Sharpness

Ozzie_Traveller wrote: I have downloaded image-749 and looked at it at 100% on the screen and I cannot find a 'perfect' point of focus anywhere across the image -

Was supposed to be the shed

Ozzie_Traveller wrote: From many years of traversing various wide angle lenses, both prime and wide
angle zoom lenses, I would say that this level of sharpness /
unsharpness is pretty typical of a super-wide, probably in this case,
zoom lens.  The optical designers need to juggle a tiny bit of sharpness
in order to enhance the rectilinear framing of the image within the
sensor format.  ie- to avoid and fix curvature at the edges, the maximum
sharpness suffers a bit

It would seem to me that a) the camera/lens is doing its best.  If you were in this commercially, then
-maybe- a 10mm non-zoom would be a tad sharper. 

That's an interesting point. Do you a 10mm prime. I'd certainly consider that if there's a mechanical limitation to what I'm using now.

r1ch wrote: I suggest you try using Aperture mode and see if the camera will prevent over exposure. Are their any firmware updates for this camera? If so install them. Also try auto focus mode which DPP will show you where you focused. DPP is a free canon produce and you can download it from their website if you haven't already done so.

I have a sort of understanding of the different modes, obviously not enough. I'll have to do some reading.

Didn't think about updates. It's an old camera, I will look what's available.

Nikon Shooter wrote: Given the camera is not faulty — because the sensor's position is fix-
ed to the motherboard — the lens may be, though, and the only way I
would go is a fine tune procedure (if at all possible with your model.

Probably not since it is a cheap, amateur level lens. I think I need to address the points above first i.e. squeeze everything I can out of it wrt to settings before I start on hardware.

Esseff wrote: [

It's still not perfect but that might also be because this was shot (accidentally) in jpg, not raw and IS was on. I think its looks a lot sharper though.

Something you said bothered me earlier. You said. I don't reduce the size of my images, BUT, every image you post has been reduced. So In my humble opinion  When you and Ozzie are uploading your images as attachment, the site automatically reduces the image and it is less sharp. I am going to test this.

Below is the same image as an attachment.




To talk about IS. Image stabilization should be turned off, unless it is the newest best version and it knows it is on a tripod and turns itself off. An element floats in the lens. If you move it moves in a way to offset your motion. If you are using a tripod, it may move and cause motion blur... Not always but best to turn it off if you feel you are having softness issues.

Esseff wrote: And once again PT has mangled that upload. Looks great here on my side.

So this is the real problem. The site is resizing your image and Ozzies images when you load them as an attachment.
In the post above, my first image if you click on it loads big, and looks sharp. If I click on my second image loaded as an attachment it zooms in and it is not big and not sharp. The first image is loaded from a website and the address is motox.org/1/pt/7.jpg

The second image is the exact same image but it is loaded as an attachment. When I click on it, the image is small and soft. I have to use the browser to zoom into the image to make it bigger and it is really soft. Perhaps this is what Nikon Shooter is seeing?

Now if I just view the two images and do not click on either of them and I use the browser to zoom in, the first image is sharp and the second image is soft.

This is the problem I think you are running into. I may be wrong, but Nikon shooter looks at your images that are loaded as an attachment and they look soft to him (and to me compared to a web site image being loaded). But he (and I) load our images from a web site an he reduces the size of his images (as do I sometimes) and makes sure they are sharp (If you look at some of his old posts, the image is gone because the image has been removed from the website). Images that are loaded from a website are sharper (as the post above demonstrates) and images that are loaded as attachments  are reduced in size without sharpening and are less sharp. An image loaded as an attachment can never compete with an image loaded from a website for sharpness. So that is my conclusion.

My other conclusion is your images are not soft, the site is reducing the size of your images so they no longer look sharp. There is nothing more you can do as I can see it other than to not load your images as an attachment.

Esseff wrote:

Nikon Shooter wrote: Given the camera is not faulty — because the sensor's position is fix-
ed to the motherboard — the lens may be, though, and the only way I
would go is a fine tune procedure (if at all possible with your model.

Probably not since it is a cheap, amateur level lens. I think I need to address the points above first i.e. squeeze everything I can out of it wrt to settings before I start on hardware.

It is my opinion that this lens is pretty good. If you compare it to sharpness to the very expensive EF 16-35 2.8 III  on the Canon 7d crop sensor, It is pretty sharp. the corners may not be as sharp, but not that big of deal IMHO.
Roll over the image with your mouse to compare.
www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-...&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

I don't think your lens is defective or a bad copy either. You would have to test it to be sure.

About your dynamic range. My opinion since you are looking at the histogram. Don't push it so far to the right. You are blowing out highlights. Digital cameras have always had a limited dynamic range, That is why we shoot raw so we can recover highlighs and boost shadows. Cyberlink PhotoDirector I believe it has a highlights slider and a black/shadows slider to fix problems caused by shooting mid day or in high contrast images.
Newer cameras have higher dynamic range which helps but even though I have a newer camera I try not to shoot in midday (just like you try to shoot in overcast days) to reduce the amount of editing to fix problems.

r1ch wrote: ...

Lots of good points. I just tried again, this time with IS off and also trying Av mode... I see improvement. Still over-exposed on the house wall but overall an improvement.

What site do you recommend for uploading photos?

I use interserver.net it is $2.50 per month unlimited data. But if you have drop box you can do direct linking.

Upload your image(s) to your Dropbox account (you must already have an account with Dropbox to access
this). Once the image has been uploaded, click on the image itself and
click Share. Click Create a link. Click Copy link.

Some people use google photos and I believe you get 15gb free space, if you look up the google album archive you can make links to your image, flickr.com for free storage 1000 images there are other web hosting for images. Google search cheap image storage

Another thing about blown highlights. There is a function on the Canon camera that is supposed to help blown highlights. Does it work on raw images? I don't know because I don't use this method
www.dpmag.com/how-to/tip-of-the-week/usi...light-tone-priority/

The other option that I do use to prevent blown highlights when using Aperture priority is to set exposure compensation to the tick between -1 and 0 closest to -1 or 2/3rds stop underexposed.. this for me protects against blown highlights and I ALWAYS set it to underexpose..

www.dummies.com/article/home-auto-hobbie...canon-eos-60d-175506