Sharpness

[jmayoff]

I'm relatively new to photography and I have a question about sharpness and clarity.

I have a Nikon D60 with the kit lens and a 55-200mm zoom. I always shoot raw.

I've taken what I thought would be crystal clear, razor sharp images, only to get back to my computer and find they're nowhere near clear. Then, I look at just about every picture from this guy (http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/08/10/30/) and I'm amazed at how sharp and clear everything is.

So, my question is this: what are the contributing factors to that crystal clarity and in what ratios are they important. How much does camera body, lens quality, focus, depth of field, shutter speed, photoshop etc. play in getting clear, razor sharp images?

Should I just resign myself to the fact that until I can afford a $2500 lens and $4000 body that I'll be getting almost-but-not-quite-sharp pictures? Or should I be manually focusing more often (is my eye really better than the camera)? Or am I doing something else wrong?

Thanks,
Jason

[tirediron]

First off, no, you don't need to spend another cent to get sharp pictures unless [and it's VERY unlikely] there's something actually wrong with your gear. Please post a couple of example images so that we can try and help you trouble-shoot further.

To answer your question: Camera body has almost nothing to do with image sharpness, EXCEPT for allowing you to adjust the in-body processing. I don't know if the D40 firmware allows you to do that for RAW files or not. It should. Lens quality has a lot to do with image sharpness, but even the cheapest lenses turn out decently sharp images in their mid-range apertures. Shutter-speed has an effect if you get to a point where you're too slow to hand-hold. Anything below 1/60 is getting dodgy, depending on your skill level.

Apeture and point of focus have the most to do with the general appearance of sharpness. Even the best lenses aren't as sharp wide open as they are stopped down a couple of notches. The difference between f2.8 and f5.6 on my 24-70 is very noticeable. So, here's a suggestion: Set up your camera on a tripod, and aim it at something at least 15-20 feet away where sharpness is easily discernable (Leaves on a tree), set your aperture for f8, make sure that you focus on the subject (watch your active focus points) and then take a couple of test shots. Compare those to your earlier images, and see what they look like.

[dmagick]

Hi,


I'm relatively new to photography and I have a question about sharpness and clarity.

I have a Nikon D60 with the kit lens and a 55-200mm zoom. I always shoot raw.

I've taken what I thought would be crystal clear, razor sharp images, only to get back to my computer and find they're nowhere near clear. Then, I look at just about every picture from this guy (http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/08/10/30/) and I'm amazed at how sharp and clear everything is.

So, my question is this: what are the contributing factors to that crystal clarity and in what ratios are they important. How much does camera body, lens quality, focus, depth of field, shutter speed, photoshop etc. play in getting clear, razor sharp images?

Should I just resign myself to the fact that until I can afford a $2500 lens and $4000 body that I'll be getting almost-but-not-quite-sharp pictures? Or should I be manually focusing more often (is my eye really better than the camera)? Or am I doing something else wrong?

Thanks,
Jason

If you can, try shooting a couple of images in raw + jpeg (I don't know if your camera supports it but your manual should tell you). You'll find the jpeg is sharper because the camera does some processing as it's saving the picture. Shooting in raw gives you more flexibility (it's a "loss-less format" which means you can undo your changes and return the image to it's original state) but means more post-processing. Jpg on the other hand is not a loss-less format. If you make a change and save it, you lose data and the change can't be undone.

[Marko]

In general it's been my experience that all digital images need sharpening. This is totally different from film. So a digital image that was shot with a high shutter speed and good depth of field will STILL be blurrier than that same image from a film camera.

You'll therefore need to get the sharpest image possible through good focus and appropriate shutter speed (depth of field is up to you) and then sharpen each image in Post.

OR

There are likely menu settings in your camera that control sharpness at the time of exposure. Try playing with those.

Personally I like controlling the sharpness in post, but when I first started in digital, the default lack of sharpness was very disappointing.

Hope that helps,

Marko

[EJC]

I'm having the same issues. Can someone out there give some step by step advice for neophytes on how to sharpen images in using Photoshop?

Thanks in advance
EJC

[Marko]

A real easy way is the unsharp mask filter. (Filter- Sharpen - unsharp mask)

You'll have to play with the sliders but you can try this to start if the image is for the web
Amount - 100%
radius - 1.0 pixels
Threshold - 0 levels

Adjust these values to your taste. The image should be pretty sharp to begin with though. If the image is really blurry to begin with (i.e. you missed the focus) you are wasting your time and should likely discard the image.

If the image is for print you'll need to increase these values proportionately based on the size of the print.

Hope that helps
Marko

[jmayoff]

Since I originally posted this, I've figured out how to easily sharpen my photos and have created a photoshop action to make it pretty painless. It involves converting the photo to LAB color, sharpening (with unsharp mask) the lightness channel and then converting back to RGB.

The settings in the action work fine on the full size raw images out of my 10 MP camera. You may need to adjust for your own purposes. Here it is. Hope it helps someone.

[kkjensen]

Must this be done in Photoshop? I also have the D60 (shooting raw) and have been doing my touchups with the ViewNX program that came with the camera...figuring that the nikon software might know what to expect from a nikon camera. Do correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't have photoshop. Gimp? Yes, but I try to avoid spreading around between programs too much. I try and keep my workflow simple for the bulk of my shooting since I'm not doing this to make money and my wife hates waiting a week for me to let her see any vacation pictures, etc. I've noticed I regularly boost the exposure by a half stop with my D60 so I guess I can add some sharpening too. I wish there was a way to make this the default for all new shots in ViewNX.

[F8&Bthere]

Must this be done in Photoshop? ... Gimp? Yes, but I try to avoid spreading around between programs too much. I try and keep my workflow simple for the bulk of my shooting since I'm not doing this to make money and my wife hates waiting a week for me to let her see any vacation pictures, etc...

Photoshop, Gimp, Capture NX, Lightroom etc all have sharpening tools, or you can use a plug-in/stand alone sharpening tool like Nik Sharpener etc. And I'm sure there is a way to do batch processing of multiple photos to save time. Problem is sometimes selective sharpening is better- like when you have a photo shot at high ISO with a fair amount of noise, or a portrait which you'd prefer a softer look in the face, or an image with a nice blurred background, and for this you would need to deal with them individually in some higher end program like those mentioned. If you shoot jpeg I would suggest trying increasing sharpness in camera and use Gimp (cuz it's free and PS costs a small fortune) to do selective or additional sharpening only when needed. This is if you want to avoid additional steps in your workflow. For me, I've said it many times in these forums, this is why I like Lightroom- can handle my entire workflow (for the bulk of my images) in one program.

[Todd5DII]

Just a few points that were not covered in the Sharpness Podcast

Remote trigger and Mirror Lockup
If shooting landscapes or fixed subjects use mirror lockup and remote trigger, this will eliminate a lot of vibration based softness

Tripods
Be sure to lock up the legs, head, and if long lens the attachment ring, I have seen a lot of new photog's shoot "Loose" which is never a good idea (hey everyone gets tired of repositioning but which takes longer, doing it right, or going back and re-shooting?)

IS - Image stabilization, generally if tripod mounted turn it off, unless there is a lot of wind which makes the tripod "Vibrate" it will soften the image (try it sometime and see what I mean.

If handheld turn it on: Shoot in bursts (Linda Tharp suggested this, it does work if you are close to or below a shutter speed that is optimal, not sure why but I suspect the rapid shooting captures images between hand tremors, try it sometime!)

Lens Diffraction - DOF and Sharpness often work agains each other, just because your lens can go to F32 doesnt mean that's where you should put every time. A good link to tell you how your lens performs in regards to sharpness at various F/Stops is www.slgear.com for instance http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/zproducts/canon100-400f45-56is/tloader.htm

Other Software Tips
There is software that can also help if you did everything else right.

DXO - Fixes lens aberations, can even make the canon 100-400 useable at 400mm f/32! Does require you to remember distance shot if using canon (damn you canon!) since they dont embeded focus info into EXIF

HeliconFocus - Blends multiple images with different focal points (works well when little or no movement expected)

Paitience
LOL, of light or some other factor is not critical remember wind does come and go in cycles, be paitent. Also you can up the ISO to 400 easily when nessecary on modern cameras, if you shoot the histo to the right a bit you can even do 800 with moderate noise processing to get pretty useable images these days

Todd