How sharp is sharp??? (1 Viewer)

[onlineart]

Now this is going to sound VERY silly, |<| but how sharp can I hope to get a photo with my kinda kit? I have a 40D and a few days old 70-200mm f2.8 IS, + 1.4x's extender.

Lots of photos of birds in flight look really sharp when the image is just 600 - 800 pixels wide and has also been sharpened, but how sharp are the full sized images?

Sounds silly but I think it would be interesting for new photographers and novices to see just what we should be aiming for.

Anyone willing to show a portion of their full sized images, without sharpening etc?

I know my lens is not the best for flight shots, but my main photography is african wildlife, so I went with that lens + converter.

 

[tdodd]

Can you define "unsharpened"? Are you shooting raw or jpeg? Which picture style and what shooting parameters? If you shoot jpeg your file has almost certainly been processed in camera with some sharpening. I only ever shoot raw. What do you mean by full sized image - 100% crop? If you're shooting raw, how are you processing to jpeg - which software, what processing parameters? Raw files need some degree of sharpening to compensate for the softening of the Bayer filter.

Pixel peeping at 100% is not an especially helpful game to play. Sure, you can judge ultimate sharpness, but that is not how images are expected to be viewed in the real world. There are also issues about DOF - DOF calculations are intended to apply for prints of a certain size, viewed at a certain distance. If you try to pixel peep at greater magnifications then you will unfairly expose softness at the extremes of DOF. If your DOF is thin anyway - 200mm, f/2.8, 20m gives +/- 52cm for example - then lots more comes into play in terms of the exact subject, its speed, its contrast, lighting conditions, shutter speed, aperture/DOF, photographer skill etc etc..

I have a 40D and a 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens and I have a few BIF shots taken with that combination. I also have a 1.4X extender but have not used it with my 70-200. If I want more length than the 70-200 I use my 100-400. I'm happy to post up some examples but unless we agree the parameters for "unsharpened" I see little point. Also, are we talking about cherry picked photos or just the average sort of so-so results from an AI Servo sequence? I'm afraid most of mine are of the "average" variety, rather than award winners. I'm pretty sure that's down to me though, rather than the equipment.

 

[onlineart]

HI,

Thanks for the very quick reply |:d|

Looks like one of those times when what I thought was a simple question, turns out to be very technical :eek!:

Bearing in mind that I am only a beginner -

Re: Unsharpened, I meant a shot taken in RAW without any processing ie not applying the unsharp mask etc. I know RAW doesn't do any auto, in camera sharpening (unless requested) so thought that would be a good starting point, as it would take out of the equation who has better software techniques.

I know that narrow depth of field will make areas deliberately out of focus so I would only be concerned with the area around the focus point, to show me what can be acheived. So I thought if someone could take one of their photos and crop a section around the focused portion I could see it on screen at 100%.

Here's my way of thinking - it's easier to improve if you know your ultimate goal and small images in magazines etc always look sharp and are not really representational of what I would see on my screen if I were looking at 100% or if I printed out at A4.

I'm VERY open to all suggestions and basic camera settings I should be using, so that I can get on the start of this steep learning curve.

Thanks

 

[tdodd]

I've uploaded some BIF shots to an online album. The images alternate between the full frame image, resized to 900x600 and crops of 900*600 at 100%. Here is a link to the shots as a slideshow. You can exit the slideshow to see the whole album - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/EezyTiger/40DBIF/photo?authkey=sy6fthhbVPU#s5186052467749262514.

These were all taken with my 40D, a couple of days after I got it. I'm sure all the shots were taken with my 70-200 lens. These were all shot in the 195-200mm range. I'm pretty sure that with more practice I could have improved on these, but you only get so many chances at a bird display. These are processed from raw to jpeg in DPP. I set sharpening to 3, which is my standard baseline level of sharpening, just to offset Bayer softening. I did have to fiddle the exposure upwards on some of them and I deliberately did not add any noise reduction, so some do look a bit noisey.

I'll dig through some more recent shots and if I find anything worth posting I'll add it to the album.

EDIT : OK, I've added some seabird shots to the album. These were taken with my 40D and 100-400 lens. Focal lengths range all the way from 100-400. They were taken aboard the pitching deck of a boat so apologies for the wonky horizon in some of them. Once again, I've processed these from raw to jpeg in DPP and set sharpening to 3 for all of them.

Here's a direct link to the album, rather than the slideshow - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/EezyTiger/40DBIF?authkey=sy6fthhbVPU

 

[GYRob]

here's one from the raw Aprox 100% no sharpning done 40d 400f5.6L 1/1000SEC F5.6 ISO 200
Rob.

 

[a.dancy]

1 to 1 crop chaffinch. Canon 20D Sigma f2.8 300mm f5.6 ISO 400 1/80th sec, no IS, jpeg not sharpened and no 'in camera sharpening'. It is said that the sigma is not as sharp as the canons. The lens you have is razor sharp even with a 1.4 converter. You should get superb quality pictures provided you shoot at distances that are within the range of a 200mm lens with a 1.4 converter fixed. I think that most people who question good quality equipment are perhaps too demanding of their equipment and not demanding enough of themselves. In other words apply good fieldcraft and photographic skills and you will come back with great shots.

Good luck

 

[alan carr]

Bigma between 400 & 500mm (nominal 417mm). ISO 400, F9, 1/1250s, 350d

http://bigal-sa.smugmug.com/photos/102622834_s4Yvx-L.jpg

 

[mrmarklin]

Your camera and lens combo are among the sharpest available. You shouldn't have any practical limitations in blowing up the photos.