Clarity

d70girl · Jun 26, 2006

I'm noticing a sort of clarity to other people's photos that I don't see in mine. How is this achieved? Is it something to do with the settings on my camera, or is it something that is done in Photoshop afterwards?

If it helps, I'm using:

Nikon d70s
28-80mm 3:3-5.6 Nikkor lens
70-300mm 1:4-5.6 Sigma lens

DonSchap · Jun 26, 2006

d70girl said:
I'm noticing a sort of clarity to other people's photos that I don't see in mine. How is this achieved? Is it something to do with the settings on my camera, or is it something that is done in Photoshop afterwards?

If it helps, I'm using:

Nikon d70s
28-80mm 3:3-5.6 Nikkor lens
70-300mm 1:4-5.6 Sigma lens

It's a lens thing... big buck lenses yield sharper focus. :lmao:

Digital Matt · Jun 26, 2006

Clarity is a broad term, in relation to photogrpahy. It would help if you were more specific. Perhaps if you posted a photo of yours that you don't like, and explained to us what you see about it that is unclear, or different from the clarity of other peoples photos.

Some things come to mind. Poor sharpness due to cheap lens, and or incorrect focusing.

Poor sharpness due to camera shake.

Haze from air pollution.

Just some things to think about.

Big Mike · Jun 26, 2006

Examples are good...show us what you mean.

Look into the things that Matt suggested, it could easily be one or more of those issues.

Also, sharpening (Unsharp Mask, for example) can affect how clear an image looks...especially when the image is made web-ready. I like to sharpen before and after I resize and image for web viewing.

DonSchap · Jun 27, 2006

Redoing the parameters of your camera.

If you have been the only one who has had their hands on this camera body... then this may not apply... but, there are settings on the camera which do some processing prior to seeing the picture.

They are called "parameters"

They control

Sharpness
Contrast
Brightness
Saturation

If these are not zeroed out, you can certainly get some really weird corrections, regardless of the lensing.

Just a thought... :wink:

MommyOf4Boys · Jun 27, 2006

tripod tripod tripod...use a tripod with a remote lol

jemmy · Jun 28, 2006

After looking at Mays winner for picture of the month, 'Twisted Tree', it definitely made me even more keen to buy a better lens ( a canon50mm1.8 for starters) and a tripod and remote! It is a good example of brilliant clarity and sharpness in my mind! I have no doubt that revamping my equipment will help in this department!.... I dont know about the nikon but my canon 350d/rebelxt came with twin kit lenses that i have heard are not the best quality at all - maybe the same with yours but not sure?? xx
ps... anyone know anything about wireless remotes ( i know canon has one)...to me they would be way less restrictive than your usual remote??? are they super exy or not that flash???

zedin · Jun 28, 2006

I have had nothing but outstanding results from the nikon kit lens that came with my d70s. The glass is supurb and make me realize just how bad my old lenses on my film camera were.

dsp921 · Jun 28, 2006

I think it is a lens thing also. I have not seen or used the Sigma, but the 28-80mm is a soft lens. At minimum I'd look for an 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G ED. That's the D70s kit lens. Very good for the money. The good news is there are a lot for sale on the used market. Look for people that bought a D200 with one as a kit just to get the D200 sooner, or someone that bought an 18-200mm and no longer needs the 18-70mm.

Digital Matt · Jun 28, 2006

Keep in mind that every lens is sharper when stopped down a few stops from its max. If you have a lens with a max aperture of f/4 for example, it will be sharper at f/8 to f/11. If you have cheaper lenses, you can still get good, or "better" performance at least, by stopping down a bit. Of course, with that comes more depth of field, so bear that in mind.

d70girl · Jun 28, 2006

dsp921 said:
I think it is a lens thing also. I have not seen or used the Sigma, but the 28-80mm is a soft lens. At minimum I'd look for an 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G ED. That's the D70s kit lens. Very good for the money. The good news is there are a lot for sale on the used market. Look for people that bought a D200 with one as a kit just to get the D200 sooner, or someone that bought an 18-200mm and no longer needs the 18-70mm.

What do you mean "soft lens"?

JohnMF · Jun 28, 2006

d70girl said:
What do you mean "soft lens"?

soft just means not sharp

livid · Jul 9, 2006

uhm i'm not sure if it is an appropriate technique for sharpening a digital photo; but whenever i want to sort of perform that manipulation using photoshop, i usually save the image in .psd format and then put it on the same picture as a texture in a new layer.....

filter-> texture-> texturizer-> load texture[which is that very same pic you just saved in psd format]
ofcourse the higher resolution the better....

markc · Jul 9, 2006

I think DonSchap hit on it. While it's certainly true that the optics of a lens will have an impact on how sharp the image is, from many of the images posted here, I think that things like contrast, saturation, etc., are having more of an impact on what people are seeing. I don't mean that as a dig towards anyone, just that many of the images are posted straight from the camera, so the white and black points aren't usually set.

Here's an example. I picked a test image with camera shake and motion blur on purpose. It was taken on a 6x7 Koni-Omega Rapid that has a really nice lens on it.

If you look at the histogram, you'll see that there are no true black and white points in the image. The curve starts and ends too far inward. This gives a grey cast to the image and kills the contrast and saturation. The original wasn't like this since the b&w points were set correctly at the time of the scan, but I moved them here to simulate the issue.

Here the black and white points are set correctly, and there is a slight boost in contrast and saturation from additional adjustments.

There is no change in the actual sharpness, but my guess is that people would feel that the second image has more "clarity". I think having good glass is important, but moreso, learning to edit images. Getting more familiar with editing techniques will probably yield greater results than spending a bunch of money on glass. Plus things like camera shake will kill an image far worse than a cheap lens.

This was taken using the Canon 22mm-55mm lens that was meant as an APX kit lens. I think I bought it for $80 new.

I used just a touch of sharpening, but it was a film scan, so it's hard to tell if it's the lens, my focus, or the scanning that added the slight blur. Just resizing can do it. At any rate, I don't think you can judge a lens by images that are meant for the web. A slight sharpen filter at this size will cover a lot of sharpness issues.