I am currently in my native country, El Salvador. Before coming here I took a drive in the wonderful San Diego mountain and desert roads, Most people do them in motorcycles.
I have had this car for 25 years, recently did a comprehensive suspension, brake, and driveline restoration, the engine and transmission are original, untouched, 53 years old, 200,000 km and run just fine.
This is the Sunrise Highway at the top of SD mountains with the desert below.
jimmuller wrote:
Seeking input/advice. I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but since I'm shooting all MFNG anyway it's as good a place as any.
Sometimes my SOOC pics aren't as crisp as I would hope. Other times they are great. (Post-shot sharpening helps but I feel like it should be better.) Sometimes it looks like I just didn't focus well. I've been using the magnifier, which helps a lot. I've tried shooting with several apertures, but reducing the aperture to f/8 or smaller to increase DOF doesn't necessarily get me in the ballpark I expect.. With shorter lenses (like 35mm or the 2.8cm) I can't even see focus error, but the picture sure does.
So I'm wondering what the causes are and how to remedy them. One guess is that the vintage lenses just aren't all that crisp. For example, today's 55mm pics weren't quite what I hoped for, but that lens has been superb on previous occasions in different conditions. Or maybe there's too much glare in the lens, that with the existing light conditions I'm getting the best I should expect. Or maybe it's the camera's processing to produce jpg's. Which means I need different camera settings.
So if it's the camera's product I'm fussing over, maybe I should be shooting raw in addition to (or instead of) Fine* jpg's. Which leads me to the next conundrum. I've tried raw before to get better color but was never able to improve on the camera's jpg. If I started with raw I have no idea what a workflow should be. Like, golly gee whiz, now what do I do?
Maybe I just need more patience when setting up a shot. Unfortunately the world doesn't stand still for but so long....Show more →
Jim, Nikon's in camera jpg's are some of the best in the business. Canon certainly isn't as good, nor are other manufacturers I have tried. In camera sharpening for jpg's is adjustable through the menu (at least it use to be) - raw isn't because it is raw unchanged data - so sharpening happens during imaging. I have lots of experience lately with soft images, raw or jpg. The most common error is focus, and next would be technique. (camera shake mostly) IMO it is never the lenses fault, but it is an often used excuse to make a new purchase. I like having a general rule or standard to get the best results. Mine is keep iso as low as possible while keeping shutter speed at 1/125th of a second or faster, next f5.6 usually is the sweet spot for almost any 35mm format lens - except long telephotos should always be shot wide open. The advantage of raw over jpg is the number of colors it can record - 14bit is trillions of colors, and jpg can only record a max of 16.7 million colors. A little more than the human eye can distinguish. Raw is not sharper, in fact it is softer, because it hasn't been imaged yet. SOC is not SOC - it is imaged files the Camera creates with sharpening, contrast, and dynamic range adjustments. I can make adjustments to raw files that would destroy a jpg, because of all the trillions of colors. Think of them as buckets of potential colors or a palette from which you can draw the image. A thimble or a 5 gallon bucket = jpg vs raw. I won't get into workflow differences between raw and jpg, but it does take longer. Hope that helps
James Markus wrote:
Jim, Nikon's in camera jpg's are some of the best in the business....The most common error is focus, and next would be technique. (camera shake mostly) IMO it is never the lenses fault, but it is an often used excuse to make a new purchase.
... Hope that helps
Yes it does, and thank you very much. It gives me perspective on what should matter and what shouldn't. Also on what/who to blame.
The pic I posted a few days ago named NearTheEnd was a curious case. The 55mm Micro has been awesome for me most of the time. I took three shots, two with a cyclist coming over the hill, and the one I chose to post with a smaller aperture. That one came out a tiny bit darker and much sharper. The other two may have bumped against the ISO and shutter limits (which I have since set more conservative). The cyclist had no face, just a flesh-colored oval as if a smoothing algorithm had blurred everything. It may have been that the wide open aperture just isn't as sharp, or maybe I didn't focus well and relied on DOF to do it. But other details both near and far were likewise blurry. It wasn't true motion blur at 1/8000sec but perhaps the sensor doesn't work so well at that speed. I have no idea why the camera chose to use ISO 7200 and such a fast shutter. But that's what made me question the camera's processing.
jimmuller wrote:
Seeking input/advice. I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but since I'm shooting all MFNG anyway it's as good a place as any.
Sometimes my SOOC pics aren't as crisp as I would hope. Other times they are great. (Post-shot sharpening helps but I feel like it should be better.) Sometimes it looks like I just didn't focus well. I've been using the magnifier, which helps a lot. I've tried shooting with several apertures, but reducing the aperture to f/8 or smaller to increase DOF doesn't necessarily get me in the ballpark I expect.. With shorter lenses (like 35mm or the 2.8cm) I can't even see focus error, but the picture sure does.
So I'm wondering what the causes are and how to remedy them. One guess is that the vintage lenses just aren't all that crisp. For example, today's 55mm pics weren't quite what I hoped for, but that lens has been superb on previous occasions in different conditions. Or maybe there's too much glare in the lens, that with the existing light conditions I'm getting the best I should expect. Or maybe it's the camera's processing to produce jpg's. Which means I need different camera settings.
So if it's the camera's product I'm fussing over, maybe I should be shooting raw in addition to (or instead of) Fine* jpg's. Which leads me to the next conundrum. I've tried raw before to get better color but was never able to improve on the camera's jpg. If I started with raw I have no idea what a workflow should be. Like, golly gee whiz, now what do I do?
Maybe I just need more patience when setting up a shot. Unfortunately the world doesn't stand still for but so long....Show more →
Jim,
My 2 cents worth.....
Looking at you Flickr Exif data some of those recent images were shot on a bright day with very high ISOs = 8000 and that will introduce noise.
Do you have image stabilisation turned on?
Do you shoot Aperture or Shutter priority?
For that 55mm micro you should be able to get sharp images at 1/50th second even without image stabilisation turned on.
Lots of your images are shot at 1/8000th second because the ISO is set so high (or allowed the camera to float it up)
The image pixel width/height in the Flickr Exif data is 1400x933.
Not sure where in your flow you are cropping/downsizing the sensor's native 6048x4032 pixels.
Are you exporting the images to that reduced pixel 1400x933 pixel count?
Flickr then further restricts the max image size, viewable to me, to 1024x682.
When I download one of your images from Flickr (ones we see linked to FM?) the file size is a mere 425KB
So, to me, there are a lot of restrictive elements happening serially.
It also looks like you are using Paintshop Pro 19.00. I am not familair with that tool.
You should downlaod Nikon's own NX Studio and have play with it using some RAW files.
Regards,
Colin
p.s.
I always shoot in raw, take the file into Lightroom, do some edits, then export a JPEG at max pixel width/height. I do however restrict the size of the output JPEG to 8-10MB before uploading it to Flickr.
Looking at you Flickr Exif data some of those recent images were shot on a bright day with very high ISOs = 8000 and that will introduce noise.
Do you have image stabilisation turned on?
Do you shoot Aperture or Shutter priority?
For that 55mm micro you should be able to get sharp images at 1/50th second even without image stabilisation turned on.
Lots of your images are shot at 1/8000th second because the ISO is set so high (or allowed the camera to float it up)
The image pixel width/height in the Flickr Exif data is 1400x933.
Not sure where in your flow you are cropping/downsizing the sensor's native 6048x4032 pixels.
Are you exporting the images to that reduced pixel 1400x933 pixel count?
Flickr then further restricts the max image size, viewable to me, to 1024x682.
When I download one of your images from Flickr (ones we see linked to FM?) the file size is a mere 425KB
So, to me, there are a lot of restrictive elements happening serially.
It also looks like you are using Paintshop Pro 19.00. I am not familair with that tool.
You should downlaod Nikon's own NX Studio and have play with it using some RAW files.
Regards,
Colin
p.s.
I always shoot in raw, take the file into Lightroom, do some edits, then export a JPEG at max pixel width/height. I do however restrict the size of the output JPEG to 8-10MB before uploading it to Flickr.
Colin has reminded me of something I have always recommended - shoot in manual mode. You make the decisions on iso, dof/ f-stop and shutter speed. It is the best way I know to learn. With digital you get instant feedback on what your setting changes does to the image. There is always many correct exposures for every situation. Mostly it is halves and doubles - 60th at f2.8 is the same amount of light as a 30th at f3.5. Each full f-stop either doubles or cuts in half the light reaching the sensor. You'll notice the shutter speeds are in similar increments. With your musical background it should become second nature in no time.
Thank you both. A few quick answers and ruminations.
DeltaSigma wrote:
Jim,
My 2 cents worth.....
Looking at you Flickr Exif data some of those recent images were shot on a bright day with very high ISOs = 8000 and that will introduce noise.
Do you have image stabilisation turned on?
Do you shoot Aperture or Shutter priority?
For that 55mm micro you should be able to get sharp images at 1/50th second even without image stabilisation turned on.
Lots of your images are shot at 1/8000th second because the ISO is set so high (or allowed the camera to float it up)
The image pixel width/height in the Flickr Exif data is 1400x933.
It also looks like you are using Paintshop Pro 19.00. I am not familair with that tool.
You should downlaod Nikon's own NX Studio and have play with it using some RAW files. ...Show more →
Colin, thanks for taking the time to look. Good thoughts, worth more than just 2 cents. A lot of those pics were at ISO 8000 and very fast shutter. I have in fact set ISO lower before but I or the camera must have reset ISO, perhaps for one of the infrequent night shots. When I look at the original NearTheEnd pic at 100% I don't see noise but maybe the camera has already tried to smooth it away. I need to be more adamant at insisting the camera do what I want, not what it wants!
I do have Image Stabilization (IBIS) turned on. With fast shutter I could get some of those 300mm moving target pics (probably not the moon shot) without it but it helps me target the subject with a long lens, or fails when I forget to tell the camera what lens I'm using. Since you asked, I use Aperture Priority. It won't let me use Shutter Priority with a MF lens and FTZ. Haven't done Manual much, probably should but I've grown lazy because the camera does so well most of the time.
I edit with PaintshopProX9, now owned by Corel. I bought it a long time ago (pre-Corel?) before version X, back when the X was a Roman numeral. After X when they wanted to bump it again they changed the scheme and named it X2. I stopped upgrading at X9. I don't use most of the features anyway, have no reason to upgrade or risk it becoming a subscription. In fact, I usually do very little editing at all except some combination of crop, resize, sharpen, and occasionally brightness/contrast or vibrancy.
I use PSProX9 to resize most or all of my pics to 1400 x <whatever>. For Internet, email to friends, or my sweetie's Auraframe I don't need anything bigger. I know Flickr reduces them further for export but they usually look fine on my screen that way. When I have a problem it's with the original, not my "final" result that I'm willing to distribute. I've posted larger pics in FM that I hosed on my band's website, but I created the Flickr account so I wouldn't have to do that.
Finally, I have NX Studio and have worked some with raw files. I've never been able to improve on what the camera does! Plus, it bugs me that NX studio won't run unless I have an Internet connection so I can validate my subscription. But that's just me.
I guess I need to be careful about ISO and shutter. And focus. With progressive glasses I can't always see the viewfinder properly unless I'm careful.
James Markus wrote:
Colin has reminded me of something I have always recommended - shoot in manual mode....With your musical background it should become second nature in no time.
He! I can try using manual mode. The camera has made me lazy to where I concentrate on only composition. After half a century of shooting film (and far too much technical experience to be useful to anyone) I am quite aware of what the square root of 2 means. But I will have to remember which buttons, knobs, controls, options, and tweaks do what!
I like having a general rule or standard to get the best results. Mine is keep iso as low as possible while keeping shutter speed at 1/125th of a second or faster, next f5.6 usually is the sweet spot for almost any 35mm format lens - except long telephotos should always be shot wide open. The advantage of raw over jpg is the number of colors it can record - 14bit is trillions of colors, and jpg can only record a max of 16.7 million colors. A little more than the human eye can distinguish. Raw is not sharper, in fact it is softer, because it hasn't been imaged yet. SOC is not SOC - it is imaged files the Camera creates with sharpening, contrast, and dynamic range adjustments. I can make adjustments to raw files that would destroy a jpg, because of all the trillions of colors. Think of them as buckets of potential colors or a palette from which you can draw the image. A thimble or a 5 gallon bucket = jpg vs raw. I won't get into workflow differences between raw and jpg, but it does take longer. Hope that helps
