My D7000 is not sharp

[Tbolt47]

I know there has been a few discussions on this topic and I just got my D7000 a couple of days ago and I've just been doing a few test to see if the focus is good with my 300f4 or it needs tweeking.

Anyway I'm new to Nikon so I've got no other Nikon body to compare it too. I shoot RAW and I can only get a reasonable sharp picture with alot of sharpening. All my images seem to have a slight blur to them. I tried shooting at 1/1600th and reducing the aperture (not at the same time!) to make sure everything is in focus but I can't seen to get rid of the slight blur.

I tried using Camera RAW to open the images as well as ViewNX 2 - ACR seems to make the images sharper even when no sharpening is selected but they still don't seem quite right.

I'm comparing these picture to a 12MP Olympus 620 and the same images taken with a 620 and the 50-200mm SWD lens are quite a bit sharper (RAW again with no sharpen applied).

So has anyone noticed they have to use more sharpening with the D7000? To get something sharp enough I seem to have to use sharpening that is showing up the noise more to the point were it appears to have as much noise as the 620 - which is a noisey camera! I came over to Nikon to get high resolution lower noise picture which is not what I seeing at the moment (yes noise is lower but not after a lot of sharpening).

So because I'm new to Nikon has anyone got any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?

Anyway I haven't had the time to put anything decent together yet but here is a quick couple of samples. These are both 100% crop straight from RAW with no noise reduction or sharpening applied. The first one is from the D7000 and the second is from the 620 (note this also had a 1.4x converter on). Like I said I thought it was motion blur on the D7000 but a high SS doesn't cure it (don't forget to click on the pictures twice!).

 

[buellwinkle2]

For what it's worth, when I got my D90 and the 18-105 lens I said this is taking soft to blurry pictures. It actually got worse over time and sent the lens in to Nikon and they sent me back a new one and it's very sharp now. So it could just be a bad lens or a bad camera. I can't imagine the 7000 having a soft image like you shown, something is wrong.

 

[Tbolt47]

For what it's worth, when I got my D90 and the 18-105 lens I said this is taking soft to blurry pictures. It actually got worse over time and sent the lens in to Nikon and they sent me back a new one and it's very sharp now. So it could just be a bad lens or a bad camera. I can't imagine the 7000 having a soft image like you shown, something is wrong.

That's the problem I bought the D7000 and the lens at the same time and not having another body to try it on I'm not sure. I also bought the 18-105 and that doesn't seem sharp either but I haven't done any testing with it yet. Tomorrow I will try some better test. I downloaded some RAW pictures the internet taken with the 18-105 and they seem a lot sharper than what I'm getting with both lenses.

If I don't get anywhere I will take it back to the shop and try some picture with their D7000 to see if it's different.

 

[Randy Z]

All digital photos need some sharpening applied, do a search, there are many tutorials. And you'll find that different cameras need different amounts/settings, especially as the MP rises.

The details are there, just waiting to be sharpened.
--
Z-Man

 

[Tamilarasu U]

Try to focus it manually using live view magnification if it seems sharp it will be the AF sensor problem or the lens was badly calibrated..

 

[Tbolt47]

All digital photos need some sharpening applied, do a search, there are many tutorials. And you'll find that different cameras need different amounts/settings, especially as the MP rises.

The details are there, just waiting to be sharpened.
--
Z-Man

I'm well aware that RAW files need sharpening I don't need a tutorial, I said I was new to Nikon not to photography, I showed unsharpened images so you could see the difference. My point is that a 12MP 4/3 camera is producing sharper images than a 16MP APS-C camera.

To get the D7000 picture even close to the same sharpness as the 620 I have to use 3 times as much sharpening which makes the noise higher than the 620 which is a noise camera to start with!

 

[Tbolt47]

Try to focus it manually using live view magnification if it seems sharp it will be the AF sensor problem or the lens was badly calibrated..

While on a tripod I AF'd on a subject, switched to manual focus then to live view, magnified and it looked pretty sharp I then tried used MF to try and improve on what I was seeing and I could not. I had a quick mess around with a focus chart and the sharp part of the chart was still slightly blurred like my sample here.

 

[amooz]

This is what all my photo's were looking like, then about 4 months/9k pictures later one of my X-type AF sensors seems to have died. Waiting for it to come back from Nikon

--
"In technology I'm placing all my trust"
http://www.AdamMooz.com

 

[Tamilarasu U]

Then don't wait just give it to Nikon for repair....

 

[Tbolt47]

Then don't wait just give it to Nikon for repair....

I'm just trying to make sure there is a problem first and I don't want them to come back and say that everything is in tolerance. Since I've only had it a few days I would rather take it back to the shop for a replacement since it's new and doesn't work properly (if that is the case), but trying to convince some in the shop there's a problem is the hard bit.

 

[garyking]

It does look a bit out of focus. If this was on a tripod, then I suggest fine-tuning the AF for this lens. If you have to adjust more than + or - 10 take it back to Nikon and have them fix it.
--
'I'm not as smart today as I will be tomorrow.'
WSSA #261; Here's to 'Bo'

 

[photoforfun]

My D7000 with 18-105 was very soft, after AF-fine tuning (-9) it became very sharp.
http://www.fotografie.fr/fotoforum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1140
--
Kindest regards,
Stany
http://www.fotografie.fr/
http://www.fotografie.fr/fotoforum/index.php

I prefer one really good picture in a day over 10 bad ones in a second...

 

[Tbolt47]

It does look a bit out of focus. If this was on a tripod, then I suggest fine-tuning the AF for this lens. If you have to adjust more than + or - 10 take it back to Nikon and have them fix it.
--
'I'm not as smart today as I will be tomorrow.'
WSSA #261; Here's to 'Bo'

It could be, that's what I thought at first playing around with a few shots and apertures didn't seem to increase the sharpness of the in focus part, but I will have more of a try tomorrow.

 

[shetani]

Is the E620 sample ooc jpeg ?!

Can you post exif data for the E620 please. What was you camera setting for the D7k picture ? With a little pp you will have sharper results. Tone curve and picture control also have impact on the result. Any reason why you set the d7k to +1EV and center weighted metering ?

 

[Tbolt47]

Is the E620 sample ooc jpeg ?!

Can you post exif data for the E620 please. What was you camera setting for the D7k picture ? With a little pp you will have sharper results. Tone curve and picture control also have impact on the result. Any reason why you set the d7k to +1EV and center weighted metering ?

No the 620 sample is from a RAW, and unsharpened. They are only too samples to show you what I was talking about, I will do some proper samples when I have the time.

The 620 shot was at ISO200 and 1/800th - as I was trying to keep the DoF small. I know the D7000 was taken at 1/400th but like I said I'm still not getting sharp pictures at 1/1600th and 1/1250th.

With the D7000 I have set the camera to no sharpening and no noise reduction so when I process the RAW files into TIFF's it will not applying anthing to the image.

 

[Tbolt47]

I've just tried a quick comparsion between the E620 with my 14-54 lens and the D7000 and 18-105 lens, and going by SLRgear.com the 14-54 is ever so slightly sharper and the D7000 image looks slightly sharper (both shot at ISO200 F8) and less noisy! so I think the problem could be my 300f4, either that or I've got a strangly sharp Olympus 50-200!

I will try setting up the AF properly and see if it gets any better. I know someone else with a 300f4 so I could try his and see if it is different. Sometimes it's better when things just break, you then know exactly what's wrong!

 

[Tbolt47]

Since the bottle label is largely white and background was dark I used center weighted and +1 because, well it's white and not netural grey!

 

[scokill]

There are some threads about comparing 12mp to 16mp and the need to resize 16mp and compare apples to apples.

 

[Tbolt47]

I'll have a read, though I don't think the picture I showed is going to make any difference and don't forget a Nikon 16MB is not very much taller than a Olympus 12MB images because most of Nikon extra pixels are in the width - 3:2 vs 4:3.

 

[RobS555]

When I first ran test on my D7000 I noticed that the image was slightly sharper in LiveView than through the viewfinder, so you might want to see if the image sharpens under that condition. I spoke with Nikon support and they had me reset the camera, which helped significantly (though not 100%). Sounds like you're knowledgeable about photography, but you didn't mention so I'll ask-- are you shooting mirror up? The slap may cause some vibration at 300mm. 1/400th may not be enough to freeze the image at that focal length. Equally likely you're seeing the difference between your lenses (which would explain why it's better with the other lens).

I am confused about a couple of things in your pictures, though-- first why the nikon image is skewed. I'm assuming you swapped the cameras on the same tripod. While the black/white contrast is better on the d7000, the green gradations are pretty well nuked.

It's been said for years that Nikons shoot softer out of the box; they've been criticized for it, but maintain the practice. The nice thing about the D7000 is that it's incredibly customizeable. I wouldn't let the fact that it's not doing as well "out of the box" deter you, if you can't get the image where you want through sharpening and saturation, etc.