Sculptormic, I didn't want to see crops for teaching you how to crop! I wanted to see how the lens, Speedbooster and camera performs without the resizing, and it looks good. Also the gentler PP in your last post looks very much better than the first examples.
Edit: By the way, I've thrown my old step sharpening out of the window. Now I'm only sharpening really hard in full size ("sharpen" in PS), then resample (bicubic) in one step, and finally add some unsharp mask at 0.2 pixels radius. Looks "smooth but sharp" in my opinion, without artefacts.
sculptormic wrote:
When people say "I don't want to offend you" you can be sure of the fact that you get a slap in the face. It is like Nixon who said "I am not a crook" We know all about that now.
Or like a debating politician who starts with "With all due respect" and then subsequently wipe the floor with their opponent.
But Makten you got me going now, as they say in Holland "brutals own half the world" , so here are your crops.
Also you could take in consideration to look at peoples work before making bold statements.
I've seen your photos/work in various threads, mostly the Merril thread(s). I think they look more like photos from a P&S than anything else. This is my opinion, one you probably consider as a bold statement.
I'm sure your photos will look a lot better if you use a good resizing script - and/or save in a very high jpg quality.
Seriously mortyb? I've seen photos by sculptormic in both the NEX and the Ricoh threads (the Cuban ones I think are particularly impressive) and I've always thought they're outstanding, both in composition and sharpness…
mortyb wrote:
Agree with Makten, but I think it's because of your PP/downsizing which doesn't look optimal in bringing the best out of these lenses. I've seen the same with your Sigma photos as well which leads me to believe it's your downsizing.
carstenw wrote:
I agree too, the shots are great, but the sharpening doesn't appear optimal, and there is a little crispness missing, IMO. How do you downsize?
Hi Carsten, I might learn something here.
I go to picture sizing put it 72 dpi and 1120 pixels wide, on bicubic automatic. Bicubic automatic is that the problem?
Here is the same picture twice first bycubic automatic and second bicubic sharper.
Also I use duplicate layer for my framing, could that cause a problem?
First bicubic automatic and my framing, second bicubic sharpenand wthout my usual framing.
Makten wrote:
Sculptormic, I didn't want to see crops for teaching you how to crop! I wanted to see how the lens, Speedbooster and camera performs without the resizing, and it looks good. Also the gentler PP in your last post looks very much better than the first examples.
Edit: By the way, I've thrown my old step sharpening out of the window. Now I'm only sharpening really hard in full size ("sharpen" in PS), then resample (bicubic) in one step, and finally add some unsharp mask at 0.2 pixels radius. Looks "smooth but sharp" in my opinion, without artefacts.
bicubic automatic or bicubic sharpen?
BTW I sometimes use Focalblade plugin in PS for sharpening.
alwang wrote:
Actually, at the risk of offending folks, I have to say I'm very interested in the Speedbooster conceptually, but from the images I've seen from it, it doesn't capture the full-frame look for me quite right. I'm primarily interested in shooting FF with fast aperture lenses just stopped down a little: that gives you a combination of shallow depth of field and image clarity that's difficult to replicate on APS-C. I haven't seen that sort of aberration-free clarity in a lot of the SB shots. I hope I'm wrong, because it would be a great option in a lot of ways. ...Show more →
I have to agree. When it was announced, i was super excited, and ready to buy a NEX-6 and throw money at Metabones.
Now, after seeing a lot of samples, i'm still interested- but not quite as much.
Part of this, I think, is that a lot of people are using telephoto lenses (WHY?) or small apertures on their SB equipped cameras, due to lack of ND filters.
If you're going to drop $400-$600 on a SB, do it for the right reasons, and get a ND for your now F1.0 lens haha.
sculptormic wrote:
bicubic automatic or bicubic sharpen?
I don't know what you mean. I use PS CS5 and under "resize" I choose "bicubic".
BTW I sometimes use Focalblade plugin in PS for sharpening.
I don't think you need plugins. Just sharpen the heck out of the image before resizing, with a small radius (0.3-1 pixel, or using the "sharpen" command one or two times).
sculptormic wrote:
I go to picture sizing put it 72 dpi and 1120 pixels wide, on bicubic automatic. Bicubic automatic is that the problem? Here is the same picture twice first bycubic automatic and second bicubic sharper.
I believe that Bicubic Automatic chooses which bicubic mode, it isn't a mode itself. And I believe that it chooses Bicubic Sharper for downsizing, so these two images should look very similar. I personally do a multistep process, but if I were to do one step, I would probably run Filter/Sharpen, resize using "Bicubic", and then finish off with Filter>Smart Sharpen with very gentle settings.
Also I use duplicate layer for my framing, could that cause a problem?
I am not familiar enough with Photoshop to comment on this. I presume it has no effect, but I might be missing something.
I am not sure I would sharpen quite as much now, and I am constantly looking for a way to skip the multi-step part, but I haven't found anything yet. I might try the Nik plugin, now that I got it with the suite.
I think I saw that thread at getdpi. Well to look on the web I post now two versions again.
One, with my way of sharpening that is; in ACR in the RAW file. (I always thought the closer I do it to the origal source the better.)
And the second one the way Makten does it; as he says sharpen the hell out of it in the to PS exported file with unsharp mask settings sharpen 123 radius 0,3
I must say the second one looks a little cryspyer.
With my Sigma files I actually seldom use sharpening because in my opinion the images are so sharp in itself. But I wil give it a try and may be I can raise my level above snapshot quality.
The more you resize, the higher the risk of losing some original sharpness. The second shot above is sharper, but maybe slightly oversharpened. There are some halos in some black/white transitions, I think.
I think you'll gain a lot from trying to reduce CA, because it can clearly be seen even in the downscaled shots. If ACR can't deal with it, it's always a good idea to convert to LAB mode and only sharpen the L channel.
The halos is probably from slightly too hard sharpening prior to resizing. Unfortunately, one must fiddle a bit to see what works best for each sensor.
Great info on how to resize on PS guys. Thanks!!
However, do you guys know how to resize properly on Lightroom? I'm using LR most of time now and I cant find any option to resize as I used to on PS. I used to do Denoir's multiple resize steps on PS....
Thanks!!!
I wanted to see how the lens, Speedbooster and camera performs without the resizing, and it looks good. Also the gentler PP in your last post looks very much better than the first examples.
I've seen photos by sculptormic in both the NEX and the Ricoh threads (the Cuban ones I think are particularly impressive) and I've always thought they're outstanding, both in composition and sharpness… 
