ACUITY

For some reason the images I see on the web involving trees, leaves etc seem blurry, OOF or not sharp. I'm not sure if this is because of the digital capture or simply sloppy technique. I read somewhere that if you increased acuity it made the images appear sharper. Can this be done in the camera or must it be done in PS?
I want to understand this before I spend $2000+ next month for a 1Ds MKII body. If it is because of the limitations of digital capture then I may as well continue shooting with my EOS3's and wait until they have a 46MP digital which is the approx size of film. Thank you.


Tim

The simple answer to your question is that it is most likely poor post processing.

It is probably the sharpening (or lack of) that is making them look soft. When displaying on the web the images are displayed at a fraction of the captured size (example -1280x1024 display compared to capture size of 4992x3328 for your 1Ds MkII). Unless this is sharpend for the web, it will not look its best when displayed there.

You can set the picture styles to sharpen sufficiently for the web - but this might not be best for printed images.

Every image should be sharpened for the particular output that is required (ie one sharpening setting for printing, another for web etc), however most people out there either dont sharpen at all or only sharpen for print.

Thank you for the explanation which makes sense. How can you increase acuity so the leaves or other details have what appears as increased sharpness similar to film? Can this be done in camera or does it have to be done with PS? Thank you.

Tim

Or, if the host site has resized the images & everything looks a bit unsharp, that might add to the problem.

You can make sure that the settings you use give them the appearance of more sharpness:
See the DOF calculator at the bottom.
Depth of field and aperture selection question.

Depth of field explanation

OTOH, not everything needs to be sharp in some shots.

There is a setting within the picture styles (in camera) which alters the sharpening applied to the images.

However if the image is to be used in multiple formats and sharpened properly for both (ie print and web) then it is probably best to do it in post processing.

I shoot mostly landscape with some wildlife and macro. My landscape lenses are telephoto i.e. 70-300mm and 170-500mm and I rarely use wide angle lenses at all. Most of my shots are at f16 or between f11-f22 so sharpness and clarity are very important to me.
Because digital is new to me I am hoping to find the correct procedures to duplicate the sharpness of my film images before pulling out both hairs on my head...lol. Thank you for helping to educate me,

Tim

neilwood32 wrote in post #9113699
There is a setting within the picture styles (in camera) which alters the sharpening applied to the images.

However if the image is to be used in multiple formats and sharpened properly for both (ie print and web) then it is probably best to do it in post processing.

True. If you're "hoping to find the correct procedures to duplicate the sharpness of my film images", then even with a MKIII, you're much better off shooting RAW & learning how to get the most out of your image in PS.

Think of it as a digital negative & it makes corrections much easier because they're made in a larger color space. (RAW is 12-bit, where jpg is 8-bit.)

And consider this: A max jpg from my 20D is 2,754 KB. The exact same shot with the jpg extracted from RAW is 4,315 KB which is 1.57X larger, so it seems that something is lost in the in-camera jpg conversion, isn't it?
Why throw those extra bits away?

Thanks Frank.

I would always agree about shooting RAW if you want the best images. I want to make the important decisions regarding the photo regarding White balance, exposure, contrast, and sharpening and only RAW gives me the chance to deal will the full information straight off the sensor.

digital sensors do an 'anti-aliasing filters', so there is a general need to post process to sharpen it up a bit, as a result. dSLRs do not apply as much sharpening in camera to JPGs, like p&s cameras automatically do, as the belief by the manufacturers is that the dSLR shooter wants to retain more control over things like sharpening than the typical p&s shooter.

It sounds as if Raven4s has good technique on film already (that or doesnt blow photos up as large as those he is seeing from digital shots on the net). Those skills you know already will transfer across regardless of whether your using RAW or Jpeg. Jpeg will do it all for you, RAW you tell it what to do (even then most RAW programs will automatically apply a little sharpening).

In my opinion sharpness etc before and after digital photography has made a dramatic leap. A lot of film shots that were acceptable would now be discarded, lenses that were up to task are now disregarded. I have no doubt that you will be able to take equivelent, if not superior shots with a dslr as you have been with the eos 3, not because of technology but more due to ease of seeing digital mistakes over those of film, and therefore, hopefully, improving technique to fix those mistakes.

46 Mp is a scan dpi of 5800 which, IMHO, is excessive for most, if not all, film/lens combinations. Nevertheless, it just happens to be the on-sensor dpi of the 7D.

Didn't I read somewhere that if you shoot at f/22, you can suffer from diffraction, which may be softening your results. I know this won't apply to all of your shots, as you also shoot at wider apertures, but it's another thought to consider.

PP sharpening techniques in Photoshop at lynda.com http://www.lynda.com …playCourseN.asp​x?lpk2=543 occupies 10 hours and 33 minutes
For the folks like me that invented the word "anal".

Chauncey - can you say "retentive" as well?

10 Hours?? Im not sure i have spent that long sharpening about 10,000 shots!

Sorarse wrote in post #9123408
Didn't I read somewhere that if you shoot at f/22, you can suffer from diffraction, which may be softening your results. I know this won't apply to all of your shots, as you also shoot at wider apertures, but it's another thought to consider.

True. Most lenses are sharpest 2-3 stops up from wide open.