And now back to the topic:

When I switched from using my old Canon G5 to the 20D I initially found the photos quite dull and lifeless. You REALLY need to learn to use Photoshop in order to get the most out of digital. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

I think we may have a whole generation of photographers (?) -
question mark intended - that only know the digital world of the
subject; Present company excluded!

They never had to worry about exposure/flash meters, flash guide
numbers, "Rule-or-thirds" for in-camera, pre-shoot, composition.
They've never heard of the 'sunny-16' guide.

They never had to worry about film types, film develop chemical
types, strengths, temperatures, and/or agitation. They never had to
worry about the same stuff, and more, when printing and developing.

What the in-camera film saw we got - RAW - period! If we screwed the
exposure we couldn't just fix one image with the tweak of a computer
dialog box slider and sync the rest.

If we screwed up the film developing it was mostly not reversible.
We had some more latitude in printing - but not a lot.

Today we want instant, perfect results. It ain't going to happen in
99.99% of cases. The King of Black & White (Ansel Adams) would/could
spend hours/days waiting for the right light to snap a shot. He'd
could then spend days/weeks in the darkroom simply to produce one
print.

Today, in order to sell their products, the camera manufacturers have
to make bodies with more features and functions than a very large %
of it's buyers ever use and, most likely, don't understand.

Let's give then (say) a Pentax K 1000, a bulk roll of Tri-X film and
tell them to go produce prints. "How"? 'Don't ask me - I'm not your
teacher'. 'YOU figure it out'! What fun that would be to see them
learn!!

--
Jim F

 

[Jim Forbes]

That's just what we need. An elitist who believes only those who
shoot film are photographers and the rest are junk.

That's just what we don't need. An elitist who believes he's a mind reader just because he reads a post and gets defensive.

Sorry you took the post that way - your problem. It was/is not intended toward those that do know how to use digital.

Nice images.

 

[vari001]

Hi

Try this:
Put your camera on a tripod to exclude camerashake, use a flash
(popup or external flash), stop down the lens a cuple of stops, and
use the 2 second selftimer to take the picture.

Rune

yes , but this is quite specific situation, however there are many model shots which acually are razor sharp. So why to limit sharp pictures for deadly static objects whereas there are living creatures who could be also taken supersharp.

So, fast enough for selected mm of focal length.

 

[runefb]

The tripod thing is just to test your lens. Getting sharp pics in real life fractions of seconds takes alot of practice. I am only half way there....

 

[Dulcina]

Hi again Dulcina

I see you own the 24-70 f2.8. According to photozone.de there are a
lot of bad copies of this lens out there producing soft images. If
this is actually the case according to canon, I dont now, but i
suggest you read this article:

http://photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/canon_2470_28/index.htm
According to this test, the 24-70 f2.8 ain't espesially sharp at f2.8.

Rune

I guess my real question is---- is the fuzziness I'm seeing reasonable for this lens, or do you guys think this is a "bad copy", and I should try to get another (this will be difficult, and I won't be able to test the copies, as I ordered it from b&h). This is all assuming no camera motion and no subject motion (both true), and the exact same focus point for all photos (also true).

--
attempting to not suck

 

[RVer]

I totally undertand taking picutures in AV but what do you mean by "adjust the exposure" if you are not talking about shutter speed or fstop?
--
Sandie
Go out and shoot what you see, it will not be the same tomorrow.

 

[RVer]

At 2.8 you are NOT going to be tack sharp on anything but what you focused on so you focus on the eyes the nose and what is in front of the eyes and what is behind the focus point are not going to be sharp. I do not think you have a bad copy. Go up in fstop a little and really use manual focus if you have to and focus on what you want most especially to be sharp. IF you want that whole dog to be sharp you are not going to do it in 2.8, more like F8 or more mattering how close you are to the animal as well.
--
Sandie
Go out and shoot what you see, it will not be the same tomorrow.

 

[JimH]

I think that learning photography in the days before auto-focus, auto-exposure, and digital may have been easier.

Don't get me wrong: Digital provides some great learning advantages simply because we get better feedback and it's instant. But...

When I learned photography, I was at my father's side in his darkroom. I got to watch him develop film and make prints. So every bit of that was educational and fun.

The cameras were far simpler and did nothing automatically. They were mechanical and you could open them up and see with your eyes and feel with your hands pretty much everything that was going on inside of them. So there were no real mysteries that you couldn't explain with a bit of hands-on observation.

If you wondered what the aperture was and how the diaphragm worked, you simply looked into the lens while adjusting it. 30 seconds, and that was fully explained. Now you'd have to rig up something special in order to be able to see the lens iris operate.

If you wondered what shutter speed was and how the shutter worked, you simply opened the camera, looked inside, and fired the shutter - you could try it at various speeds. Voila! Instant explanation of both focal plane and in-lens shutters. With a digital, you may have no way to fire the shutter with the camera open. And you can't open the back of the camera anymore (like we did to load film).

If you wondered about the effect of exposure, making a print with an enlarger in the darkroom told you by trial and error exactly what aperture and exposure time did. It was so obvious and simple. And of course, that translated directly to exposing negatives too. So something that we old farts took for granted may be a totally foreign concept to a new digital shooter.

Particularly if someone comes from a background of Digital P&S cameras, they may well have had everything done for them by the computer in the camera, and they may not have had any opportunity to see the "guts" of a camera. So they'll have to read all of this in books or online and may never get the chance to experience it by playing with simple, easy-to-understand real-world models.

I'm constantly amazed by the way that many young or new photographers seem to be so dependent on auto focus and auto exposure. For me, coming from a background of fully manual SLRs, the main reason to go to a DSLR from a P&S was to get away from the automatic stuff. For me, one of the biggest advantages of a DSLR is the ability to focus by hand and use "M" mode.

I see endless threads about how the camera can't get the image sharp. And people will figure out all sorts of tedious and difficult ways to cajole the AF system into getting the focus right when all they need to do is switch the lens to "MF" and turn the ring with their hand. That's the fastest, best way to get what YOU want in many situations.

And the same goes for AE. We work hard to come up with ways to reprogram the CFs so that we can lock exposure here, lock focus there, then recompose and shoot. Often, it'd be so much easier to just set the camera to "M" mode and set the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO we want and be done with it. That's often a lot less work than trying to trick the AE into doing our bidding with various lock-recompose and EC tricks.

It just seems like many people are far more willing to fight with the auto stuff than I am. I think it's my many years of shooting with manual SLRs followed by a few frustrating years shooting with digital P&Ss that taught me how frustrating and difficult fighting the auto systems can be. So I'm pretty quick to switch everything to manual. People would be a lot less frustrated if they tried that more, I think.

As mentioned above, though, the upside of digital is that we get instant feedback. That's fantastic! I love being able to shoot, check the histogram, adjust, and shoot again. That's a luxury we never had with film. And it's not only great during a shoot, but great overall for fast learning.

Truly, these DSLRs give us the best of both worlds in many ways. But we may have had it easier for learning way back when, and us old shooters may have a big advantage in NOT being so willing to trust and fight with the automatic stuff.

--
Jim H.

 

[irm]

--
my 2 exposed flashcubes worth.

Ian the pbase supporter.
http://pbase.com/ianm_au

Please check my profile for equipment list.
An amateur with dreams of being a good to excellent photographer.

 

[tejanosCATFISH]

Hi!

Nope was responding to your response ... thanks for asking!

--
Mark Jones

http://photoblog.tejanoscatfish.com/
http://photography.tejanoscatfish.com/

 

[RVer]

Thanks all for your help.
--
Sandie
Go out and shoot what you see, it will not be the same tomorrow.

 

[RVer]

how do you get that kind of data off a photo on a website or this website or flkr etc.?
--
Sandie
Go out and shoot what you see, it will not be the same tomorrow.

 

[RVer]

Mike there must be a way you can say what your dear friend told you at least. Certanly it would be too much to put down what you have learned in the last 5 years but how abou what he told you?
--
Sandie
Go out and shoot what you see, it will not be the same tomorrow.

 

[RVer]

How do you have the camera show you the histogram after each shot in a Canon 30D?
--
Sandie
Go out and shoot what you see, it will not be the same tomorrow.

 

[JimH]

I don't have a 30D, but I suspect that it's the same or very similar to the 20D.

On the 20D, we only get a single "brightness" histogram. On the 30D, supposedly you get a three color histogram which is more useful in my opinion. The 40D can give you both (maybe the 30D does too).

In the 20D, you can bring up a shot for review on the back screen by pressing the "playback" button. Then you just press the "Info" button repeatedly and it cycles through the various possible info displays.

In one setting, you see only the photo. The next press of the "info" button brings up a display of the shot number and the shutter speed and aperture. One more press of the info button, and we get a histogram and all of the shooting information and the size of the photo "thumbnail" becomes small to accommodate all of that extra data on the screen.

The camera then "remembers" that you've got the review info set up that way so the next time you take a shot, the review that pops up on the back will show the histogram. Of course, you can change the display at any time by just pressing the "playback" button and then pressing the "info" button repeatedly until you get the display that you want. Again, the camera will remember that setting and use it as the default the next time you shoot a photo.

I tend to leave my cameras set to show the histogram so that I'll always have it to check after each shot. But it's quick and easy to change so I switch it around depending on what I want to see while reviewing. Sometimes I don't want to see anything but the large version of the image. But when I'm shooting, I like to see the histogram.

I'd bet that this is similar on the 30D, but I can't be sure of the exact details.

--
Jim H.

 

[landmarks4711]

-nt-