Do I have unrealistic sharpness expectations?

Hey there all,

I've just purchased my first real camera and macro lens and have been really enjoying all the fun photo opportunities available at the 1:1 scale. However, looking at all of my photos, I keep finding myself unsatisfied with the level of sharpness I've been able to achieve.

Although everything looks pretty sharp zoomed out, which is probably perfect, I keep thinking that because I can't zoom in 150% and still see sharp detail that my photos are "not good enough". It's like I need everything to be absolutely crystal clear in terms of sharpness and this makes me think my current photos are "noisy" or "blurry".

I need to ask, I'm crazy right? Is the level of sharpness I'm getting perfectly fine and I'm chasing some impossible goal, or could my work actually be clearer in terms of detail?

Here's some examples of what I mean. Zoomed out, these photos look nice and sharp, totally ok. But zoomed in, they look rather blurry/noisy. That said, I also have no lighting equipment whatsoever (unsure if that might make things worse).

This is normal right?

(Note: The files are pretty big! Also, the second photo of the wall seems to not load in high quality unless you open it in a new tab.)

Gold gilding on an old book.

Paint cracks on a wall.

Cheers!

GB.

First, congratulations--macro is an amazing world!

I wouldn't say you're crazy, but you may have expectations that are somewhat misaligned. 

First, at any magnification over 100%, you're going beyond the detail that was captured.  At that point, your expectation should be that it will not be as sharp as 100%.

Second, while it's fun to "pixel peep", you need to remember the size at which you will view your work.  If you're printing an 8x10 of the image, you probably won't touch the sharpness thresshold.  If you print it in large format for a wall hanging, how close you get to the image will determine the perceived detail.  And if you will be displaying your work on a monitor, it's highly unlikely you even come close to the full resolution of your sensor.  All this to say, it's unlikely you'll ever see you work at 100% magnification at 1 foot in front of your eyes.

If you're happy with the overall sharpness, don't overthink the fine detail you'll never see. 

Now, there are some things that can help with macro.  Your depth of field can be VERY shallow.

1. Make sure your camera is square to the subject.  If your camera is at an angle to the subject, it's easy to have some areas out of focus.
2. If you need to/want to shoot at an angle, or you have an object that is not flat, you'll probably end up focus stacking.  There's a lot of detail about this on the forum and on the web.

Happy shooting.

This is normal right?

Pretty much. If you feel unsatisfied with the sharpness when you pixel peep the solution is to increase your magnification. Of course, when you pixel peep higher mag images will find the same result. That is why people get addicted to higher mags. Also, find the max sharpness of your setup. Use a tripod and flash. Try to use as low power on the flash as you can go. Only expose for the flash, not the ambient light. Use a steady subject. Bracket your aperture to find the sharpest aperture for your lens. Nothing will get sharper than this arrangement and then you'll also know the max sharpness and also the best aperture setting for sharpness.

If these look better then perhaps you need to consider some post processing.

Also, f5.6 may not be the sharpest aperture for your lens. Also depth of field is shallow when shooting macro so a smaller aperture will help there as well.

DJMusic wrote:

First, congratulations--macro is an amazing world!

I wouldn't say you're crazy, but you may have expectations that are somewhat misaligned.

First, at any magnification over 100%, you're going beyond the detail that was captured. At that point, your expectation should be that it will not be as sharp as 100%.

Second, while it's fun to "pixel peep", you need to remember the size at which you will view your work. If you're printing an 8x10 of the image, you probably won't touch the sharpness thresshold. If you print it in large format for a wall hanging, how close you get to the image will determine the perceived detail. And if you will be displaying your work on a monitor, it's highly unlikely you even come close to the full resolution of your sensor. All this to say, it's unlikely you'll ever see you work at 100% magnification at 1 foot in front of your eyes.

If you're happy with the overall sharpness, don't overthink the fine detail you'll never see.

Now, there are some things that can help with macro. Your depth of field can be VERY shallow.

1. Make sure your camera is square to the subject. If your camera is at an angle to the subject, it's easy to have some areas out of focus.
2. If you need to/want to shoot at an angle, or you have an object that is not flat, you'll probably end up focus stacking. There's a lot of detail about this on the forum and on the web.

Happy shooting.

Hey DJ,

That's what I thought! It seemed kinda nutty in the back of my mind as I was thinking that everything had to be hyper-sharp at such high zoom. You make a good point about the viewing method too.

I'll certainly try to keep everything on a proper angle and focus stacking could be interesting to try out.

Thanks for the tips!

Rodger in Edmonton wrote:

16GreenBeans wrote:

Hey there all,

I've just purchased my first real camera and macro lens and have been really enjoying all the fun photo opportunities available at the 1:1 scale. However, looking at all of my photos, I keep finding myself unsatisfied with the level of sharpness I've been able to achieve.

Although everything looks pretty sharp zoomed out, which is probably perfect, I keep thinking that because I can't zoom in 150% and still see sharp detail that my photos are "not good enough". It's like I need everything to be absolutely crystal clear in terms of sharpness and this makes me think my current photos are "noisy" or "blurry".

I need to ask, I'm crazy right? Is the level of sharpness I'm getting perfectly fine and I'm chasing some impossible goal, or could my work actually be clearer in terms of detail?

Here's some examples of what I mean. Zoomed out, these photos look nice and sharp, totally ok. But zoomed in, they look rather blurry/noisy. That said, I also have no lighting equipment whatsoever (unsure if that might make things worse).

This is normal right?

(Note: The files are pretty big! Also, the second photo of the wall seems to not load in high quality unless you open it in a new tab.)

Gold gilding on an old book.

Paint cracks on a wall.

Cheers!

GB.

You are using a tripod , manual focus and remote - correct?

If so, these puppies should be razor sharp unless the lens is a dog by nature.

If this is hand held with IS at 1/13 and ISO 100

Try hand held with ISO 400 - 800 and a much higher shutter of at least 1/500 and report the results.

If you are using flash use hypersync with a higher shutter speed.

Hey Rodger,

Actually, that's probably why these images might not be razor sharp.

I don't have a remote trigger and my tripod may or may not have the stability of a one-legged drunken pirate in a carnival funhouse. I do use manual focus combined with focus peaking, but it may have been undermined by the first two issues.

I also don't have a flash yet, but I'm planning to try and set up a diffused light source. I likely will end up upgrading my tripod rather soon-ish.

Thanks for the suggestions!

gordonpritchard wrote:

If these look better then perhaps you need to consider some post processing.

Also, f5.6 may not be the sharpest aperture for your lens. Also depth of field is shallow when shooting macro so a smaller aperture will help there as well.

Hey Gordon,

At some point, I'll probably need to step my post processing abilities. I've just started using GIMP at the moment so I have a bit of a learning curve ahead.

That said, your edits look nice! Good point about shooting at f5.6. After some research it looks like I should be able to push f11 without much of a drop in quality.

Thanks!

Yes.

As an example, the individual leather fibers on the book binding are visible. Leather doesn't have any other macroscopic features, other than perhaps damage to the fibers. These tell you everything you need to know about decorative leather work and cracked paint.

You have achieved adequacy. Go forth and macro! (Let us know how your next 10,000 photos come out. We're expecting great things.)

For some reason I feel the need to be helpful.

Lighting on products or surfaces like that is one of the hardest things to do.  Those large LED light panels give an amazingly even light.

I noticed on the cracked paint photo that next to the hole in the paint, there was a flake of paint that was curled up so the edge was closer to the lens than the focus point.  I have a lot of trouble with that on small insects to.  The depth of field extends past the subject more than in front.  Focus on that front edge and use a small enough aperture to get enough depth.

Not having enough light for the subjects makes for a lot more noise in the image.

Get as much exposure as you can without blowing out the high lights.

I am sure there is a lot more but at 75 years old I find my fingers spell even worse than I do.  I get worn out really fast.

I think you did well on both images. A little more light on the second one would have helped, but it held up well at 100%.