Focus Problems

Draupnir

Hi guys,

I wanted to get some advice on focusing. I don't know whether it is just me, but whenever I try to take a landscape shot I am finding that I am disappointed with the sharpness throughout the shot. An example would be:



I am basically trying to use the settings that I am reading are used by people in magazines when taking what appear to me to be fantastically sharp landscape shots. Every time I get home from a trip I feel disappointed at the lack of sharpness once I get the shot on my Mac.

Any advice? I suspect I may be focusing too far into the scene, I went for the further stump in the picture I have mentioned above.

Cheers for the help.

*EDIT: Just want to add, I think that maybe using MobileMe is not helping as the photo looks a lot sharper in Aperture. Flickr would help avoid this yeah?

Crispin

Yeh looks out of focus to me. Are you shooting handheld? With an SLR or just a point and shoot?

Draupnir

Sorry, should have said, shot with a 450d on a tripod. I think the EXIF should all be in that pic but it was f22 for 1 sec. at 18mm focal length on the kit lens (18-55)

Crispin

Draupnir wrote: »

Sorry, should have said, shot with a 450d on a tripod. I think the EXIF should all be in that pic but it was f22 for 1 sec. at 18mm focal length on the kit lens (18-55)

Do you turn off the IS on your lens when you have it on the tripod. If you don't the IS will search for shakes that aren't there and give you a soft image - I have done this myself and got home disappointed

I am sure many more knowledgeable people will give you more ideas here on boards.......
hope you sort it out!

Draupnir

I was leaving the IS turned on when using the tripod, being a completely green photographer I wasn't aware of this being a bad thing, I thought "double stability" would be good!

Have put then photo into a new pix.ie account to see if it is better than on MobileMe, but I'm not convinced. I look forward to some more advice but thanks very much for your thoughts already.

Trizo

At F22 you should have sharp DOF throughout,
Your latest shot looks far sharper i would say it was just the size difference in files looks like the first picture was squashed ??

i have the exact same setup as you and it doesnt sound like you have done anything wrong i have heard people talk about turning off IS when using a tripod but i havent really found it to make too much of a difference.But it is something that i have seen talked about so there may well be something in it.

Tactical

Using IS on a tripod (except for a panning mode) can lead to oscillations occuring which will contribute to an out of focus shot.

My personal opinion is that Canon products seem to produce a very soft shot which can give the impression of an out of focus shot. Sometimes considerable sharpening can need to be applied.

Glancing at both shots, the second appears sharper to me.

Others will have better advice and comments than I'm able to offer, but keep practicing, keep reading, don't be discouraged if things don't turn out exactly as in the magazines as I'm sure there's quite a lot they don't mention or every reader would be producing outstanding shots in only a few issues....;)

al_

Draupnir wrote: »

I am basically trying to use the settings that I am reading are used by people in magazines when taking what appear to me to be fantastically sharp landscape shots.

The shot seems okay, a little soft, thats probably a mix of having the IS turned on while on a tripod and the kit lens.

Apart from all that though, dont copy exactly the camera settings you read in magazines, those settings are relevant to the scene that was photographed and take into account the light in that exact scene.

When taking landscape shots with your camera on the tripod, I'd suggest using Aperture control on your camera, lowest iso you can manage and narrow aperture(i.e. large f no.)

Good luck with it,

Al

Fionn

has the 450 got 'in camera sharpening' maybe it's turned off? also were you using any of the picture styles that you can apply? if these are done incorrectly it might cause the shot to look OOF another thing is sometimes in low light the auto focus doesn't do it's job,
I've copied the second sharper photograph and applied medium sharpening to it and it comes up a bit improved.
so, next time try a shot but manually focus,
use mirror lockup and use if available a remote trigger or if you haven'tgot one, use the timer function. Oh and turn off IS when it's on the tripod

pete4130

Turn the IS off, have no in camera sharpening, enhancing or anything. Shoot RAW, use the camera timer so your hand on the shutter button doesn't cause shake, make sure it isn't windy, if so "shield" the cam from wind with your body/jacket/whatever an if you focus about 1/3 into the shot at f/22 you should get the best depth of field. All the above may not seem to make a difference ut if all these small things are happening together it can make a big difference. Maybe try bracketing the shot with 3 shots an aperture priorty mode and see which shot looks best. Hopefully you'll get better results.

nilhg

I'm not sure that advising the OP to use f22 is really wise, most of the reading I have done suggests that you lose alot of sharpness due to diffraction effects. I would have thought that f8 to f11 should have been adequate.

Have a look here especially the what it looks like example.

A quick google search throws up loads of further reading.

Having said all that mobileme does seem to do something really weird to the shot.

al_

youre quite right nilhg, I wasnt actually meaning to suggest that he sticks with f22, only meant to suggest that if he wants to use f22 he sticks the camera into aperture control and lets the camera pick a shutter speed, rather than picking a shutter speed off a magazine.
i'd always start with f11 when it comes to landscapes.

CabanSail

What was the weather like when you took the shot?

Remember that if there is some wind around & you are doing a long exposure then branches in the trees will become soft due to movement.

The quality of the tripod can also be a factor. A cheap tripod can be less than stable & can affect the sharpness.

Draupnir

Thanks for all the advice guys, the tripod is a SLIK Pro 340DX, so it really shouldnt (and better not be) the problem!

I am going to head back up to the exact same spot this Sunday morning and hopefully, weather permitting, get some nice frosty shots. Will spend a lot more time over the settings and will even bring the laptop along to help. If I can, I should manage one good shot at least!