decrease in sharpness?

[tron]

so ive been using an 18-55 on a d40 for about a year now (wish i just went straight to a d300 but whatever)

anyways ive noticed that a lot of my pictures are turning out blurry even with the use of a tripod. ill post a few examples below. ive tried my friends 18-55 and his was soft too. maybe im going insane but it just doesnt make sense.

examples:

before: WITHOUT ANY SHARPENING

after: WITH TONS OF UNSHARP MASK

 

[Mitch1640]

personally, i dont see anything wrong with the first picture. maybe you should try stopping down the lens to around f/8.

 

[tron]

the first picture is an example of the sharpness i used to get in the first few months of use and the second picture is an example of of what ive been getting over the last few weeks

 

[yogibear]

Perhaps you can post up an image that is untouched with PP so we can see the problem you are talking about more clearly. The second shot's PP takes away our ability to see the difference with quality.

 

[AlexColeman]

These are very different pictures. The first looks fine, the second may be unsharp due to AF issues, or narrow depth of field @ macro distances. Try doing another car shot, and remember, the D40, and 18-55 will not give you the quality of pro glass and bodies.

 

[KmH]

I don't see any problems in the first image either.

The second image is basically useless for the discussion.

You also don't speak to the apertures you are getting the 'blurry' images at. Diffraction at small apertures can kill sharpness.

 

[JerryPH]

One thing that absolutely blew me away was how sharp the pics got after I removed what I thought was a good filter. The differences was incredible. Did you install any filters on your lenses?

Next, you are comparing apples to oranges. A close flower shot to a distant car shot... not even in the sam ballpark. That said...

Technique, technique, technique! If you are shooting under 1/125th and in low light, use a tripod or lean or use proper technique that reduces motion blur. I am willing to bet the issue is more user caused than camera caused.

 

[UUilliam]

its your aperture setting... i think..

 

[Josh66]

That's the strangest before & after series I've ever seen... You turned a Mercedes into a flower!:lmao:

 

[JerryPH]

That's the strangest before & after series I've ever seen... You turned a Mercedes into a flower!:lmao:

You know... you're right! I didn't even notice!!!

 

[Josh66]

That's the strangest before & after series I've ever seen... You turned a Mercedes into a flower!:lmao:

You know... you're right! I didn't even notice!!!

We should start figuring out how to reverse engineer this... How can we turn a flower into a Mercedes...?






And BTW, they both look sharp enough to me. It's hard to really say for sure with just a web-sized picture though.

 

[Moglex]

That's the strangest before & after series I've ever seen... You turned a Mercedes into a flower!:lmao:

You know... you're right! I didn't even notice!!!

That's what happens when your shots aren't sharp.

 

[musicaleCA]

If I add a metal composite and then reshape it using the legs of my tripod...no no...that won't work... *plods away trying to reverse-engineer how to turn a flower into a car*...

Your second shot has tons of artifacting, regardless if it's not sharp. Tone it down to bring back the detail from those wonky pixels.

 

[Garbz]

There are two very big difference between these photos. One of them is shot with quite a long focus, the other I assume is shot at if not close to the minimum focus distance. There is an entire research area dedicated to close range correction. Even my 80-200 f/2.8 performs horridly at it's absolute minimum focus distance.

 

[tron]

well here are some more general examples i tried to come up with. all were shot wide open at f/3.5. note how much sharper the before ones are from the after ones?

BEFORE problems:

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AFTER problems:

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