Fuzzy or Anal

3rdPlanetPhotography

Ok here's the deal... I'm shooting a Canon 20d. I have several lenses and generally I get the same "fuzzy" results with all of my photos. When I enlarge my images to 100% they all look fuzzy to me. Am I being anal or is this what I should expect from my images???

Here's the image:



Click here to see the Original.

How are your images at 100%?

pathfinder

Aperture? Shutter Speed? ISO? Handheld, I assume.

What were you focusing on?

The girls faces are the sharpest part of the image, but do not seem critically sharp; you can see the individual strands of hair in the sunlight on the girl in the middle. A little USM will help quite a bit.

Are these sharpened in the camera? Or are you sharpening these in Photoshop? What are the settings in you camera about sharpening of jpgs?

3rdPlanetPhotography

Sorry mate, I knew I'd forget something

Here is all the EXIF data

pathfinder

Shuter speed seems hig enough that this is not likely camera movement. What lens was this shot with?
Has it had Sharpening?

3rdPlanetPhotography

This was shot with my Tamron 28-200 3.8....

The camera is set to full sharpening and I get this same result on all my lenses . I just wasn't sure if this was typical (digital) or what.

LiquidAir

I don't know your lens, but it is possible that that is the best it can do at f/5.6. Try stoppping down to f/8, f/11, and f/16 to see if it gets better.

SloYerRoll

I'm pretty sure until you get into L glass, aperture does affect how sharp an image is. (not lucky enough yet to know firsthand though).

I find if I go up 3+ stops in aperture (above max aperture) on most of my shots. I am much happier w/ the results.

I'm interested in finding out more about this though.

-Jon

pathfinder

3rdPlanetPhotography wrote:

This was shot with my Tamron 28-200 3.8....

The camera is set to full sharpening and I get this same result on all my lenses . I just wasn't sure if this was typical (digital) or what.

8 to 1 zoom ratio zoom lenses will not be as sharp as L glass primes. This is not a snob comment, but simply an optical fact of life.

I think this image is probably better than I would expect for an 8:1 zoom. If you stop the lens down abut two stops from wide open aperture, you may find it is a little sharper.

I think this image might be sharpened abit in Photoshop still, though.

SloYerRoll

digital darkroom technique (little bit OT)
Remember, make sure you are complete w/ post before you sharpen. Using the sharpen tool should literally be the last function before you save and close or print.

Khaos

The shot is fine. The bokeh could be better, but that's the limit of that giant zoom your packing. I would say the resolving power of the lens may be less than a prime or an L zoom.

The hair, where the sun is hitting it is very sharp, but the faces, which are slightly shadowed are not as detailed, thus I see the lens as not as able to resolve darker areas. The clothes are in good detail also, with just motion blur with the arm movement. I see no noise issues. I think this a decent shot and what you can expect from a 28-200 zoom.

My zooms are broken up: 10-22 for wide, 24-70 for mid, and 70-200 for tele. All are very sharp and I would never believe a lens that would cross that whole spectrum can be as sharp.

Again, the shot is good, you're just looking for a Ferrari performance from a Toyota Camry.

Nikolai

Scott,

3rdPlanetPhotography wrote:

This was shot with my Tamron 28-200 3.8....

The camera is set to full sharpening and I get this same result on all my lenses . I just wasn't sure if this was typical (digital) or what.

I don't know your lens, but I had a brief experience with its brother, Tamron 70-300 (I also had 20D at the time). I was getting pretty much good for nothing pictures with it (well, wallets and mebbe 4x6 could be a OK:-) no matter how hard I tried. Then I got a chance to shoot with my boss' 24-70, and all of a sudden my camera started to produce crispy clear pictures. I reasized then it was not me, and not the camera, but a rather substandard lens.
Since that time I acquired some L glass and some decent EF-S, too. No complains about soft pictures ever.

Another thing: I do not use in-camera sharpening. In fact, I don't use JPEGs at all, so all my photos are mandatorily postprocessed...

HTH

LiquidAir

SloYerRoll wrote:

I'm pretty sure until you get into L glass, aperture does affect how sharp an image is. (not lucky enough yet to know firsthand though).

I find if I go up 3+ stops in aperture (above max aperture) on most of my shots. I am much happier w/ the results.

I'm interested in finding out more about this though.

-Jon

Even with L primes the aperture affects sharpness. As amazing as the 135L is, it is still sharper at f/2.8 than it is at f/2.

Swartzy

No question

SloYerRoll wrote:

I'm pretty sure until you get into L glass, aperture does affect how sharp an image is. (not lucky enough yet to know firsthand though).

I find if I go up 3+ stops in aperture (above max aperture) on most of my shots. I am much happier w/ the results.

I'm interested in finding out more about this though.

-Jon

The Tamron is a "fair" lens but indeed will provide a sharper image stopped down. The "L" glass Jon actually can be quite sharp NOT stopped down. A perfect example of this it the 400mm f/5.6 prime (Canon). Consistenly, shot per shot, the 28-135 IS stopped down to f/9.0 is drastically improved to shooting at f/5.6. Every lens has a sweet spot (range of f/stop).

I would suggest as the others, stop down. For the Tamron, I'd suggest setting up the tripod and do focus/clarity testing with each stop, then bring to computer and do comparisons. Realize the Tamron will not give you near the quality of more expensive lenses. Guess that's why we all have the glass bug

chicodawg

Hello Scott. I also shoot with a Canon 20D and have similar focus issues. I have tried hand-holding, monopod and tripod.

I also have Canon "L" glass and a Promaster (renamed from Tamron?) lenses. I get blurred images that I have to edit. It's aggravating!

My Promaster lens is the XR EDO AF Aspherical LD IF 17-50mm f/2.8 Macro (big name, eh?). My Canon "L" is the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L Ultrasonic.

I used the Promaster at an event this week - indoors, using a Alienbees AB800 and Canon 580EX as my flash. http://wcp.smugmug.com/gallery/2593016 They were ALL taken with the Promaster and all had to be sharpened. I'm not real satisfied with a few of the photos for other reasons also. The models start on page 4...

Today, I did an event outdoors with some shade on the subject using the Canon "L" and those images had to be sharpened! If the subjects were in direct sunlight, they appeared in perfect focus. All shots were taken on a monopod.

Part of me is ready to toss the 20D out the window of a moviing vehicle. The other part of me is ready to toss myself out the window... hehe But seriously, whether it's me, or the $400 lens or $1,600 one, there is a problem.

If interested, the outdoor event that didn't need sharpening (90% of them), using the 70-200mm f/2.8 L is here http://wcp.smugmug.com/gallery/2711646 And, the ones that did need sharpening (same event and lens!) are here http://wcp.smugmug.com/gallery/2711466


Mike

gus

LiquidAir wrote:

Even with L primes the aperture affects sharpness. As amazing as the 135L is, it is still sharper at f/2.8 than it is at f/2.

Ive noticed the same thing with mine also & at f4 it will make your eyes bleed before any processing.

God i love that lens.

CookieS

I owned a 20D and they are very picky about 3rd party lenses, some will not foucus at all. find a nice used canon 100-300 f4-5.6 and you may be better off, its an inexpensive but nice sharp lens for the most part. also make sure you use single shot for portrati type stuff and the CENTER focus point for best resluts. If that doesnt work it may need to go in WITH your main lens and get calibrated

rutt

This shot (and lens) isn't getting it's best "shot" for a fair comparison.

Suppose you sharpened it:



Full sized here

Suppose you ran it through the Dan Margulis portrait workflow:



Original size here

I'm sure someone will be happy to try I2E (a much more automated approach than photoshop). Perhaps that will get competitive results.

Look, I'd like to tell you that you can just shot away with your digital camera and get professional looking results right out of the camera. That just isn't the case. Nearly every digital image benefits from some sharpening. Nearly every digital image of people needs to be looked at to make sure the flesh tone color is realistic. Nearly every digital image of people can benefit form some blending to overcome the lack of detail in the red channel on faces.

In the old days of film, some of this would happen in the darkroom if you had a sufficiently good photolab. These days, that won't happen if you don't do it or cause it to be done somehow.

Andy

A quick run through i2e and it looks great. First one, your original, 2nd one, i2e.

Mike02

Andy wrote:

A quick run through i2e and it looks great. First one, your original, 2nd one, i2e.

Hey Andy, this might sound like a wierd question, but you mentioned in your other thread that you use i2E on your mac through parallels, may I ask how that works?

Andy

Mike02 wrote:

Hey Andy, this might sound like a wierd question, but you mentioned in your other thread that you use i2E on your mac through parallels, may I ask how that works?

Perfectly!

pathfinder

This shot was underexposed due to the big white tent fooling the light meter and the front of the girls being in the shade.

i2e does a very nice job of bringing out the shadow detail and color - especially in the green tartan bodice of the girl on the left.