Ok.. Question here. What is wrong.

With my camera. These particular photos are nothing special but they just look off to me. Something is different about them as opposed to even the most simple digital camera. Is it out of focus? Not sharp? What? I can't figure it out but it just dosen't look good. I have a Canon 20d with 12-24 Tokina lens. I am beginning to think that its not sharp enough. Help?

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i see what you mean in it just being off. I cant put my finger on it either and im going to go play with the first one in photoshop to see what I can come up with

Great thanks.

I don't see much wrong if anything I see the 1st pic a bit soft but I think it looks good that why...the 2nd for me there has too much subject in the foreground meaning the rock wall is some what over-powering. Nice job and your composition is very good in my opinion.

it may help you check for softness if you find the sharpest thing in the shot and 100% crop it.

in the 2nd photo, the center of the foreground has those 3 lobes of rock. those are pretty dang crisp looking to me.

what f-stop were you shooting? maybe as simple as a dof issue? (i hope i am not insulting you by asking that)

No not at all. All of my photos are soft.. I have the camera set on the sharpest setting it has.. I do not wish to process everysingle photo. Anyone else had this problem? Im not worried about the compistion really I am mainly talking about the photo quality it self. As a photograph I feel like its lacking something. It just looks off. Hmm... Maybe its just me though :P

I honostly like the composition of the pictures. I took the first one into photoshop and played with different settings and filters for a while. In all reality, about the only thing that improved the photo at all for my eyes was a little sharpen mask at about 20% - 10%. It made the photo pop out just a little more to me.

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They are sharp, you just have to give em a little push with some PP to get that pop you see in other UWA photos of the same lens.
The detail is fine, just get good WB, increase the sat and contrast a bit and just a tad of sharpening and your set.
I did all that quickly to this small compressed file and it looks ok.

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These are a little heavy handed but I'm just trying to give an example. First image has a slight adjustment using curves, lab color applied (soft light channel a) and unsharp mask. Second image is a little contrast, lab color applied (soft light channel a again) and unsharp mask.

krb wrote in post #8282583
These are a little heavy handed but I'm just trying to give an example. First image has a slight adjustment using curves, lab color applied (soft light channel a) and unsharp mask. Second image is a little contrast, lab color applied (soft light channel a again) and unsharp mask.

I don't think it is, not the first one anyway. The WB was off a little keeping the greens from popping. Now mine might be a bit heavy handed I wanted to pull out what was missing.
Your second one you did good green look green.

well, i have news for you. you ARE going to have to process the photos you want to keep or print. but, you may not have to do much. but, they will all need a little tweek at the minimum.

i, myself, want as little pp as possible. who has the time? but, the differences the pp makes to my photos forces my hand a bit. they just look so much better with a little extra color, or some cropping adjustments, or some contrast. that stuff doesnt take long at all....for the difference it makes.

however, one thing i am finding is an absolute MUST: sharpening. i am going back through some photos that i thought were "soft" and am trying to salvage them by sharpening. what a difference it can make!

its not my copy, and its not likely yours. the problem is likely to be that we dont sharpen our photos enough, or correctly, to get the most from them in the digital age. i recommend you read up on sharpening techniques and come to grips with minimal pp being "part of the deal." i think you will find it is extremely rewarding to see that you DO take great, sharp pictures.....and it isnt the camera's fault or ours. its all in a little pp.

cheers and keep shooting.

Everybody else addressed the exposure/pp issues. Do you mind if I comment on composition?

In #1, my eye keeps telling me that it wants to see more of the river, which vanishes off the edge of the frame. I think if you had positioned yourself a little closer to the bank, you would have gotten more of the water. Furthermore, the sky to the left of the trees (which nicely frame the image) is negative space that contributes nothing to the image. In fact, it makes the eye wonder if the true subject is the river or the tree grouping. So I would crop that out. A different position would have produced the same result.

#2 is a dramatic setting. I don't know if I could have taken a better shot. It bothers me that the point of view is looking up. Hurts my neck. The cliff seems to have more of a framing effect than to serve as a point of interest. That might not have been your intention. But putting the line right in the middle isn't helping the image. Beyond that, you have some uninteresting trees. As I wrote, the setting cries out for some attention; I doubt that I would have found a solution that satisfied me. Maybe get somebody to rappel down the next time. Good try anyway.

Oh, and get rid of the contrails.

Thanks all! I have been shapening some photos and that does seem to help. I will keep trying. Thanks!

I wonder of a Circular Polarizer Filter would have helped with these especially for this time of day. If I did a lot of outdoor photos that would be my next investment.