Images dull and not sharp.

[Mike Black]

Good evening to you all.

I have had my D30 for about two months and I am not really satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures. Neither my Canon 28-135IS or my Sigma 105 Macro seem to give me as sharp an image as I expected. I was looking back at some close ups taken with my Oly C3030 and was surprised to see that they were sharper and had better and truer colors than my D30 with the Sigma 105 macro.
Has anyone compared this Sigma with the Canon 100mm Macro?

Do you think the problem is with the quality of the Sigma lens or is the problem in the camera?

I also am not satisfied with the sharpness and colour when using my 28-135IS. The colours always seem murky or muddy and do not have the spark that my Oly had.

I would apreciate any help since I really feel disapointed after spending so much on a camera that is also exposing worse than a consumer $700 camera.
Thanks Mike

 

[DavidP #28649]

The sharpness issue has been discussed much here -- do a search and you'll find some answers. Basically, though, you'll need to do some post-sharpening (in Photoshop, etc) to get prints that are super-sharp for printing. The D-30 doesn't do much sharpening, even at the sharpest setting. This is actually GOOD if you do much post-processing on the pictures at all. Generally, you want to sharpen as your last step.

As far as the colors --- two things really affect that. Incorrect exposure, and the wrong color balance.

The best way to solve that is to use custom white-balance (using a gray card), and to use the gray card to set exposure, too.

Also, shooting RAW instead of JPG helps. You can then post-process with various parameters (saturation, constrast, sharpness, white balance) to see what works best. And then post-process in Photoshop.

Before any of this work, the images from cameras like the Olympus usually look better. But after some processing, the images from the D-30 will blow the Olympus away.

 

[Steve Mason]

Perhaps you could post a sample, and maybe we can give some suggestions.

Do you do unsharp mask? What settings? The D30 definitely needs some post processing, but I've gotten some great images, even with my cheap lenses.

Good evening to you all.
I have had my D30 for about two months and I am not really
satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures. Neither my Canon
28-135IS or my Sigma 105 Macro seem to give me as sharp an image as
I expected. I was looking back at some close ups taken with my Oly
C3030 and was surprised to see that they were sharper and had
better and truer colors than my D30 with the Sigma 105 macro.
Has anyone compared this Sigma with the Canon 100mm Macro?
Do you think the problem is with the quality of the Sigma lens or
is the problem in the camera?
I also am not satisfied with the sharpness and colour when using my
28-135IS. The colours always seem murky or muddy and do not have
the spark that my Oly had.
I would apreciate any help since I really feel disapointed after
spending so much on a camera that is also exposing worse than a
consumer $700 camera.
Thanks Mike

 

[kurt]

.... re-printed from my reponse earlier today to another thread, with a couple of new additional comments....

It's interesting how many people mis-understand or forget the following:

-When switching from film SLR to D-30... there is exposure compensation applied by the lab on your prints as they are printed. The D-30 is the equiv of a raw negative... how would your film prints come out if the equipment or operator did absolutely no exposure compensation on the print?

-When switching from a P&S digital to the D-30... the P&S device attempted to duplicate the exposure compensation (and add sharpening) that film labs would do to create output... this is so people can plug their P&S digi-cam into their computer and dump straight to a printer with no darkroom work...

The D-30 outputs (digital) negatives.... It attempts to set exposure on the negative to protect the information (no blown highlights), and since the D-30 has such good noise characteristics in shadow detail, they can be somewhat aggressive about leaning towards the underexposure side...

(this isn't saying there aren't some D-30's out there that leaned too much to the underexposure side... and needed to be adjusted by canon, check the forums for how to use an 18% card to check..)

The core issue/statment about complaints like this:

"They decided not to put the ability in the camera to "process and output" exposure compensated and sharpened pics ready to go directly to the printer...."

So... create an action in PS that runs auto-level, and does whatever else you usually end up doing for 4x7 and 5x7 prints. (color adjustment, sharpening, etc) and "lab process" your snapshots in photoshop...

I find myself doing almost exactly the same thing to most prints (intended to be 4x6 P&S prints) to get them to look great, with pop, sharpness, and bright and adjusted colors. Just roll these up into an action, and 95% of the 4x6's you'll turn out will be great. The kicker is, you have to play/practice with photoshop enough to be able to turn out a great looking 4x6. Cruising through these forums, focusing on processing, will give you all kinds of ideas how to accomplish this.

Then, you still have the raw, usable high-quality negatives for anything you want to manually work in your "Darkroom" for printing 8x10's or larger.

I won't even address the actual metering, and the decisions the camera makes to work toward 18%... others have covered that...

This is the "program mode" complaint.. that people want P&S "ready to print" output out of the D-30, especially since they paid so much $ for it...

...it's just not there, directly from the camera... they didn't design that feature in...

.. and the answer/solution is....? make a P&S action in photoshop, and batch process all of your P&S prints...

...sometimes the more expensive, more capable, more accurate tools, don't include final processing, since a user who would wish that level of accuracy and capability on the front end, is assumed to want to control the final processing in an advanced complimentary back-end tool like Photoshop.

-Kurt

 

[Lin Evans]

Good evening to you all.
I have had my D30 for about two months and I am not really
satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures. Neither my Canon
28-135IS or my Sigma 105 Macro seem to give me as sharp an image as
I expected. I was looking back at some close ups taken with my Oly
C3030 and was surprised to see that they were sharper and had
better and truer colors than my D30 with the Sigma 105 macro.
Has anyone compared this Sigma with the Canon 100mm Macro?
Do you think the problem is with the quality of the Sigma lens or
is the problem in the camera?
I also am not satisfied with the sharpness and colour when using my
28-135IS. The colours always seem murky or muddy and do not have
the spark that my Oly had.
I would apreciate any help since I really feel disapointed after
spending so much on a camera that is also exposing worse than a
consumer $700 camera.
Thanks Mike

Mike,

Post at least one image - make it reasonably large - at least 800x600 so we can see what needs to be done. D30 images, when properly post-processed are incredibly good. Out-of-camera they won't be impressive but there are good reasons for them being the way they are. With a few seconds work, they will look better than anything you have ever seen from the C3030Z.

Lin

 

[Wangler]

Use a SLR is more difficult than a point-and-shoot, especially for digicam. The ccd of consumer digicam is so small that the DOF is very big. So it is easy to get a sharp image even one can not hold the camera very steady.
Everybody here used both consumer digicam and SLR would agree with this.

I used the sigma 100mm several times, it is one of the sharpest lens in this world. But macro lens is also one of the most difficult lens to use, a litlle bit movement of the object(caused by handshaking or breeze for example)would be exaggerated into unsharp result. Tripod is a must-have for Macro photography. As to 28-135, it is not a fast lens, check the shutter speed first when taking the photo. Even with IS, hand holding beyond 1/50 is not very practical in most case. As to the muddy color, again, DOF things. Also, olympus has its own style for its undersaturated color.

I used FUJI 4700 for more than 1 years, 60% of the photo directly out of the camera was kept. I've used D30 for 2 months, I kept only 5% of the photos, 99% of them need post processing. I also used several non-digital SLR. I feel I love the photos taking by film SLR the most, D30 the second, 4700 is a nice fun digicam, its color is the best among all of my cameras.

Good evening to you all.
I have had my D30 for about two months and I am not really
satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures. Neither my Canon
28-135IS or my Sigma 105 Macro seem to give me as sharp an image as
I expected. I was looking back at some close ups taken with my Oly
C3030 and was surprised to see that they were sharper and had
better and truer colors than my D30 with the Sigma 105 macro.
Has anyone compared this Sigma with the Canon 100mm Macro?
Do you think the problem is with the quality of the Sigma lens or
is the problem in the camera?
I also am not satisfied with the sharpness and colour when using my
28-135IS. The colours always seem murky or muddy and do not have
the spark that my Oly had.
I would apreciate any help since I really feel disapointed after
spending so much on a camera that is also exposing worse than a
consumer $700 camera.
Thanks Mike

 

[Bryan29453]

Mike,

My thoughts were similar to yours when getting the D30 after my Nikon CP990.

I now think that my CP990 colours were too vibrant but cannot dispute the sharpness of the Nikon Lens.

I think it is all down to the (well documented) soft D30 Image. I don't know what you use for final sharpen etc but I would recommend Ultra Sharpen 5 Pro. You can sharpen etc individual images or batch.

It is a free download and well worth a try.

Bryan

Good evening to you all.
I have had my D30 for about two months and I am not really
satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures. Neither my Canon
28-135IS or my Sigma 105 Macro seem to give me as sharp an image as
I expected. I was looking back at some close ups taken with my Oly
C3030 and was surprised to see that they were sharper and had
better and truer colors than my D30 with the Sigma 105 macro.
Has anyone compared this Sigma with the Canon 100mm Macro?
Do you think the problem is with the quality of the Sigma lens or
is the problem in the camera?
I also am not satisfied with the sharpness and colour when using my
28-135IS. The colours always seem murky or muddy and do not have
the spark that my Oly had.
I would apreciate any help since I really feel disapointed after
spending so much on a camera that is also exposing worse than a
consumer $700 camera.
Thanks Mike

 

[Mike Black]

Thank you all for your help.
Bryan, could you give me the page for the Ultra sharpen 5 pro?
Thanks Kurt,Lin, Steve, and David for your suggestions. They do help a lot.

I would like to post a picture but I am not sure how or where to post it. I did read somewhere about posting it on a url but I do not know where to post it. Any help would be apreciated.

I do use a tripod with macro shots, but maybe you are right in that the breeze had moved my subject (flower) since the exposure was rather long.

Yes I have to agree that the 28-135 is really a slow lens and I find that I am usually at 1/60 to 1/90 sec which really is a bit too slow even with IS. You are right, my Oly c3030 had a f2.8 lens and the DOF is much higher. I had not taken that into consideration. Maybe I really need to get that 50mm f1.8 that every one recomends for low light.

Yes I have used unsharp mask at 60%, radius 6.6, threshold 6 levels, and it does help, but I wanted more detail and not digital sharpness if you know what I mean.

I think it is all down to the (well documented) soft D30 Image. I
don't know what you use for final sharpen etc but I would recommend
Ultra Sharpen 5 Pro. You can sharpen etc individual images or batch.
It is a free download and well worth a try.

 

[Steve Mason]

To post, you need to "park" the image on a website somewhere, then type the link to the image. If you don't have a web site to park it on, feel free to e-mail it to me, and I can do it for you.

Steve

I would like to post a picture but I am not sure how or where to
post it. I did read somewhere about posting it on a url but I do
not know where to post it. Any help would be apreciated.
I do use a tripod with macro shots, but maybe you are right in that
the breeze had moved my subject (flower) since the exposure was
rather long.
Yes I have to agree that the 28-135 is really a slow lens and I
find that I am usually at 1/60 to 1/90 sec which really is a bit
too slow even with IS. You are right, my Oly c3030 had a f2.8 lens
and the DOF is much higher. I had not taken that into
consideration. Maybe I really need to get that 50mm f1.8 that every
one recomends for low light.
Yes I have used unsharp mask at 60%, radius 6.6, threshold 6
levels, and it does help, but I wanted more detail and not digital
sharpness if you know what I mean.

I think it is all down to the (well documented) soft D30 Image. I
don't know what you use for final sharpen etc but I would recommend
Ultra Sharpen 5 Pro. You can sharpen etc individual images or batch.
It is a free download and well worth a try.

 

[Robert Bedwell]

Mike:

I have owned a D30 for simce the first of the year. I use it as a digital accessory to my EOS1V system. I have the 28-135 lens and use it often. Frankly the D30 has been much better in the sharpness area than I expected. If all the conditions are correct and the exposure is right the image sharpness is extraordinary. I have enlarged shots taken of people with my 17-35 lens, enlarged to 13x19 in jpeg mode and you can count the hair follicles. It was not until I switched to RAW format that I saw a consistent quality improvement. I seldom (rarely find it necessary to use either Unsharp Mask or Nik Sharpener Pro. Also, for my larger images I use Genuine Fractals. When I use Unsharp Mask my settings are usually 150 - 200%, Radius 1.0 and Threshold at 2.

Good luck.....you should be loving your D30!

Bob

Mike, it sounds like to me that you have a defective camera.

I would like to post a picture but I am not sure how or where to
post it. I did read somewhere about posting it on a url but I do
not know where to post it. Any help would be apreciated.
I do use a tripod with macro shots, but maybe you are right in that
the breeze had moved my subject (flower) since the exposure was
rather long.
Yes I have to agree that the 28-135 is really a slow lens and I
find that I am usually at 1/60 to 1/90 sec which really is a bit
too slow even with IS. You are right, my Oly c3030 had a f2.8 lens
and the DOF is much higher. I had not taken that into
consideration. Maybe I really need to get that 50mm f1.8 that every
one recomends for low light.
Yes I have used unsharp mask at 60%, radius 6.6, threshold 6
levels, and it does help, but I wanted more detail and not digital
sharpness if you know what I mean.

I think it is all down to the (well documented) soft D30 Image. I
don't know what you use for final sharpen etc but I would recommend
Ultra Sharpen 5 Pro. You can sharpen etc individual images or batch.
It is a free download and well worth a try.

 

[Bryan29453]

Mike,

I am having ISP problems and the last two posts have not made it. However 3rd try:

http://www.ickybits.com

is where to look. Genuine Fractals is also worth a look.

Bryan

I would like to post a picture but I am not sure how or where to
post it. I did read somewhere about posting it on a url but I do
not know where to post it. Any help would be apreciated.
I do use a tripod with macro shots, but maybe you are right in that
the breeze had moved my subject (flower) since the exposure was
rather long.
Yes I have to agree that the 28-135 is really a slow lens and I
find that I am usually at 1/60 to 1/90 sec which really is a bit
too slow even with IS. You are right, my Oly c3030 had a f2.8 lens
and the DOF is much higher. I had not taken that into
consideration. Maybe I really need to get that 50mm f1.8 that every
one recomends for low light.
Yes I have used unsharp mask at 60%, radius 6.6, threshold 6
levels, and it does help, but I wanted more detail and not digital
sharpness if you know what I mean.

I think it is all down to the (well documented) soft D30 Image. I
don't know what you use for final sharpen etc but I would recommend
Ultra Sharpen 5 Pro. You can sharpen etc individual images or batch.
It is a free download and well worth a try.

 

[Steve Mason]

Good evening to you all.
I have had my D30 for about two months and I am not really
satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures. Neither my Canon
28-135IS or my Sigma 105 Macro seem to give me as sharp an image as
I expected

Here are Mike's samples.

Resized



Light unsharp mask applied



Original is here:
http://members.home.com/smmason/misc/CRW_1335.jpg

 

[Jon Trainer]

Could you post the USM settings you used?

-Jon Trainer

Good evening to you all.
I have had my D30 for about two months and I am not really
satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures. Neither my Canon
28-135IS or my Sigma 105 Macro seem to give me as sharp an image as
I expected

Here are Mike's samples.

Resized



Light unsharp mask applied



Original is here:
http://members.home.com/smmason/misc/CRW_1335.jpg

 

[$$Policy$$]

Mike:

The "dull" in your images may simply be attributed to the underexposure problem of the D30 (which has been talked to death). Push exposure compensation to +2/3 or +1 and see if that doesn't help.

As for "sharpness", I believe others have covered that subject adequately.

 

[Steve Mason]

Could you post the USM settings you used?

I used Amount 100
Radius 0.8
Threshold 0

 

[Dave Smith]

Hi all

Since I don't have the camera I can't comment on it but how is your monitor calibrated. The pics you posted have very deep rich color on my monitor. Just a thought
Dave

 

[DavidP #28649]

Looks like the D-30 did a good job, to me.

Hi all
Since I don't have the camera I can't comment on it but how is your
monitor calibrated. The pics you posted have very deep rich color
on my monitor. Just a thought
Dave

 

[Steve Mason]

I agree as well. I was in a hurry to get to work this morning, and hadn;'t ahd my coffee, or I would have commented when I posted the shots.

As far as color and exposure, looks good to me, the histogram was quite evenly distributed, other than a bit of USM, it didn't really need any work.

Steve

Hi all
Since I don't have the camera I can't comment on it but how is your
monitor calibrated. The pics you posted have very deep rich color
on my monitor. Just a thought
Dave

 

[Mike Black]

HI Dave.

I calibrated my monitor using the adobe gama. Now that you say it, I have thought it was not as vivid as others I Have seen, but my prints come out very close to the monitor??
Mike

Hi all
Since I don't have the camera I can't comment on it but how is your
monitor calibrated. The pics you posted have very deep rich color
on my monitor. Just a thought
Dave

 

[Mike Black]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for posting the picture for me on your URL. This forum really has kind and helpfull people who really like to share with others. I tried sharpening and really like the results. It seems to give that extra sharpness touch which the pictures lack.

I also think that others were right in that I have been having underexposure problems which makes them look dull.

I read a comment made by Chuck Westphall (which I had even before I bought the camera) where he advised to set C.fn.10=1 (Auto reducion of flash fill=Off) in order to get more consistent results with flash. Well I just took about 30 photos and am very excited with the results. I have found that using manual exposure mode and compensating if necesary gives me more control and more consistent results with my 550ex.

Well, thanks to all of you I am getting excited again and hope to post you some good pictures soon.
Mike

Hi all
Since I don't have the camera I can't comment on it but how is your
monitor calibrated. The pics you posted have very deep rich color
on my monitor. Just a thought
Dave