Lighthouse (Critique)

[R.T.]

This is a shot of the Sturgeon Point Lighthouse located in Northern Michigan on the shores of Lake Huron. I went there a few weeks ago and discovered they were still closed for the season. So I walked to it along the waterfront from another location to get the shot (not to far). It was about 10am on a very sunny
day, the sun was to my back and very bright. Canon 20D, 10-22 lens. I can't remember the camera settings. It looks like the very top of the lighthouse is out of focus? Can someone tell me with this setup what F-stop I should be shooting at? I plan on going back now that the trees are green and try it again. Thanks!


http://the-penhouse.tripod.com/photo_album/thumbnails/600x450/LighthousePS.jpg

[lostdoggy]

From what I've read, wide angle lens will tend to distort Long object as it reach the outer limit of the lens. I think the overall picture is soft. Have you tried to USM it???

[R.T.]

Thanks Lostdoggy, I'm sure I could answer that question if I knew what USM meant? lol

[lostdoggy]

Sorry USM- UnSharp Mask- its use to sharpen the picture- it makes the image popout. This overly simplifying it. Do you use Photoshop CS or Photoshop Element??? It should in the filter section...

[lostdoggy]

Try this site:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/instant_photoshop.shtml

It has alot of good tutorials...

[R.T.]

OH OK, yes I have PS and I did try that. But I'm new to that also and so far it's only made my photos worse. I also tried using photo-Impact with the same results. So I ordered a book on it and I'm waiting for it to come. Thanks for the link, I'm sure it will help! Do you have a suggestion for what camera setting I should have used? Thanks again!

[Croasdail]

Hey - I tried to look at thi exif information on this picture and it is not there. One thing is that this image is greatly reduced and so it is really hard to tell what the real quality of the image is. Try reducing it again in the "save for web" option - that might be easier for you to resize and reduce it there. Otherwise, it is really hard to make any judgements off of this image.

[Hellashot]

The very top of the lighthouse looks soft/out of focus. What appeture did you use for it?

[DavidEB]

The red windows and the steps also look soft - I don't think it's just the top of the lighthouse.

The bright sun and white building suggests you were using a small aperature (large f-number), so with a wide-angle lens, focus shouldn't be the issue. You have some grass in the foreground, so if you were 10 feet away from the building, at f8, with a 20mm focal length, your depth of field should have included infinity. Shorter focal lengths and smaller aperatures would give even more latitude. see this link http://bobatkins.com/photography/technical/dofcalc.html

I'm not sure, but I think the blurriness may be an example of diffraction, which kicks in with wide-angle lenses at small aperatures.

Another issue is exposure - the whites on the lighthouse and sunny side of the outbuilding are blown out. Shots of white objects in bright sun are hard to get right. This makes the chromatic aberration along the side of the lighthouse worse (blue fringing). Also, with such a bright object there's probably some internal lens flare which could lower contrast. Less exposure might improve all these.

If you shoot this again, use RAW (I usually don't use RAW, but would for such a high-contrast scene), check the histogram and adjust the exposure to make sure nothing is blinking. Turn down the ISO to 100, turn up the shutter speed (faster) to keep you aperature between f5.6 and f11 (supposedly the best optics for this lens, but I dont have one so I'm not sure). A circular polarizer might reduce glare and also help keep the exposure in a reasonable range. Check out the depth-of-field calculator and try to get the whole structure within your DOF.

good luck.

[R.T.]

Thanks everyone!

DavidEB, really appreciate all the good information and will try your suggestions when I go back this week. I lost about 20 of my best shots while I was deleting folders in the camera I (by accident) deleted the wrong one. I ended up with a few tiff images that I had already downloaded to the computer but not many. Won't let that happen again, I hope!

I know I took some shots of the lighthouse with a 28-75 lens too, and I'm not even sure which one this is. I didn't think about that until after I posted the pic, so this could be from that lens. I played around a bit more today with PS and I think this turned out a bit better. I'm still having trouble getting the USM adjusted just right.

http://the-penhouse.tripod.com/photo_album/thumbnails/400x300/LighthousePSUSMSm.jpg

[R.T.]

I don't know why the posted pic is so small, it's much bigger when I view it before posting. Any suggestions? Thanks!

This might help:

http://the-penhouse.tripod.com/photo_album/thumbnails/600x450/LighthousePSUSMSm.jpg