Help Me Get Sharper!

[robbins.photo]

Hi dxq, yes that photo was handheld.... from a boat.

My guess would be this had a great deal to do with it. A boat is not exactly a stable platform to shoot from, unless it's a really, really, really big boat which are normally called ships rather than boats.

Normally when your standing on a stable platform you want to have a shutter speed that's at least equal to the focal length of the lens. In this particular case though, since your not standing on a stable platform, I'd recommend upping that considerably, to say 3x the focal length.. so in this case I'd try shooting this at 1/200 or somewhere in that neighborhood.

A tripod probably wouldn't make much difference in this regard, since the platform you'll be using it on (a boat) will be moving the whole time and as such it won't do much to eliminate the camera's motion/camera shake.

The second issue that might be coming into play is the focus point your camera is choosing. The camera will choose what it considers to be the "best" focal point from a group of focal points unless you tell it otherwise.

As mentioned previously it is possible that the camera/lens combo is front focusing, but unless your seeing this effect on other photos my guess is the most likely culprit here is that the camera chose the dock as it's point of focus rather than the lighthouse. To prevent this you can reduce the number of focal points the camera has to choose from so that you can control the point of focus.

Also as mentioned previously I'd recommend increasing the aperture to say F11 to avoid diffraction.

 

[HughGuessWho]

Sorry, but you will never get a tack sharp image at 1/60 on a boat.
Also, in compositions like this one, try focusing about 1/3 into the frame to get an acceptable amount of focus throughout.

 

[donny1963]

Hi All,

New member here and would call myself an intermediate photographer. I know a fair amount but am (and will always) be learning.

Looking for help on a couple things. I'm lucky enough to live a few miles from Lake Michigan so have basically endless opportunities for sunsets. I recently took what I thought was the perfect shot but when I blew it up to 11x14 to frame and hang, the lighthouse isn't sharp at all! I was seriously bummed.

Thoughts?
Here are the specs of my equipment used:
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II
Aperture: f/20
Shutter: 1/60
ISO: ISO-125
Focal Length: 51mm

My approach on this one was the higher f-stop to ensure more in focus like the water and second lighthouse in the background.

Any info which might help let me know and I can provide. Any tips I can work on to improve and eliminate this in the future? I take lots of sunsets

there is a couple of problems that is going to prevent you from getting that lighthouse sharp as you intended, first and most important did you use spot metering ? if so did you focus on the lighthouse or the horizon?

The big major problem is, the 18-55 lens is a kit lens and kit lenses are very cheap lens and you get what you pay for in that aspect.
the 18-55 is not a very good lens for that type of picture to get sharp images like that, especially landscape pictures from a far distance.

As far as sharpness goes in images your lens is what is gets you the quality of your images not the camera , yes some camera's vary in some of it , like what the Megapixels are and the dynamic range capability, but for the most part, the lens is what makes all the difference in the world in quality of your pictures, providing you did everything correctly, a good lens doesn't fix exposure or focus errors.

the other factor is the aperture setting, most lenses has a sweet spot, meaning the best sharpness settings in aperture.
Most lenses start off softer quality at apertures at the lowest number then as you go higher get better, and then has a max where if you go beyond that number the sharpness will start to decline again, for example lets say your lens starts to get sharp at F4 and better at f7 and F8 then once you get past F11 the quality starts to go down again,

alot of lenses produce it's worst quality at apertures at the aperture you set it at like F20, alot of people think well i want depth of field so if i go at the highest number i can go i'm going to get the best depth of field and everything will be in focus.

that's not true, most of the time you don't even have to go that high with a shot like that, probably F9 or F11 would have been your best bet.
each lens is different tho, so you can't go by one lens and think that will work for all of them.

there is a website call DXOMARK DxOMark by DxO | DxOMark which allows you to put in your camera and lens you have and you can see the specs on it and what settings of your lens gives you the best sharpness, lets say your 18-55 gives you the sharpest picture at focal length of 35mm at aperture F5.6 to F8,
it will show you on a square where the green is being the sharpest and where the yellow and red is, so you can see where your best and worst settings would be..

This is a great place to go, because you can see exactly what settings to stay away from or be at for your best quality for each and every lens and camera, you can even see what lenses works best with the camera you have. and also see what camera works best with your fav lens you have now.

i think these are the reasons your lighthouse is not as sharp as you expected, and also landscape pictures are very demanding on equipment for high quality.

because of dynamic range and all of that.. the further away you are from what your shooting the worst the images is going to be when you zoom in..

the Canon 70D is a good camera if all you can budget is a APS-C Camera, Now Full Frame Camera's tend to do better quality when it comes to shots like that one your in question with. Because of the higher dynamic range and all that stuff and also because you can use better lenses on the full frame Camera's Now i'm not 100% sure about Canon, but with Nikon you can use FX (full frame) lenses on some of the APSC camera's , but i believe you can't do that with Canon Camera's , i'm not 100% sure on that, but i could be wrong on that, but i know with Nikon you can.

But using Full Frame Lenses on a APS-C camera is not always the best way to go, for one thing your getting different specs of that lens then you would on a APS-C vs the Full frame camera, for instance, if you put a 24-70 2.8 FX lens on a Canon 70D which is a crop factor of 1.6 you would be getting a
38-112 F4.4 lens , because of the crop factor so you would not get the same wide angle but would get more zoom , and your aperture would be starting at 4.4 instead of 2.8. basically the image you would be capturing would be most of the center of the lens.

it's not really ideal to put FX lenses on a APS-C camera, that's why they make APS-C lenses.

i use a Nikon D810 that is a full frame Camera, and the 3 holy trinity i call it, for lenses are the 10-24 wide, 24-70 and the 70-200 these are the lenses i use the most especially weddings,

i use the 10-24 for taking group shots of like 10 people in a frame, that lens works great.

Any way, if your going to be serious about landscape photography, what i believe and from what i experience and my research, is that Nikon is a slightly better camera for landscape, because Nikon offers better dynamic range quality and better color tones, and usually more Megapixels and noise control.

when it comes to landscape, on the other hand when it comes to portrait photography, Canon has a slight edge over Nikon for a couple reason, #1 one of the best lenses for Portrait is the 70-200 and the versions of that lens for canon mount is better quality then the one for nikon, again DXOMARK website shows that.

The canon version of that lens is all green in sharpness at focal length 170 to 200 range, but the Nikon one is not, its got alot of yellow meaning poorer sharpness.

but any way if your serious and want to invest in a good Full frame camera for landscape i would go with the Nikon D610 that is the cheapest entry level full frame for Nikon and it takes great pictures, and it's 24 MP, the Nikon D810 is 36MP

Megapixels makes a big difference in quality when doing landscape images and blowing them up / zooming in to the image...

the more MP you have the bigger you can blow up your prints and maintain quality.

that is my belief that Nikon is the better way to go when it comes to landscape,

now this use to be really more so correct before, because now canon has the 5DS-R camera which is 50 MP Nikon use to be leading in MP with 36MP canon was only at 24, but now the new canon 5Ds-R is out well that might be a canon you might want to do your landscape photography with but it's expensive.

but the Nikon D610 will do much better landscape images then what your using now and have a better lenses available for it.
but go back out there with what you got and try and focus strait on the lighthouse and use a tripod if your using slower shutter speeds then 100. even at 100 use a tripod, the rule about holding the camera with your hand is your shutter speed should never be lower then what your focal length at the time you take shot, this isn't always true but that is one theory,

meaning if your focused at 50mm you should have your shutter speed at least 50 if holding the camera in your hand, but even then you still can get camera shake, if your using a shutter speed of like 160 or 200 you should be fine so long as your not using a 300 mm zoom and set it at 300 mm then you would get camera shake holding it in your hand...

the more you zoom in the more likely you would be in danger of camera shake.. i have never seen camera shake happen using shutter speeds at like 160 using a 24-70 lens before but i'm sure its possible.

the other thing is if your camera has any noise reductions settings you might want to enable them, and if your lens has a switch on it for image stabilization, Nikon calls it vibration reduction , but it's the same thing.

Also while using a tripod if you don't have a remote shutter to take your picture try using the self timer so you don't have to touch your camera to take the shot to reduce the risk of camera shake..
a good steady tripod goes a long way with shots like that..

Hope this helps.

 

[Solarflare]

The big major problem is, the 18-55 lens is a kit lens and kit lenses are very cheap lens and you get what you pay for in that aspect.

Canon is an able lens producer. Their kit lens is able to produce very good results if used correctly (stop down to about f/8, avoid the extremes of the focal range).

Even a Sony kitlens - the worst of its kind - will produce much better results than the picture in the OP, if used correctly.

the 18-55 is not a very good lens for that type of picture to get sharp images like that, especially landscape pictures from a far distance.

Actually kit lenses from able lens producers are already very good for this kind of picture, because one wants to stop lenses down for landscape anyway.

Now Full Frame Camera's tend to do better quality when it comes to shots like that one your in question with.

Again not an issue. APS-C can produce excellent results when used at base ISO, which is common with landscape. Full Frame mostly gives access to better lenses (or using the good lenses in the enviroment they've been designed for) and a small extra boost.

Your DxOMark for example claims the D7200 (current APS-C) has better dynamic range than my D750 (current full frame).

Because of the higher dynamic range and all that stuff and also because you can use better lenses on the full frame Camera's Now i'm not 100% sure about Canon, but with Nikon you can use FX (full frame) lenses on some of the APSC camera's , but i believe you can't do that with Canon Camera's , i'm not 100% sure on that, but i could be wrong on that, but i know with Nikon you can.

Wrong. You always can use full frame lenses with half frame cameras, no matter what lens and no matter what camera, no matter if its Nikon F or Canon EOS or Pentax K mount.

The only issue is that with Canon, you cannot use half frame lenses with full frame cameras. Thats because EF-S lenses reach further into the camera body than EF lenses and would thus smash the mirror of a full frame camera. Therefore Canon made it impossible to mount EF-S lenses on full frame bodies.

[...] Nikon is a slightly better camera for landscape, [...]

I recomment against taking sides in the eternal battle Canon vs Nikon, plus your opinions are all highly questionable to begin with.

 

[john.margetts]

Solar flare, I don't think the reason that Canon made the EF-S mount different to the EF mount was to prevent mirror damage - my EF-S lenses (I have three) do not protrude further from the mount than my EF lenses. I rather think they were concerned about the massive vignetting that would result from using an EF-S lens on full frame cameras.

Rather brave of you to correct Donny's errors - he would do well to control the stream of consciousness when he types.

 

[Braineack]

Can you stop using the term "Half Frame", please?

 

[john.margetts]

What's wrong with 'half frame'? It might not be mathematically correct but is more 'correct' than 'crop sensor' as nothing has been produced to crop or 'aps-c' which refers to a defunct film format.

 

[HughGuessWho]

2/3 Frame would be more accurate if you want to use a fraction. Just sayin'

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[Solarflare]

2/3 Frame would be more accurate if you want to use a fraction. Just sayin'

You're wrong.

The crucial measurement is the AREA of the sensor, not the length of either of the axes.

And thats less than half for APS-C, compared to 35mm film.

According to Wikipedia:

APS-C:
Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 mm
Image Circle Diameter: 28.29 mm
Area: 368.16 mm^2

35mm Film:
Dimensions: 36 x 24 mm
Image Circle Diameter: 43.2666 mm
Area: 864 mm^2

So the term "half format" is actually generous.

 

[Braineack]

It's not a common term and using it so interchangeably is a bit confusing. A Crop Sensor or APS-C is the commonly used term so everyone will know what everyone else is talking about.

Full Frame ALSO refers to a defunct film format -- so that point is pretty moot. Crop can refer to any sensor smaller than a Full Frame, but 9.9:10 we are talking about a 1.5-1.6x crop.

When you say half frame, do we mean half the sensor area--therefore something larger than APC-S (since APC-S is 43% smaller)--or half the image, like a 4/3" sensor (since the resulting image, all things being equal, should produce 2:1 a picture of a FF)?

 

[Braineack]

When I googled "half frame sensor" the first [and pretty much only] thing that came up was a Ken Rockwell rant.

/argument.

 

[Solarflare]

That might or might not be be where I heard it first.

Anyway - if you cut a 36x24mm sensor in half, then shorten the resulting two pieces until they are 2:3 aspect ratio again, you end up with two 24x16mm sensors -> thats why its "half frame".

 

[table1349]

Now that sounds like Ken Rockwell math.

 

[Overread]

Solar flare, I don't think the reason that Canon made the EF-S mount different to the EF mount was to prevent mirror damage - my EF-S lenses (I have three) do not protrude further from the mount than my EF lenses. I rather think they were concerned about the massive vignetting that would result from using an EF-S lens on full frame cameras.

The EF-S mount does mean that the distance from the rear element to the sensor can be smaller because the mirror inside the camera is proportionally smaller as a result of the smaller sensor. As a result of this effect some, but not all, EF-S lenses will protrude further into the camera body and as such if you were to modify them they would cause the mirror to hit them; generally damaging the mirror assembly.

As a result those who mod lenses to fit EFs onto EF mounts or who use 3rd party (3rd party generally only use the EF mount even on crop sensor lenses) have to research to see if its possible or not (or risk damage with their own tests).



I would also advise that we stick to the name "crop sensor" because when referring to Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax and most other brands its an applicable term that fits to cover the fact that each of those camera brands uses a slightly different size of sensor. They also all use 35mm as their standard "fullframe" in both their marketing and in general conversation.
Such terms might not be strictly true always (one can argue that nothing is cropped or that the 35mm isn't a godly perfect sensor size etc...) but they are sufficient enough to be understood by most from beginner to experienced and thus form easy to use terminology in conversing.

 

[gckless]

It's crop sensor, or APS-C. The industry uses it, it's de facto nomenclature. Whether it's de jure or not isn't really the question.

Aaaaaanyway, back to OP. I'd start with getting well above 1/60 shutter speed at that length, especially on a boat. I think if you start there, you'll see noticeable differences. Change one thing at a time, you'll learn best that way. Go out and play around with that, then move on to the next suggestion here. Or choose something else to change first.