Sunset, focus problems

[Tlarsson]

Hello everyone,

So I just got into landscape photography, been taking photos for about 3 years on and off now.

Last night I wanted to test out my ND filter and so I did.

But what bugs me is that in the right side of the water and rocks it kinda looks of focus and almost pixelated.

This is the case with the original image aswell.

18mm, f22, ISO 100, ND filter 10 stop, Nikon D7000

Is it because I used f22? (Got so overexposed otherwise )
Shot with Nikon D7000

Any tips are welcome!

Thanks in advance

 

[tirediron]

I'm assuming you were using the 18-155 kit lens? In that case, then diffraction could definitely account for some softness in the image at f22. As far as the noise goes, did you try and recover some exposure here? Increasing exposure in under-exposed areas, especially very under-exposed areas can create very significant noise.

 

[Tlarsson]

Yepp using the 18-105 lens. Would love to exchange my 70-300mm for a wide angle lens but the only cheap one is the samyang and I cant add an ND filter to that one.

I did not tune the exposure by the rocks tho. But yeah, next time I will try f8 or f11 and hope for some better results I think

 

[Dave Colangelo]

At F22 it will have less of an impact but you may want to read up on Hyperfocal Distances and how they effect shots like this it may be the cause of that issue.

Regards
Dave

 

[Tlarsson]

Thanks for the tip Dave! Will def look into that!

 

[waday]

It's still a nice image!

 

[Tlarsson]

If you look at the image, I placed my focus about in the middle of the image itself. When using 18mm I guess if I understand it correctly I should have placed the focus closer to the rocks in this case?

 

[Tlarsson]

Thank you Waday

 

[astroNikon]

Keep in mind, your 168 second exposure may also contain minor motion/movement blur on the part of the camera itself (see the clouds & the water of course). Of course you get water, tree/grass movement due to winds (though nothing close in this photo), etc. But one has to really pay attention to the camera not moving at all. Your d7000 has MUP and you should use that with a remote release to minimize any mirror slap.

It's amazing how much camera movement one can get even with a sturdy tripod. If you walk around a tripod on concrete slab you can actually induce minor camera movement. I do all my long exposures from a distance and be weary of wind, cars driving by, etc.

FYI, I learned my long exposure on a d7000 and 18-105 kit lens. Very nice setup and you have a lot of features not in the lower models.

Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: 18-105 mm f/3.5-5.6
Shot at 18 mm (35mm film equiv: 27mm)
Exposure: Manual exposure, 168 sec, f/22, ISO 100, Compensation: -2/3

 

[weepete]

Quite a lot of lenses are less sharp towards the corners, and it looks to me like that's just the case here and bit of diffraction doesn't help either. Normally I try and keep my landscape shots to between f11 an f16 to minimise it. A good ballpark trick for hyperfocal distance is to focus 1/3 of the way into the image and that should be pretty near the hyperfocal distance.

But I don't think it hurts your image, the colour noise is a bit more of an issue and could do with being adressed