Sharp Images

[Quaylediniho]

Hello all,

First post so be gentle if this is in the wrong place or been asked before, here goes....

I have recently bought my first DSLR, Canon 400D with Canon EFS 55-250mm lens, having previously owned a lumix FZ45 with a 1.7 Tele converter and not been happy with the image quality. Firstly the drop down in focal range has been hard to adjust to and cope with, but slowly getting used to having to get closer to birds. I was expecting a huge increase in the sharpness and detail of the images but I feel slightly disappointed with the comparative results. Imp a relative beginner to bird photography but have read extensive tutorials and guidance and think I’ve grasped the basics of shutter speed, aperture, iso etc. My camera generally has the following settings when capturing birds -

AV Mode selected
Central AF point
One shot AF mode
ISO generally not above 800, lower if the light is good
Aperture at F8 to F5.6 where needed
Auto White balance
Evaluative Metering

Having said all that above, can anyone help as to how close I should be to the smaller birds for a sharp image? And any tips on how to master sharp images as mine all appear to be lacking in detail.

Any help or advice welcome, thanks in advance

Adam

[Jim Ford]

The first thing you need to know is that all digitally captured images are soft, as captured on the sensor (now read that again, just to make sure it's 'stuck'!). It's an unavoidable fact, related to the fundamental physics of digital image capture.

All images from the sensor need sharpening, with the possible exception of those of a small viewing size. In recognition that casual users of 'point and shoot' cameras expect their photo's to be acceptable straight from the camera, and won't want to manipulate their images in (say) Photoshop, sharpening is normally carried out on these cameras automatically and invisibly. This sharpening is at a 'one size fits all' setting and doesn't take into account that the degree of sharpening is strongly dependant on the subject, viewing medium (print or monitor) and the viewed size.

When it comes to more 'technical' cameras eg DSLRs, the manufacturers give the user more control over the image taking, and expect the user to carry out a certain amount of subsequent manipulation - cropping, resizing, tone level shifting etc.. They also expect the user to apply the degree of sharpening to suit the subject, viewing medium and the final viewed size.

Sharpening is a complicated subject - my book "Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS" runs to 272 pages. There are a lot of web sites explaining why sharpening is necessary and how to do it, and I suggest you spend some time 'Googling' the subject.

One final point. Some users of DSLRs think that sharpening of an image is some kind of 'cheat' that didn't need doing on film and therefore shouldn't be done on digital images. This is incorrect. Development of film uses chemical sharpening to varying degrees. Printing from film onto paper also sometimes used a technique (difficult though!) that has a direct equivalent in digital sharpening - the so-call 'unsharp mask'.

Jim

[John D]

Hi Adam,

Welcome to WAB.
I agree entirely with what Jim has said in the above.
Read any book or magazine on 'digital photography' and you will find a statement similar to the following 'all digital images benefit from some sharpening by means of suitable software'.

As Jim has said it is possible to choose from a range of settings within a DSLR. The danger is if an image is over sharpened it cannot be corrected. Therefore it is better to have less rather than more sharpening done within the camera and use suitable software to make the final adjustments. Whilst the amount of sharpening to a certain extent is subjective, haloes around an image is an indicator that an image has been 'over sharpened'.

John D
Zenfolio | John's Wild World

[Tringa]

Good advice here already.

Apologies if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing you have only the software (DPP) that came with your Canon.

I can't comment on DPP as I don't know it.

If you want to try other photo editors there are lots to choose from, but I can recommend a couple of free ones - Photoscape (v easy to use) and GIMP(more complicated but does just about everything)

Dave

[Jim Ford]

You can do quite a lot of basic image editing, including sharpening, with the excellent (and free) 'Faststone':

FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

Jim

[matt_xyz]

aside from sharpening in post processing, the closer you are to the birds and the better the light the more feather detail you will capture. If you're having to crop your images you will obviously lose detail.

Unfortunately, 250mm is rather short for small bird photography and you will need to find some very confiding birds, ideally at feeders, that will let you get nice and close.

Matt

[Quaylediniho]

Thanks for all the informative and quick responses, sharpening in post processing is certainly something I need to spend more time investigating. I am however a regular user of photoshop, I do a lot of post processing of architectural visualizations as part of my work however by my own omission I am only somewhere between a beginner and intermediate user. When shooting in RAW photoshop does give me some tools for post processing, involving noise reduction, exposure, sharpening etc. all of which I have a messed around with to try and improve the image, but cant help but feel that more often than not the detail isn’t there to be recovered or enhanced. I guess unless I’m doing something fundamentally wrong when post processing, that the issue must lie with either the quality of lens (although I’ve seen a lot of impressive images with the same lens) or the distance the subject is from the camera.

[JB9302]

Sorry to hi jack thread , anyone know if any of these suggested free image editing programmes can be used on a Mac ?

Julian

[Kayleigh]

I have just learned how to auto sharpen in elements 8 and it worked..
I will aim to sharpen manually eventually but for now I will at least have sharper imaged than before..

You learn so much from the more knowledgeable folk on here it would take a life time to work out and struggle through on your own..

Cheers everyone..

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by Quaylediniho

Thanks for all the informative and quick responses, sharpening in post processing is certainly something I need to spend more time investigating. I am however a regular user of photoshop, I do a lot of post processing of architectural visualizations as part of my work however by my own omission I am only somewhere between a beginner and intermediate user. When shooting in RAW photoshop does give me some tools for post processing, involving noise reduction, exposure, sharpening etc. all of which I have a messed around with to try and improve the image, but cant help but feel that more often than not the detail isn’t there to be recovered or enhanced. I guess unless I’m doing something fundamentally wrong when post processing, that the issue must lie with either the quality of lens (although I’ve seen a lot of impressive images with the same lens) or the distance the subject is from the camera.

I have a canon 500d and a tamron 70-300mm I use for birds I have to be really close to get any sort of decent shot even then its hit and miss but that's due to camera shake and lack of skill I think.
I try to get birds on f4 and iso 400 or less and the AV setting..