Screening standard changed?

[seahawk]

Tail is lsightly blurred indeed. A hard choice if I would see it in the queue. 50:50

[PMN]

Actually it looks ok on my screen.

Likewise. I very strongly disagree this image doesn't stand a chance, it just needs careful processing. The top of the tail is indeed a bit blurry but the rest of the aircraft isn't particularly. Another pass of USM at 30%, 0.3 and a tiny bit of selective sharpening on the tail gives this, and it can be better with more time spent on it working from the original. It may not be technically perfect, but it's by no means terrible and it's a good looking aircraft in nice light. I'd have no problem whatsoever voting accept, even on this edit.



How much sharpening did you use, Freek?

Paul

[wrxflyer]

Paul,

I used two times of 50% at 0,3 radius and one final stage at 35% with 0,3 radius.
Nothing else, so far.

I'd like to sent you the original RAW file of this photo tonight, so can you can try it yourself.

Florian and Stephan; thanks for your input so far.
Much appreciated.

Best regards
Freek

[PMN]

Freek, fire it over, you already have my email address.

[PMN]

Hookay... Well I have to say, this took an immense amount of sharpening! The original isn't really blurry as such, more very soft. A huge problem as I mentioned in the email is you're shooting in sRAW, meaning your camera is essentially only giving you around 2.5 megapixels! Always shoot in full RAW (or large JPEG) to make the most of your resolution. Doing so will help a lot in cases like this where you're really pushing things like sharpening.

So, first thing was to crop, adjust exposure, saturation, etc, and then convert to JPEG. It opened around 1600 pixels wide, so I did two passes of USM at 150%, 0.3, and then resized to 1024 wide. Then after resizing, another USM pass of 100% at 0.3. This is a truly immense amount of sharpening and far more than you should ever need to apply. Then I copied the background layer and did some selective sharpening on the tail using the Sharpen tool set to around 5%. It really isn't perfect, but I'd still vote accept personally. It's the right side of borderline for me.



As you mentioned in the email, it was shot at f/5.6 so an initial thought is that might be a contributing factor to the blurry tail, but to be honest the 70-200L is quite unique in the world of medium telephoto zoom lenses in that it's actually pin sharp at every f/stop. I have the same lens and its sharpness is simply stunning regardless of where it's stopped down to. The DoF increases as you stop down as with any other lens so you should still aim to shoot at around f/8, but the tail here isn't really any further away from the camera than the front so I'm not convinced it's blurred because you shot at f/5.6. You may just have to accept it as one of those random weird things that happen to us all sometimes!

You could have shifted a few settings around and happily used f/8 though, or nearer to it. In this case you were at f/5.6 and that was giving you 1/400th. You could have nudged the ISO up to 200 and stopped down to f/8. As f/8 is a stop away from f/5.6 and ISO 200 is one stop from 100, your shutter speed would have remained the same at 1/400th (assuming you shoot in Av). You could also have increased ISO to 200, stopped down to f/7.1 and gained a 1/3 of a stop on shutter speed, giving you 1/500th at f/7.1 which may have worked a little better. Exposure really is just a balancing act; it's just a case of trying to optimise your settings for the conditions you're shooting in so try to always stick to around f/8 with the highest shutter speed you can, and don't be afraid to use ISO 200 if you need to. The people who say it ruins your images are lying!

Hope that helps in some way,

Paul

P.S. I don't really know what the dark bits in the sky are, but as it isn't really obvious they're birds it might be an idea to heal them out.

[wrxflyer]

Paul,

Thanks again for your help and willingness to explain your workflow.
I've tried it right away on other pics of that day and it worked well!!

Although it keeps me wondering where the softness comes from, as there are other pics which are even more soft/blurry than this one (check out my other topic in this forum).
Can a high-quality lens, like a Canon L-lens suddenly starts to focus incorrect?
My lenses are only used for planespotting and they remain in the camerabag forever, between my spottingtrips.

Freek

[PMN]

If they take a knock then elements can shift a little making accurate focussing impossible, but it would take quite a hit to do this. Do you find you have this problem in all conditions and all circumstances? At all focal lengths? Do you have another camera body you can try the lens on?

[wrxflyer]

Do you find you have this problem in all conditions and all circumstances? At all focal lengths? Do you have another camera body you can try the lens on?

To be honest, I don t know for sure.
I know for sure it didn't show any strange things during summer ,but starting my session of November 25, there are (too) many pics with soft or blurry parts.
If you want I can sent you some RAW files to have a look at.
Maybe you can see if it s a matter of editing or anything else.

Freek

[PMN]

There's no question that the Air Tahiti Nui shot was indeed extremely soft and required more than three times what I would consider 'normal' sharpening, but the fact it was shot in sRAW didn't help that. By all means, send me a few RAW files over and I'll have a quick look. Do you have any not taken in sRAW?

[wrxflyer]

By all means, send me a few RAW files over and I'll have a quick look. Do you have any not taken in sRAW?

I am afraid not; only older ones, but they were all good.
Don't know if the latest problems are caused by that sRAW thing, but I have changed my camere setting to RAW now.
Tuesday I go out for spotting again, and will see what happens.....

Freek