D60 \"soft\" or \"fuzzy\" pictures

[kirk]

Just received my D60. I have taken approx. 100 pictures in the past 2 days. Almost ALL of the pictures have a "fuzzy" or "soft" look. Many of the indoor shots are extremely bad in addition to some of the outdoor ones. I have tried RAW, Large fine JPG, flash, no flash, Program mode, Auto mode, tripod and remote capture software, etc......... all with no luck.

Question: Is my camera defective? Could the lens be the problem?

I am using a Sigma DL Zoom 35-80mm that has been used for years on my Canon EOS Elan with no problems. I also have a Canon USM 100-300mm, but have not tried to take any pictures using it.

Not very pleased at this time with the camera. it

[mrchips]

Is your sigmalens autofocusing? I have a 17-35 Sigma that acted like it was autofocusing but was out of adjustment. Sigma tech support told me it needed to be adjusted to autofocus correctly with the D60. Not sure what they did but it now works great.

Denny

[kirk]

The Sigma lens is an autofocus lens, but it may be a "little off?" I didn't realize the lens had any adjustments. Since your reply, I have tried several more photos in manual focus with the Sigma. Also shot several pictures with the Canon lens. Still not as sharp as it should be IMO.

Maybe my expectations are too high? I have taken several jpgs to a photo lab next door. Eagerly awaiting results.

BTW, I have posted a couple of samples on a web page. If you get a chance, see if they look "soft" to you.


This picture is soft all over
http://www.brinet.com/~kirk/043.jpg


The fence in this picture is soft
http://www.brinet.com/~kirk/046.jpg Soft fence



Thanks.

[mrchips]

A little soft, but...... only 786k, what are you saving them as try the large JPG or raw. I think it may have a lot to do whith the file you are saving.

[kirk]

OOPS! I didn't upload the originals. I was using PhotoShop to view the pictures and had accidentally SAVED the photos back to disk!!! It's amazing how much image data can be lost just by re-saving a jpg photo, even if it hasn't been edited!

I re-posted the photos, but the quality hasn't changed that much. One other thing I noticed. When I take a picture that has bright colors against a dark background the bright colors "ghost" over onto the background. This is extremely obvious in a picture I took of a bookshelf full of books. The titles on the spines of the books look horrible, almost as if there was a double image of the letters even though the rest of the photo looks somewhat ok. There are no "hard lines" between the letters and the background.

I was trying to duplicate the crisp photos that I have seen from other D60 samples. In particular, http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/d60_samples.html displays samples that are what I had expected to see from the D60. I have YET to get anything CLOSE to the quality of these pictures. I'm envious. What am I missing? The only difference that I can conclude would be the lens or a defective camera. Would the lens make THAT big of a difference?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Kirk,

Have you done any post-processing in Photoshop? Your reaction reminds me of mine (and many other people's) when they say the first images out of their D30.

Images out of the camera will need some degree of sharpening. I downloaded a copy of the picture of your little boy, and applied some USM, which seemed to improve it. I always shoot raw on my D30, so I don't have a feel for what are sensible settings for a D60 JPG.

OTOH the camera may be revealing weaknesses in your lens that a film SLR does not show. I had this happen to me when I got the D30 - the 100-300 IS went in trade-in pretty quick. For whatever reason, the two did not get on. :)

Regards,

[Kelvin]

Picture one looks like a case of slight motion blur to me. You never mentioned your ISO, shutter speed, aperture, exact focal length, and whether a tripod was used or not, so it makes it difficult for anyone to give you an accurate assesment. More info is needed on the second picture too, but in this case the result looks typical of a D60 before post processing. It looks like your focus point was on the childrens jeep and not the fence, so depending on the exact focal length & aperture it makes sense that the fence may be ever so slightly out of focus. The second also has better lighting, which may account for the reason it has better focus than the first; ie faster shutter speed which would have negated hand tremors (if hand held that is). The D60 is not very forgiving when it comes to low quality lenses and poor technique. This is a good thing though because it forces you to work at getting better, though buying better lenses is no fun unless you can afford them. With lower quality slow lenses (and even many newer ones), try to use an aperture around f/8 (but watch out for slow shutter speeds!) if maximum sharpness is you goal. This is the area where they tend to show their best quality.

[Kelvin]

Ok, I took a closer looks a the pictures in Photoshop 7 (and looked at the EXIF info) and it doesn't look like anything is wrong with the second picture, other than it being in need of a little post-processing which is typical. The part of the fence that would be on the same plane as the focus point is out of frame to the right, so using the fence as a guide to judge focus is not a good idea. Best to look at the area where the focus point was.

The first picture, however, still looks like motion blur to me. I can say this; if it were the camera, then there would at least still be some part of the picture that was in focus. Since there isn't, it's either the lens or motion blur.

[michaelchristensen]

Hi Kirk,

I've had the same problem as You with my Sigma 28-105 on my D30. I then started to use some USM in Photoshop and some shapness actions from www.fredmiranda.com and the problem was solved!

BUT when I bought the Sigma 17-35 my pictures got a lot more crisp and shap so You might want to change lens?

I did a little sharpening in Photoshop with your picture and see how it can look! (This is a very compressed JPG)

Regards

Michael

http://www.christensen.tv/043.jpg

[kd6lor]

Kirk, came from SLR and G2 background. The D60 is an entirely different beast. It requires minimal post processing for viewing. Some color/levels tweaks are nice but a little sharpening is important, especially if you are viewing on a monitor. When going to print, the sharpening seems a little less critical. Experiment. Know that my first pictures made me wonder why I stopped using my G2, after I got the swing of the processing workflow, I would never go back.


Good luck.

Paul

[dannyjl]

Kirk, I have a sigma 24-70 which I use most of the time. At the wide to mid end it can produce fairly sharp shots. The long end sucks. In most shots I have to auto contrast and usm in photoshop. Just these 2 steps makes a major differnece. I did these on the little guy on the tractor shot and it made a dramatic improvement. Don't go over board on the usm as you'll get a really digital look. (130%/ .4 pixels/ 0) is what I use. So, I think it's your lens as that shot is not unsimilar to many of mine. I have a 50mm sigma macro which produces much better shots right out of the camera without any ps surgery. If you can try another lens, a better one, you'll notice a major improvement.

danny

[kirk]

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I spent two hours at the closest local camera store (30 miles - Ritz Camera) today. The people there were incredibly friendly and helpful. We made three pictures with three different lenses; the original Sigma, a Canon 28-80 and a Quantaray 28-80. Each shot was of the same subject with the same camera settings using autofocus. The results were EXTREMELY outstanding.

Bottom line: The Sigma lens is defective. The prints looked as if someone had smeared vasaline on the lens! I'm not sure why I never noticed this on the Canon Elan, but assume that the digital camera either is not talking to the D60 or the lens has recently been damaged. I'll have to look at the most recent Elan pictures for more info....

TWO thumbs up for the patient people at Ritz Camera in Asheville, NC. They were patient to the end, even though the store was very busy with other customers.

I purchased the Canon 28-80 lens. Not exactly the best lens on the market, but it was very inexpensive ($130) and allowed me to continue making (acceptable) pictures throughout the holliday weekend. I am thinking of ordering the Canon 24-85 USM soon, but I have to wonder how much better that lens would be than the one I just purchased.

One other discovery: I have a Quantary PZ-1 flash that I use with the Elan. It works great on the Elan, but refuses to flash on the D60. We tried every flash in the store. The only ones they had that worked were the less expensive (mostly manual $30-50) and the Canon 220 (the only Canon flash they had). Any luck getting the Quantaray working with the D60? If not, what would be the best replacement? I really was not interested in the Canon 220. They can order any of the other Canon Speedlites, but noted that the 550 was quite expensive. I am not necessarily looking for the most expensive, but don't want to be disappointed again.

Thanks for all the great help! I am once again excited about my D60!

[mbrlej]

Hi, I just found this forum and I wish I found it sooner. You mentioned strobes not working with your d60. I just found out from the manual that some strobes do not have compatible polarity on the PC connector.

For some strobes, like studio strobes, the D60 may not even sync at 1/200th but rather at 1/60th or SLOWER.

I have been fighting my way out of a paper bag for a couple months now trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Mark

[design crusader]

kd6lor wrote:
Kirk, came from SLR and G2 background. The D60 is an entirely different beast. It requires minimal post processing for viewing. Some color/levels tweaks are nice but a little sharpening is important, especially if you are viewing on a monitor. When going to print, the sharpening seems a little less critical. Experiment. Know that my first pictures made me wonder why I stopped using my G2, after I got the swing of the processing workflow, I would never go back.


Good luck.

Paul


Actually, the sharpening amount that is needed for screen viewing is less than the amount of sharpening needed when going to print. Many factors affect sharpness of an image destined for print, such as qualtiy of the press or inkjet, image resolution, line screen, dot gain, halftones or stochastic, paper types, etc. So, typically an image destined for print will appear to be slightly oversharpened on screen.

[fredlord]

As to the speedlite question. . . only the later style Canon Speedlites work with the D60. There are alternatives among the non-Canon brands but it will take some research if you want to go with them. I bought the 420EX and have been very happy with it. I costs around US $165 or so at the major mail order retailers. I wouldn't waste the money changing to the minimally different 24-85 over the 28-80 lens. Save your money and look around very carefully at the other options. Get used to the 28-80 before you make a decision. You may even want to look at the longer range zooms such as the ones that go to 200 or even 300mm at the long end. I would also enlist the kind people at your Ritz store to try each lens carefully before buying.

Good luck and have fun with your D60. I've had mine for 17 months and I love it. It's been promised to our son if I ever upgrade.

Here's an example from this summer with the D60 I own.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1641325