City by the Sea

[DriedStrawbery]

Took a shot of the city scape from a distance.

I have seen many pics of similar images that are much more sharper than this. Need tips on how to get these buildings sharper. What is missing or what can be done better ?

Any comments welcome. Thanks!!

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[WesternGuy]

What did you shoot the original image with. If you want suggestions on how to get it sharper, then we have to know what you are doing now.

WesternGuy

 

[DriedStrawbery]

Was shot using canon 6D. 70mm, f14, iso 100. Lens was 24-70 f2.8 II.

Pic has some edits in LR for some pop for color, clarity etc.


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[Peeb]

Shutter speed?

 

[smoke665]

Echo Peeb's comment what was your shutter speed, and also add what did you focus on. Were you on auto focus?

 

[Peeb]

View attachment 142959

I applied some de-haze, clarity, sharpening, and shake reduction (as well as warming up the tone just a tad) but it only reinforces my initial impression that the image was not quite fully captured. Did you focus on the sail boat?

The plane/helicopter/blimp/whatever-in-the-sky is suffering from motion blur IMO.

 

[smoke665]

@Peeb 's edit above emphasizes the previous comments. Another thing to be aware of is that large cities seem to have a haze over them (smog) and can appear flat in bright sun. Depending on the angle of the sun, a polarizing filter will help to eliminate the haze and increase the saturation of the colors. Understanding & Using Polarizing Filters

Another thing, is the f/stop you're using. My opinion is in sunlight, you'd be far better off to stop down to f/8 and adjust the exposure with a higher shutter speed, which would still give you ample DOF. Not sure of the distance here, but for example if you assume the near sailboat is 1500', at f/8 your near limit for DOF would be just over 1400 feet, but your far limit would be to infinity, so you'd have a sufficient DOF for everything.

 

[Gary A.]

I left my heart there ...

 

[Ysarex]

Took a shot of the city scape from a distance.

I have seen many pics of similar images that are much more sharper than this. Need tips on how to get these buildings sharper. What is missing or what can be done better ?

Any comments welcome. Thanks!!

Your photo is adequately sharp. Although, as Smoke665 pointed out, f/14 was not a good idea and his recommendation is correct.

Peep's got the answer -- I went further with basically the same solution. You're not missing sharpness you're missing contrast. You're shooting through too much atmospheric haze. There's nothing your camera can do to solve this problem. You could use a polarizing filter on the lens and that would help but it would not effect a complete solution. The photos you've seen taken by others were either taken in conditions with much lower relative humidity and/or they were enhanced via processing software after the fact. Our perception of sharpness is linked to contrast. A sharp low contrast image will appear less sharp than a slightly unsharp high contrast image. Atmospheric haze reduces contrast in both tone and color. Peep was also correct to warm the image as that counters the loss in color contrast due to the blue color of the haze.

In the future you can try the polarizing filter for partial assistance. Otherwise watch the weather forecast and the next sunny day with 20% relative humidity you'll get your shot. I live in St. Louis MO and we have a nice skyline view with the Saint Louis Arch from across the Mississippi river. Unfortunately it's a bit more than 500 meters across the river and we're lucky to get 20 days out of the year when the humidity drops enough to allow a clean shot.

Option two: post process. Make sure and save a CR2 file and then cleaning up the haze can be accomplished in Photoshop or similar software.

Joe

 

[DriedStrawbery]

Thanks all for the detailed responses, learnt a lot from your valuable inputs.

Full camera setting: canon 6D. 1/125, 70mm, f14 (AV), iso 100. Lens was 24-70 f2.8 II. Auto Focus.

View attachment 142959

I applied some de-haze, clarity, sharpening, and shake reduction (as well as warming up the tone just a tad) but it only reinforces my initial impression that the image was not quite fully captured. Did you focus on the sail boat?

The plane/helicopter/blimp/whatever-in-the-sky is suffering from motion blur IMO.

Used aperture priority and chose f/14 to focus on far off buildings so 1/125 was chosen automatically.
It was on auto focus. Some i shot with buildings in focus and some with sailboat - with the idea that it would be the subject. Not sure which i focussed on in this image.

The blurry thing is a bird Was trying to get that into the frame, but the F14 gave 1/125 and blurred that.

How do you apply the de-haze? It it only in photoshop or can LR6 (not CC) also do de-hazing? From what I read, a combination of settings may get some the effect of a the de-haze slider.

@Peeb 's edit above emphasizes the previous comments. Another thing to be aware of is that large cities seem to have a haze over them (smog) and can appear flat in bright sun. Depending on the angle of the sun, a polarizing filter will help to eliminate the haze and increase the saturation of the colors. Understanding & Using Polarizing Filters

Another thing, is the f/stop you're using. My opinion is in sunlight, you'd be far better off to stop down to f/8 and adjust the exposure with a higher shutter speed, which would still give you ample DOF. Not sure of the distance here, but for example if you assume the near sailboat is 1500', at f/8 your near limit for DOF would be just over 1400 feet, but your far limit would be to infinity, so you'd have a sufficient DOF for everything.

Thanks, will look into these calculations. Will try this shot again with different times of the day/season. Was also a pretty hot day, wonder if the air would be more turbulent than a cooler day or in the morning times.


@Ysarex : Thanks for your comments too. I started paying attention to weather forecast for astronomy, dint realize it affects landscape photography too.

So much of finer details to be learnt when you feel you are close to sharp pictures, but its still far away... something like getting to scratch golf!

 

[smoke665]

Was also a pretty hot day, wonder if the air would be more turbulent than a cooler day or in the morning times

Not necessarily more turbulent. In fact a hot day with a nice breeze can still be clear. If the weather has a smog alert out, you can pretty much be sure there will be haze.

Couple other comments/suggestions.

1. Put your camera on Manual Focus, so you know exactly what you've focused on.
2. Set your exposure to Manual. Learn and use the exposure triangle.
3. Get your shutter speed up. Especially if you're hand holding, or get a tripod.
4. Your best light for color saturation will be early morning or late evening. Mid-day sun is always going to be flat.