Improve the lens or the photographer ??

The posted photograph (plus two 100x blow-ups) were taken with a Canon EFS 17-85 mm lens. The camera was mounted on a tripod, camera in AV mode (f=18, ISO = 400) with the widest field of view (17 mm). The mirror was NOT locked up and I did not use a remote shutter switch. The lens image stabilizer and auto focus were turned off. I took replicate shots at various manual focus settings; from infinity to about 1 meter. I selected the "best" photograph, based on background and foreground sharpness. Both the background and foreground appear to be somewhat "soft" in this example. Is this the best I can do with this lens (I guess pretty good); or can I do better with a different lens ? What lens would you recommend ?

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/zircon100/25363​37111/

how was the wind? and what was your shudder speed?

Maybe try it at f/11 or f/8. At f/18 with the kit lens, not sure how much diffraction you are going to get, especially at 17mm. Also try MLU, and keep your finger pressure at a bare minimum, if you have no remote.

Try it again, maybe you won't need another lens. Otherwise for APS-C, I'd say for a wide angle, one of the 10-xx range lenses (Canon 10-22, Sigma 10-22, etc).

Take a peek at this:

http://www.photozone.d​e …st-report--review?start=1

The reason the MTF (sharpness) values fall off beyond f/5.6 is simply because diffraction is starting to kick in. By the time this lens is at f/18, I can't imagine how bad it will be, but at f/5.6 it's quite good.

Now look at one of Canon's best lenses:

http://www.photozone.d​e …st-report--review?start=1

It's best at f/4, and then is gradually falling off - that too is the result of diffraction softening up the resolution. It doesn't matter what lens you look at, beyond f/4 to f/8, you're losing quality, not gaining. However, you will gain DOF, which may be more important than sharpness with a shallow DOF.

Here's another one - a macro that is renowned for it's sharpness - but at f/32 - it stinks - just like any other lens will with a FF or crop sensor.

http://www.photozone.d​e …st-report--review?start=1

Glenn's link should be studied and here's another to keep you up at night.
Scroll down to page 209 that shows the MTF charts. http://software.canon-europe.com …_Lens_Work_Book​_10_EN.pdf

From your flickr site I ass-u-me that you are about where I was 2 yrs ago and you can't quite determine how much to get into this photography thing.
Ya kinda got to set your priorities, time invested and depth of your pockets.
Be forewarned, this hobby is addictive. Don't let it take time away from that baby.

Sorry, got off on a rant. Good shooting my friend.

F18 would work best if the shot of the landscape was in the distance the fact that your trying to do a closer to further landscape shot , I have to agree that a 5.6 would work better.

It would also give you more leverage in shutter speed, and a higher TV would also make this a crisper shot better.

I have to agree here...I think the problem may simply be that you shot at too small an aperture. I'm assuming the reason you shot at f/18 was that you wanted the foreground flowers -and- the background landscape to be in focus but you have to remember that with most lenses (if not virtually all lenses), cheap or expensive, this is a trade off.

What I might have tried to do here...depending on the actual shooting situation which obviously I'm oblivious too...is tried backing up a little bit, shot closer to the long end of the tele and used a much wider aperture. You might have gotten a little bit of a compression effect but it would have been a sharper image using a wider aperture and you still would have gotten most of your image sharp there....remember that aperture is only -one- of the things that effects DOF...distance to the subject is equally if not more important.

Also I would like to mention that looking at that first image...in that perspective it looks plenty sharp enough. As you've pointed out it doesn't become that evident until you really blow it up. Unless you're planning to do a massive wall hanging of this shot, I'm not sure I would worry about the sharpness issues here in any case. Just my opinion as always but personally I usually frame most of my stuff as 8x10's or a bit larger so I don't really worry if it's sharp enough to blow up to the size of a billboard. If it's "sharp enough" for your intended print size, I wouldn't obsess about much beyond that too much...it's not always necessary to have every last pixel pristinely sharp (and in most cases it's not going to happen anyways). A lot of people seem to get really hung up on this...they HAVE TO HAVE that last little bit of sharpness, even if it's only a fraction of a percentage that can only be seen at large magnifications. That's not what photography is about...at least not to me .

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

As a guide (or as some say, a learning tool), insert the capture data into the DOF calculator found here:

http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html

Enter the numbers for focal length and f/stop (the program defaults to a 1.6 crop Canon camera). Near the bottom right, there is a number called Hyperfocal Distance, set the Subject Distance to that number.

Now for your FL = 17 mm, and aperture at f/8, the HD = 6.29 feet. Set the Subject Distance = 6.29 ft.

The Near Limit (of focus) = 3.15 ft
The Far Limit = Infinity.

Now try it with f/5.6: Near Limit = 4.44 ft, and Far Limit = Infinity.

The lesson here is that you simply don't need to use tiny apertures when the focal length is so short in order to get an adequate DOF.

chauncey wrote in post #5629881
Scroll down to page 209 that shows the MTF charts. http://software.canon-europe.com …_Lens_Work_Book​_10_EN.pdf

Chauncey:

Thanks for the link - very interesting and useful. I'm going to print and read it.

I have a question - is there another part to this publication? The cover sheet indicates that it is Page 192, and on page 207, it refers to information on pages 175 and 177.

Something I've never seen before (on page 209 under the small table) is the comment, "The more the S and M curves are in line, the more natural the blurred image becomes". I wonder if this is referring to the elusive quality we call bokeh.

I think the page numbers are incorrect,
Go here, 1st post "EF Lens Work III" https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=307033 > chose english and click> click on #10>voila

Reading the other ten is a good thing.

FYI-This information came from the "stickys" at the top of most of the different categories in this forum.

Thanks to all who replied to this posting.

Thursday: conditions - no wind, shutter speed 1/60

inthedeck: I will try expanding the f-stop range with various manual focus settings.

Glen NK: Thanks very much for the lens-evaluation links. I am slowly digesting the info. I will try your advise regarding the mix of f-stops and focal adjustments.

chauncy: Thanks for your link, and yes, I need to balance the cost of "technical perfection" against what pleases me.

Broncobear: Not sure how a faster shutter would improve the image quality. On the one hand, the image was "stationary"; on the other, perhaps "electronic noise" is more evident at slower shutter speeds ?

Walczak Photo: I will try expanding the f-range focus combos with my next test. Thanks for your kind words of wisdom regarding being at peace with the "good enough" point. Obsession with technical details can kill other opportunities.

Again, thanks to all.

In case anyone is interested, here is a similar shot (taken with a EF 16-35 mm 2.8 lens) at a slightly smaller f/stop:

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/zircon100/25471​77328/

Concerning the advice to use an F/stop < 18 for optimal foreground/background sharpness as shown in the above posted photograph; I'm confused. After examining the "On line Depth of Field Calculator" http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html; my take on this problem is that any F/stop LESS than F18 won't cut the mustard; that is, the foreground (clover to lens distance ~ 2.5 ft) and the background (treeline to lens distance ~ 3000 ft) will NEVER be in simultaneous focus at an F/stop less than 18; regardless of a subject focus at infinity or in the hyperfocal plane. Am I wrong ??
I admit, moving the camera a few feet away from the foreground clover greatly improves the F/stop range; but that is a different animal concerning the requirements of this composition.

You are not wrong zircon, but there are ways around the problem...

There is software that allows one to take multiple images and blend them for a super sharp image front to back.

Also one might try to take many images with different focus points and cropping out the OOF parts and combining them
in a panorama merge program. A lot of overlap would be needed for this technique.

chauncy: thanks for the comment about blending images. I am a rank beginner using layer techniques in photoshop, but I'll give the crop and merge proposal a try. Actually this composition might lend itself to that technique since the mid-field clover detail is visually uninteresting; so stitching multiple images in that region might not be noticed. One more trip back to the clover field !