Why do 42mp pictures look soft on first look?

[VisualsInTransit]

Hello, DPReview and all the beautiful people out there !

I am a super newbie to the mirrorless world. Recently bought a Sony Alpha7Riii and Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN combo. For many years I shot on my old Canon 60D, never disappointed So for now, everything is new, mirrorless, full-frame, Sony, and the lens.

My question might be really stupid for all of you but here is this strange thing I noticed.

The pictures straight out of the camera(e.g 5304X7952) look perfect on the camera display. They are perfectly focussed and sharp enough even when I zoom in all the way.

But somehow, when I view them on my laptop, the original composition looks a bit soft on the first look. And when I zoom in every possible way to check, it's perfectly sharp.

So all the pictures looked a bit soft in original dimensions. When I zoom in the picture to just 1 stop, it reveals all the details as I expect from this camera. Even the bokeh looks creamier with just 1 stop zoomed-in picture on any photo viewer on my laptop. The pictures look crisp and perfectly sharp. What am I doing wrong? Composing them wrong? Or there is a different way to shoot on Mirrorless? Or 42mp is too much?

Appreciate any feedback on this. Help me learn

Cheers

Raul

 

[Michael Fryd]

It sounds like an issue with the software you are using to view the images.

 

[VisualsInTransit]

Hi Michael,

I am using the basic Windows Photo Viewer. What do you recommend I use ?

Thanks

Raul

 

[Dareshooter]

Hi Michael,

I am using the basic Windows Photo Viewer. What do you recommend I use ?

Thanks

Raul

Use Faststone. It's a free image viewer and has some editing features that are basic but very useful . However you will be asked for a donation but you won't get hassled to in any way and it's ad free.

 

[VisualsInTransit]

Hi Dareshooter,

I downloaded Faststone and tried it. I'd say it's just a bit better. The composition still looks crisper with a bit zoomed in on the original frame of the picture. Like when I zoom further, the bokeh also looks creamier. But on the original frame, the background is not as mushy.

Its a portrait of a man I'm trying to view here. On the original frame, the whole subject looks okay but when I zoom to the face, I can see even the beard super crisp. Not that crisp when I am on the original frame.

Is it because of all the high resolution?

Let me upload the picture here.

 

[Bender79ita]

Hello, DPReview and all the beautiful people out there !

I am a super newbie to the mirrorless world. Recently bought a Sony Alpha7Riii and Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN combo. For many years I shot on my old Canon 60D, never disappointed So for now, everything is new, mirrorless, full-frame, Sony, and the lens.

My question might be really stupid for all of you but here is this strange thing I noticed.

The pictures straight out of the camera(e.g 5304X7952) look perfect on the camera display. They are perfectly focussed and sharp enough even when I zoom in all the way.

But somehow, when I view them on my laptop, the original composition looks a bit soft on the first look. And when I zoom in every possible way to check, it's perfectly sharp.

So the problem is the "full picture view" only, on the computer.

So all the pictures looked a bit soft in original dimensions. When I zoom in the picture to just 1 stop, it reveals all the details as I expect from this camera. Even the bokeh looks creamier with just 1 stop zoomed-in picture on any photo viewer on my laptop. The pictures look crisp and perfectly sharp. What am I doing wrong? Composing them wrong? Or there is a different way to shoot on Mirrorless? Or 42mp is too much?

They might be too much for your laptop's screen.

Unless you have a 5304 X 7952 resolution screen, there will be automatic resizing going on, allowing the computer to display the full picture at once (otherwise impossible).

Appreciate any feedback on this. Help me learn

Cheers

Raul

Try to export a picture in a resolution that perfectly matches your screen (say 1920x1080 as an example, or 1600x900, whatever your screen is - 4k if it is 4k), then view it at full screen. I'm pretty sure it'll look perfect.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

I am using the basic Windows Photo Viewer.

That isn't known to be a good photo viewer app. I use Photoshop, which works well, but that's expensive.

Trouble is, your monitor very likely has fewer pixels than your image, and so when the app displays the image full screen, you can't see all of the image's pixels—rather, neighboring pixels have to be averaged, combined, skipped, interpolated, etc., in order to get the image to fit, which causes a visual distortion of the image depending on the method used. If you had a screen with a suitably large number of megapixels, then each pixel in the image can be displayed on its own pixel on the screen, and so there would be no distortion.

As it turns out, there are many methods for doing this process, and some are better than others, and a common outcome is image softening. A programmer at Microsoft may not have knowledge or easy access to better methods than what they used.

 

[AlbertTheLazy]

I don't know about your particular camera, but it is quite common to record a relatively low resolution 'thumbnail' image for speed of viewing as well as the full resolution version. It may well be that your computer is displaying the thumbnail when it first opens the photo, but switches to using the hi-res version as soon as you zoom in.

I believe that this is more common if you shoot raw only.

Some viewers and processors can be set to generate their own previews and the resolution of these can be specified.

 

[BBbuilder467]

Hello, DPReview and all the beautiful people out there !

I am a super newbie to the mirrorless world. Recently bought a Sony Alpha7Riii and Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN combo. For many years I shot on my old Canon 60D, never disappointed So for now, everything is new, mirrorless, full-frame, Sony, and the lens.

My question might be really stupid for all of you but here is this strange thing I noticed.

The pictures straight out of the camera(e.g 5304X7952) look perfect on the camera display. They are perfectly focussed and sharp enough even when I zoom in all the way.

But somehow, when I view them on my laptop, the original composition looks a bit soft on the first look. And when I zoom in every possible way to check, it's perfectly sharp.

So all the pictures looked a bit soft in original dimensions. When I zoom in the picture to just 1 stop, it reveals all the details as I expect from this camera. Even the bokeh looks creamier with just 1 stop zoomed-in picture on any photo viewer on my laptop. The pictures look crisp and perfectly sharp. What am I doing wrong? Composing them wrong? Or there is a different way to shoot on Mirrorless? Or 42mp is too much?

Appreciate any feedback on this. Help me learn

Cheers

Raul

My laptops do the same thing with an old mico 4/3. Just the slightest increase in size and it changes completely. With Windows, there might be a few seconds delay before it "pops" into focus. I thought there was something wrong with a new lens when I noticed it doing it.

 

[skyglider]

I don't know about your particular camera, but it is quite common to record a relatively low resolution 'thumbnail' image for speed of viewing as well as the full resolution version. It may well be that your computer is displaying the thumbnail when it first opens the photo, but switches to using the hi-res version as soon as you zoom in.

I believe that this is more common if you shoot raw only.

Some viewers and processors can be set to generate their own previews and the resolution of these can be specified.

+1

Albert is correct. When I open a raw image from my FZ1000 camera in Faststone, Faststone displays the image as 1920 x 1280 even though the raw image resolution is 5488 x 3664. It displays the thumbnail of the raw image.

OTOH, when I open the jpg version of the same image in Faststone, it displays as 5472 x 3648 (3:2 aspect) resolution.

Image viewers may open raw images using the thumbnail of the raw image, not the actual full resolution of the raw image.

Sky

 

[VisualsInTransit]

I agree with Sky and Albert. But I was also facing this issue with JPEGs from my camera. But that's because even JPEGs are also not so small. They are heavy af. 20-30 mb for every image that huge resolution. I am trying out different options. But I definitely think it's my laptop who's the culprit here. I've got a basic Dell laptop with Screen resolution of 1920X1080. That's where it's going wrong.

Let me tell you guys next week what I discover after trying all the options.

All your responses are much appreciated.

Raul

 

[VisualsInTransit]

Hi Mark,

It very much seems like what you said. I am using a basic Dell laptop which has a resolution of 1920X1080. And on top of it Windows Photo viewer, it's crappy. I think I definitely need a new monitor or even a laptop.

Thank god my camera is okay. At one point I even doubted Sigma. But I believe they are doing their best job.

I am trying a few other options to be sure about everything.

Will keep my progress posted. Thanks for taking out time to reply to my stupid question.

Thanks

Raul

 

[Horacecoker]

Hello, DPReview and all the beautiful people out there !

I am a super newbie to the mirrorless world. Recently bought a Sony Alpha7Riii and Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN combo. For many years I shot on my old Canon 60D, never disappointed So for now, everything is new, mirrorless, full-frame, Sony, and the lens.

My question might be really stupid for all of you but here is this strange thing I noticed.

The pictures straight out of the camera(e.g 5304X7952) look perfect on the camera display. They are perfectly focussed and sharp enough even when I zoom in all the way.

But somehow, when I view them on my laptop, the original composition looks a bit soft on the first look. And when I zoom in every possible way to check, it's perfectly sharp.

So all the pictures looked a bit soft in original dimensions. When I zoom in the picture to just 1 stop, it reveals all the details as I expect from this camera. Even the bokeh looks creamier with just 1 stop zoomed-in picture on any photo viewer on my laptop. The pictures look crisp and perfectly sharp. What am I doing wrong? Composing them wrong? Or there is a different way to shoot on Mirrorless? Or 42mp is too much?

Appreciate any feedback on this. Help me learn

Cheers

Raul

I know exactly what you are talking about here. I noticed the same thing with my A7riii (now sold). I was puzzled at first but realised eventually that it was the high resolution of the 42MP sensor that was causing the problem. I've tested this out on my Sony A6600 24MP there is no perceivable difference in image quality when a full 24MP image (6000 x 4000 pixels) is crunched down by FastStone to fit my Dell UltraSharp 2560 x 1440 monitor than if I downsize the image in Photoshop to the resolution of the monitor exactly.

It's a totally different story if I do the same thing with a full-size image from the A7riii (7592 x 5304 pixels) due to the much larger pixel count. There's an obvious visible degrading of image quality in the full-res version when it's crunched down to a size that fits my screen. Viewing at 100% it is perfect as expected.

I also noticed that downsizing these larger pixel count images to 8mp to fit a 4k screen (3840 x 2160) in one go in Photoshop is too much of a jump and needs doing in at least two stages to get the best image quality.

After this experimenting, it's now obvious to me that there is a limit to how much an image can be reduced in size to fit a much smaller screen resolution before perceived image quality suffers. 24MP down to around 4MP (2560 x1440) seems fine but 42MP down to 4MP, not so. I would imagine at 61MP the A7Riv to be much worse in this respect.

Of course, this won't be a problem when we all have 8k (33MP) screens.

 

[VisualsInTransit]

What's your solution approach to this then?

Thanks

Raul

 

[meow]

But the OP says the image improves when he zooms IN, not out. So one wonders what size it's originally viewed at.

 

[VisualsInTransit]

After reading everyone's feedback. Here is what I still wanna ask.

So everyone using A7riii or any high res camera, what are they using to view their pictures?

Does everyone have a high-end monitor? Or is it the Graphic card that matters? Even if they have a high-end monitor, their clients might not have that. What export settings do they use to send crisp pictures across?

Is there a universal Export setting that works for everyone?

Thanks

Raul

 

[Mark S Abeln]

I've got a basic Dell laptop with Screen resolution of 1920X1080. That's where it's going wrong.

I went from a 1920x720 monitor to an iMac 5K, and it made a huge difference.

For example, with my older camera images, I could view the image at 100% and still see the entire image, while with my 24 MP images I can see most of the image. This had the side-effect that I could see at one glance that some of my lenses and particular f/stop settings were really lousy, and I had no idea that was the case.

But the new monitor gave me extreme eyestrain! I had to use computer glasses and adjust the screen distance precisely in order to relieve it.

If your image viewing app isn't particularly good at interpolation, which seems to be the case, then it should do better with a 4K monitor when you zoom to 100%.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

So everyone using A7riii or any high res camera, what are they using to view their pictures?

I only have a 24 MP camera, but occasionally I'll stitch high megapixel panoramas. I usually only view them full screen when using Adobe products such as Lightroom and Photoshop, as these products have good interpolation, so there is no softening of the image when it is resampled smaller to fit the monitor.

Does everyone have a high-end monitor?

Yes, a iMac 5K monitor.

Or is it the Graphic card that matters?

No, that won't matter much. Either the card will display on the monitor at full resolution or it won't, so just be sure that yours will. Typically the advantages of high end GPUs are processing speeds, and that strongly depends on the kind of processing you are doing; video production requires lots of GPU, as does video gaming and bitcoin mining; still photography not so much, with the possible exception of modern AI tools.

Even if they have a high-end monitor, their clients might not have that. What export settings do they use to send crisp pictures across?

If I'm sharing photos with others, particularly with social media, I'll resample the image to the exact size needed by the platform. For example, in Facebook, the maximum image size is 2048 pixels for the longest dimension. Instagram requires exactly 1080 pixels across, and between 566 and 1350 pixels high.

If the viewers are seeing images via a web browser, the exact results that they get depends on the web browser in use and the computer performance. Higher quality results are obtained with faster processors.

Is there a universal Export setting that works for everyone?

No.

 

[VisualsInTransit]

Thank you so much Mark for explaining everything in so much detail.

So many things just got cleared up in my head with yours and all of the others helping me here.

So the learning I got is to invest in a good monitor and a good image viewer. I did download Faststone yesterday and I'd say it's already made a difference to my viewing experience. The compression method of the software seems more efficient than the native Windows one.

Thanks so much again.

Cheers

Raul

 

[BBbuilder467]

What's your solution approach to this then?

Thanks

Raul

I don't know. It can do the same thing on my laptops and tablets. It changes when you zoom in. I never noticed it until I got a new ultra-wide lens. They look soft and out of focus until I zoom in. It's only a 12mp camera. I thought there was something wrong with the lens, but it changes the instant I zoom in.