Picture Sharpness


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weiconghon

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Aug 20, 2006
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Hi all,

I always have difficulty taking sharp pictures.

Does anyone of you have any tricks to get really sharp pictures without the use of Unsharp Mask in Photoshop? Appreciate if you could share some tips and tricks. Thanks. :D
 

what camera/lens u using?
try to stop down the aperture
 

Make sure it is in focus, and use a high enough shutterspeed to freeze the subject.
 

what camera/lens u using?
try to stop down the aperture

Thanks for your reply.

I'm using Canon 400D with Kit Lens. Planning to fiddle with the kit lens for a while before deciding on what kind of lens to buy. I'm shooting with an aperture of f/5.6. Is this low enough?

Does the lens also play a part in the sharpness?

If so what will you recommend for a lens with a better zooming capability?:( :)
 

Thanks for your reply.

I'm using Canon 400D with Kit Lens. Planning to fiddle with the kit lens for a while before deciding on what kind of lens to buy. I'm shooting with an aperture of f/5.6. Is this low enough?

Does the lens also play a part in the sharpness?

If so what will you recommend for a lens with a better zooming capability?:( :)

Yes, the lens will play a STRONG part in getting a good picture. The canon kit lens has a problem with the image quality and has been put down in quite a few reviews. Do consider getting a better lens for better image quality when you have the extra dough. ;)
 

Thanks for your reply.

I'm using Canon 400D with Kit Lens. Planning to fiddle with the kit lens for a while before deciding on what kind of lens to buy. I'm shooting with an aperture of f/5.6. Is this low enough?

Does the lens also play a part in the sharpness?

If so what will you recommend for a lens with a better zooming capability?:( :)

f/5.6 does not give you a lot of DOF depending on what you are shooting. Don't be too quick to condemn your lens. Do you have any pictures to show? We have to establish that you are not confusing lack of sharpness to shallow DOF. The speed you use to shoot is also critical as this will help eliminate hand shake problem.
 

Thanks for your reply.

I'm using Canon 400D with Kit Lens. Planning to fiddle with the kit lens for a while before deciding on what kind of lens to buy. I'm shooting with an aperture of f/5.6. Is this low enough?

Does the lens also play a part in the sharpness?

If so what will you recommend for a lens with a better zooming capability?:( :)
the tamron 17-50mm is highly revered...u can consider it or for more the sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.5
a friend of mine comment that can't find any diff on the sharpness between both the lenses when he compare the canon 17-40mm f4 L against the sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.5
 

f/5.6 does not give you a lot of DOF depending on what you are shooting. Don't be too quick to condemn your lens. Do you have any pictures to show? We have to establish that you are not confusing lack of sharpness to shallow DOF. The speed you use to shoot is also critical as this will help eliminate hand shake problem.

Thanks for your advise.

No, I didn't confuse lack of sharpness to shallow DOF. Understand that an object far out will be out of focus. Close up object will be in focus. For a shallow DOF.

Its just that the pictures seem to be blur when look at closeup. Object does not seem distinct from the surroundings. Edges of the object seem smear not sharp. :dunno:
 

No, I didn't confuse lack of sharpness to shallow DOF. Understand that an object far out will be out of focus. Close up object will be in focus. For a shallow DOF.

That's not totally correct. It depends on where you focus on. If you focus on something futher than your immediate surrounding, then that thing will be in focus and what's near to you will not. So with a shallow DOF, it does not necessarily means things closer to you will appear to be more focussed than the rest.

How close were you looking at your pictures?
 

errr sorry to OT ah :sweatsm: :sweat:
but wad is the difference between unmask sharp n sharpen?
 

errr sorry to OT ah :sweatsm: :sweat:
but wad is the difference between unmask sharp n sharpen?

Unmask Sharp
(extracted from Adobe Photoshop Help File)

Unsharp masking, or USM, is a traditional film compositing technique used to sharpen edges in an image. The Unsharp Mask filter corrects blurring introduced during photographing, scanning, resampling, or printing. It is useful for images intended for both print and online viewing.

Unsharp Mask locates pixels that differ from surrounding pixels by the threshold you specify and increases the pixels' contrast by the amount you specify. In addition, you specify the radius of the region to which each pixel is compared. The effects of the Unsharp Mask filter are far more pronounced on-screen than in high-resolution output. If your final destination is print, experiment to determine what settings work best for your image.
 

That's not totally correct. It depends on where you focus on. If you focus on something futher than your immediate surrounding, then that thing will be in focus and what's near to you will not. So with a shallow DOF, it does not necessarily means things closer to you will appear to be more focussed than the rest.

How close were you looking at your pictures?

Thanks for correcting me. :)

You mean looking at the pic on screen? If thats what you mean, I was looking at the actual pixels in Photoshop.
 

The kit lens genrally only performs acceptable sharp ( to me anyway) at f/8 or smaller. Generally 1 to 2 stops down form its max aperature shloud work well. So you are kinda stuck shooting only in good lighting or with a flash..
 

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