What could have made this better?

[ChrisBlaze]

I took this with my kit lens at iso 100, f/16, 22mm sitting on a carbon fiber tripod.

Its not as sharp as I thought it would be.



http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d77/rickrockin/IMG_5766.jpg

[drparker]

ND filter to darken the sky and keep it from blowing the highlights.

[august23]

im not much of an expert, but for a kit lens, you have to give urself a pat on the back for this one. nice shot.

[ChrisBlaze]

I just go get why it not sharp.

[liza]

Did you apply USM in Photoshop? That would be my guess as to why it isn't sharp.

[ChrisBlaze]

oh and what causes this:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d77/rickrockin/IMG_5736.jpg

[Canuck]

I'm not concerned with the lighting, we're just working on sharpness. We will start with original:
http://images.fotopic.net/?id=37997499&noresize=1
I did a sharpen in photoshop and got this:
http://images.fotopic.net/?id=37997500&noresize=1
I did an unsharp mask and got this at 90% / radius 0.7 /threshold 0, then fade USM 85%
http://images.fotopic.net/?id=37997498&noresize=1

There is an inherent softness in DSLR pics and well get used to it...it's not hard to fix. It is all about playing with the USM/sharpen. In hindsight I probably coulda not done the fade USM and it would be ok too. It's all personal preference. These fixes took me about 2 minutes for both. Enjoy!

[rslv]

Cable/Timer-release and MLU?

[Canuck]

oh and what causes this:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d77/rickrockin/IMG_5736.jpg

Exposing for the sky (underexposing ground), the opposite of blowing out the sky by metering for the ground. Hopefully that makes sense. What the problem is is called lack of dynamic range. The difference between the light and dark. The human eye can compensate; DSLRs haven't figured that out yet.

[blam]

looks like yuo exposed for the sky and used a tungsten WB maybe?

fits shot looks good. just run it through a sharpen in photoshop.

I couldnt save the sky (maybe someone else can?)...but here is a sharpen mask @ 300% .3 radius

and a slight level split there, blew out the sky a little more by accident, but you get the point.

[ChrisBlaze]

Cable/Timer-release and MLU?

yes, yes, no

[ChrisBlaze]

these are my first sunrise pics, I wanna get better but dont knwo which route to take.

[Canuck]

blam, IMHO, the rocks in the foreground seems a little oversharpened (unnatural). I wonder if you could perhaps fade USM and get it to work? Just a suggestion.:cool:

Perhaps a little saturation too like 10ish might bring some pop into the colour. This is all personal preference.

Also, if this shot was shot RAW initially, you can go back and fix the temperature (K) in postprocessing. That's a huge draw in and of itself to do. I find more oft than not I need to fix the temp K.

[evandavies]

Chris, f/16 might be a bit too high. Have you found the sweet spot for your lens?

For a shot like that I'd suggest exposure backet of half or even a full stop then blend em in Photoshop

[vctr]

You could have tried F/11 which is somewhat of a sweet spot for the kit lense.
Just playing with CS2 here.

[blam]

blam, IMHO, the rocks in the foreground seems a little oversharpened (unnatural). I wonder if you could perhaps fade USM and get it to work? Just a suggestion.:cool:



thanks for the tip. I will put it into consideration when I do my own PP.

I didn't want to spend too much time on these, just showing him that some sharpening could help. I am very new to PP as well myself so I am still learning.

cheers

[Keith R]

The 2 second shutter speed might be relevant...

[drparker]

looks like yuo exposed for the sky and used a tungsten WB maybe? Your set to auto white balance, that's why one shot is very warm and the other is very cool. Manually set it.

For a shot like that I'd suggest exposure backet of half or even a full stop then blend em in Photoshop This is a great suggestion, just remember to manually set white balance so they all have the same color temp.

[blam]

drparker: I didn't take the picture, I personally never use AWB

[drparker]

drparker: I didn't take the picture, I personally never use AWB Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was speaking to the OP by adding additional information to your post. The EXIF data has white balance = auto.

[angryhampster]

You could have tried F/11 which is somewhat of a sweet spot for the kit lense.
Just playing with CS2 here.



OH GOD MAKE IT STOP! :lol:


Little bit too much there.

[TMR Design]

Hi Chris,

As much bad press as the kit lens receives, it should certainly be able to give you a sharp image on shots like those posted. I do agree that f/11 and smaller are not in the lenses sweeter spots and although you thought you were getting more detail by increasing depth of field I think in this case it worked against you and you don't need that depth of field for that shot. You could open the lens up to 5.6, 6.3 or 7.1 and gotten a better shot.

You say the camera was on a tripod. What was the shutter speed? Was it windy?

[kwsanders]

ND filter to darken the sky and keep it from blowing the highlights.

Yeah... I agree with this... probably an ND2 maybe. I would probably (personal opinion) have bumped up the ISO to 200 to get a little better sensitivity to the light out of the sensor.

One thing you could do after taking the photo, in post processing, is to bump the midtones to brighten them.

I do like the subject matter and the composition of the photo, by the way.

[TMR Design]

Everyone,

The OP is looking for an answer about getting this image sharp out of the camera and at the moment is not concerned with color and exposure.

[blam]

TMR: I think we pinned the problem to his lack of PP to sharpen the image, as this is essential when shooting with DSLR (and I am sure you know this)

[drparker]

Everyone,

The OP is looking for an answer about getting this image sharp out of the camera and at the moment is not concerned with color and exposure.

TMR: I think we pinned the problem to his lack of PP to sharpen the image, as this is essential when shooting with DSLR (and I am sure you know this)

and under exposure leads to noise which does affect how sharp an image will appear.

[slappy sam]

Here is what I did. I did what the ND filter would do, enhanced the saturation just a touch, and sharpened it.

Original is below.

[vctr]

Another try, a little shadow/highlight adj. and minor sharpening on the water.

[GuyS]

You may have reached the preverbal dynamic range of digital. That is 5 stops.

[RgB]

Here's my try I used some Highlight30/shadows60, Apply image RGB-Multiply 60%, Paint with History-Multiply (the water). Sharpen edges @ 60% opacity. Plus a few masks and other stuff.

http://homepage.mac.com/danielsperanza/other3/sunset3.jpg

Try exposing for the bright sky. Then later bring back the shadows.
This way you wont burn the highlights.

This may not work as it can could a lot of noise but it does usually fix blow outs.

I like how the suns rays reflected off the clouds and back on the water.