Soft at 100%

scottdg · Sep 10, 2007

Not me my pictures.

I went through all my photos from vacation and I am very happy with the results. I processed them and made any adjustments I needed to make. I have noticed however that on many (not all) of them when I now look at 100% that they look a little soft. Most of them were hand held and many in lower light conditions.

Is it something I am doing? Will I notice a difference with a different lens? I don't think it is the lens since I don't notice it on all shots.

xfloggingkylex · Sep 10, 2007

post up a picture along with a 100% crop of the picture with EXIF data.

By 100% crop I mean take your image and cut out a 1024x768 area to show us - just in case that was fuzzy.

The EXIF data is going to be important though because we need to see things like shutter speed, aperture, focal length - and if you could tell us which lens you are using we can see whats going on.

Mike_E · Sep 10, 2007

What were you using?

auer1816 · Sep 11, 2007

The fact that you were shooting handheld in low light is probably the reason for at least some of the blur. If you were shooting down into the 1/30 second range or lower, you can usually expect to see some softness.

scottdg · Sep 11, 2007

Thanks for the responses. When I get home tonight I will see if I can post a crop. I will also check the data on a few of the pictures. I believe I was shooting in the 1/40-1/80 range. I am using a D80 with the kit 18-135mm lens.

sabbath999 · Sep 11, 2007

I don't know how "long" you were shooting (i.e. if you were shooting on the 135mm end), but a rule of thumb about shutter speeds when shooting telephoto is to make sure that you are shooting a speed equal to or more than your focal length.

For example, if your 135mm was fully extended, you would need to be shooting at 135th of a second to avoid shake on a 35mm. BUT... here's where it gets a bit complicated... since your Nikon has a 1.5 crop factor you need to take that into account. Your 135mm equivalent focal length is a 200mm, so by the rule of thumb you need to be shooting at least 200th of a second to be sure you don't have any shake.

In practice, with a non-VR lens like you are using, I would consider this to be a MINIMUM shutter speed for hand holding telephoto. Faster is better.

If you don't have the light to do that, then up goes the ISO. It is better to have to deal with noise than lack of sharpness (noise you can reduce... blurry pictures, not so much).

scottdg · Sep 11, 2007

sabbath999 said:
I don't know how "long" you were shooting (i.e. if you were shooting on the 135mm end), but a rule of thumb about shutter speeds when shooting telephoto is to make sure that you are shooting a speed equal to or more than your focal length.

For example, if your 135mm was fully extended, you would need to be shooting at 135th of a second to avoid shake on a 35mm. BUT... here's where it gets a bit complicated... since your Nikon has a 1.5 crop factor you need to take that into account. Your 135mm equivalent focal length is a 200mm, so by the rule of thumb you need to be shooting at least 200th of a second to be sure you don't have any shake.

In practice, with a non-VR lens like you are using, I would consider this to be a MINIMUM shutter speed for hand holding telephoto. Faster is better.

If you don't have the light to do that, then up goes the ISO. It is better to have to deal with noise than lack of sharpness (noise you can reduce... blurry pictures, not so much).

Thanks Sabbath. I remember reading that somewhere once before. I have to start remembering these things when actually taking the shot. I will keep practicing.

Garbz · Sep 12, 2007

The bit "at 100%" is a bit worrying. Every picture that hasn't been heavily sharpened (or was taken with a 5D D2X Hassleblad or equivalent with the glass to match) is soft at 100%.

But why worry if it's only soft at 100%. How often do you view your photos at 100%?

scottdg · Oct 6, 2007

Garbz said:
The bit "at 100%" is a bit worrying. Every picture that hasn't been heavily sharpened (or was taken with a 5D D2X Hassleblad or equivalent with the glass to match) is soft at 100%.

But why worry if it's only soft at 100%. How often do you view your photos at 100%?

I don't mean to drag up an old thread.

But Garbz, you are right. I am still learning though and want to take the best pictures possible. I noticed that not all of them looked this way so thought maybe I was doing something wrong.

Thanks also to the others for the responses.