Sharpness Question

[dbvirago]

This is a 100% crop of a duck I shot today. Not happy with the sharpness, but I'm not sure what I did wrong. Shot with the 70-200 f4 handheld at 200mm ISO 800 1/2500th at f4.5. Can't believe it would be camera shake at that shutter speed, but not sure what. I was about 20' away. The duck was moving slowly. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks



Edit: forgot to mention this was processed. Applied a little sharpening in post. click on image to view at 100%

 

[unpopular]

I'm not sure what I did wrong.

You have unrealistic expectations.

 

[Derrel]

The shot is well-focused, and the shutter speed is adequate. As a long-time photography enthusiast AND fly-tier, I'm actually reasonably impressed...but what is hurting the shot is the digital NOISE...the noise appears to be spoiling the shot...that fine, fine detail in the feathers just is not being translated, due to the noise that the image is filled with. I think the ISO level is what killed this shot. I can see that even individual fibers that make up each feather are rendered down to individual and pairs of fibers....BUT...the noise is killing the shot. I see no camera shake.

 

[shefjr]

I looks pretty sharp on my iPad. That said, I actually just did a focus test on my sigma 150-500 and found that it was in serious need of fine tune focus adjustment(-20). So I would suggest maybe taking a look at your focus and maybe fine tune it.
Honestly though I think the duck looks crisp.

 

[30A]

The picture looks good to me. I am not a professional. HOwever, I don't understand why you would take this picture with ISO of 800? why not take it at ISO 200? What time of the day was it? I thought one would bump the ISO up if more light was needed, like in the late afternoon (dusk)? Can someone explain please?

 

[shefjr]

The picture looks good to me. I am not a professional. HOwever, I don't understand why you would take this picture with ISO of 800? why not take it at ISO 200? What time of the day was it? I thought one would bump the ISO up if more light was needed, like in the late afternoon (dusk)? Can someone explain please?

I'm on an iPad so I can't see the EXIF data for his photo but, I'm assuming that he actually only used 1/250th second shutter speed. Assuming 1/250 of a second shutter speed to get a proper exposure with an ISO of 200 he would have had to drop his shutter speed to 1/60th of a second.

 

[TCampbell]

The feathers (designed to camouflage) create a bit of an illusion of softness but when I inspect it closely it's not bad. You could take a sharpening brush to it in your photo editor if you wanted to tighten it up a little more, but I don't think you'll see a very dramatic result.

Lenses have sweet spots. Usually about 2 stops down from whatever "wide open" is, but on your 70-200mm f/4L (non IS version) it appears that it does it's best performance between f/5.6 and f/8 (w.r.t. highest score in the MTF50 test). Also the focal length will have an impact.

 

[unpopular]

I'm on an iPad so I can't see the EXIF data for his photo but, I'm assuming that he actually only used 1/250th second shutter speed. Assuming 1/250 of a second shutter speed to get a proper exposure with an ISO of 200 he would have had to drop his shutter speed to 1/60th of a second.

I was thinking 1/2500 was short, though if the image were under exposed, this could also explain noise. The meter may have been fooled by reflections off the water?

Still, 1/2500 be like more than 3 stops under 1/250, and would be noticeably under exposed.

 

[shefjr]

I'm on an iPad so I can't see the EXIF data for his photo but, I'm assuming that he actually only used 1/250th second shutter speed. Assuming 1/250 of a second shutter speed to get a proper exposure with an ISO of 200 he would have had to drop his shutter speed to 1/60th of a second.

I was thinking 1/2500 was short, though if the image were under exposed, this could also explain noise. The meter may have been fooled by reflections off the water?

Still, 1/2500 be like more than 3 stops under 1/250, and would be noticeably under exposed.

So if he were short then to bring up the exposure he would have had to do it in pp and that would bring out additional noise. I'm assuming that is what you are getting at?

3plus 1/4 stops i think? Still slow at learning this stuff.

I can't imagine him needing 1/2500 of a second shutter speed though. It's a slow moving duck in a pond and that's the OPs words. I think he accidentally added an extra 0 at the end of 1/250.

 

[jbkm1994]

There is some noise but overall relatively nice shot.

 

[unpopular]

He definitely doesn't need 1/2500. But I was thinking about it, and at ISO 800, this does seem right.

I was out shooting today at ISO 400, f/11 and getting about 1/500 under similar conditions.

So, If I were shooting at f/8, i'd need to decrease shutter time by -1EV, 1/1000. If I were shooting at ISO 800 and at f/8, I'd need to decrease exposure time by -2EV, 1/2000. Taking into account that I was photographing snow and ice and tend to ETTR, 1/2500 makes sense.

So the reasonable thing to do would decrease ISO.

 

[dbvirago]

Thanks for all the feedback. Yeah, unpopular, I was hoping my expectations were too high, but going for perfect, you know?

Derrel, I saw the noise in the shadow under the duck, but didn't pick it up in the feathers. Guess I wasn't expecting noise at ISO 800 on the Mark III but as say below, I did increase exposure and pull out shadows in post.

To everyone else, it was definitely 1/2500th, and you're right, it was a bit underexposes, so bringing that up in post added some noise. I was shooting the scene earlier at ISO 200, went to shoot a dark rusty bridge and kicked up and forgot to turn it back down. Looking at the rest of the group, they are all under except for the bridge.

Have to watch the histogram better and keep checking my settings.

Thanks everyone for the great feedback and help.

 

[xposurepro]

Like Derrel said, it's the noise that it the real culprit. If you want it to appear a touch sharper you might try brushing on a little Clarity in Lightroom (Definition in Aperture). That might give you the results your wanting. You could possibly do a little noise reduction to the darker area of water and the black on the bill. I probably wouldn't go with doing a global noise reduction on the entire image though.

 

[Solarflare]

The image looks mostly fine to me.

That is, if its a 100% crop.

There is some loss of detail, but thats what you get from a Bayer Colorfilter and Demosaicing.

Exif data looks like this:

FOCAL LENGTH 200mm
APERTURE f/4.5 - almost wide open for your lens, so your lens wont be at maximum performance; likely f/8 is the lens optimum sharpness(*)
ISO 800 - quite high ISO for the fact that this looks like a daylight shot
SHUTTER 1/2500s - extremely fast. You could easily go down to 1/500s for five time more light and no bad effect whatsoever

(*): This depends completey upon the lens; good lens reviews in the internet will give you an idea about how to use your lens for best results.

 

[dbvirago]

Yes, it's a 100% crop and I definitely had the ISO and shutter speed to high. Figure I had about 2 stops to play with although the image was underexposed a bit. Next cloudy or overcast day, I'll be back shooting ducks again. Thanks, all