Help diagnosing problem

[monkeymind]

Hello! I was using a Canon 7D with the kit 18-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS lens with standard UV filter attached. This was shot around 3pm with the sun behind me on an overcast day. (it was mostly overcast and rainy the few days at this beautiful place. no good luck.)

I had on a circular polarizing filter which was recommended to me because this place is full of translucent, aqua pools. But I had forgotten to remove the filter for many other shots, such as this one. I have no tripod; however, I'd try to use a bannister of a wooden railing with IS turned off (unfortunately there probably was still shake from passing tourists).

I shot mostly JPG but RAW, too. This is a RAW converted to full-sized JPG. Shot at aperture priority or manual, auto ISO. Here: 1/160, f/10, ISO 2500.

This is an example of what I'd get: very smudgy shots with almost no detail. I've done no post-processing other than a quick auto-adjustment button. Like a bad version of an impressionist painting full of noise.

I don't know if this is the result of leaving the CP filter on (and not exposing correctly for reduced light), camera shake (lack of tripod) or some other user error, poor high ISO capability, or some combination. I know this kit lens is not a high performance lens, but I was doing something wrong and need to figure out what. I had many ruined photos (fortunately I had a second camera with me and was able to take some photos sans filters with this one so trip was not a total waste -- photographically speaking).

I appreciate you reading this long post, and welcome any advice. If you need me to post more photos or different format, let me know. If I've posted in wrong forum location, let me know, too.

Thank you


Jiuzhaigou2013-0590-2 by monkeylikemind, on Flickr

can view 1024 or larger on flickr. i had several even worse shot in morning.

[Colin Southern]

Hi "Monkey",

The image has quite a few issues that I can see (lack of sharpness, lack of contrast, saturation issues), but it's hard to diagnose the cause with such a low-resolution example.

Normally with image problems like this I encourage people to take a deep breath - take a couple of steps back - and work through the problems logically; one step at a time to isolate things.

For starters I'd setup the camera on a tripod (or a steady surface) - sun behind you - all filters off - lens hood on. Point the camera at a scene like this - and take a shot RAW and upload it somewhere where others can download it and take a look at it.

[Ian H]

Im with Colin on this one, all filters off and lens hood on. Non of my lenses ever have uv filters on them, just don't see the point and as someone pointed out to me years ago it,s another 2 air to glass surfaces to degrade the image.


Cheers

Ian

[monkeymind]

Thank you. I'll begin by removing such filters. BTW, do you recommend a particular website to upload the RAW file? I have one for this file. Thanks again.

[dje]

A couple of thoughts

Have you checked that your lens is set to Auto Focus ? (Sorry if that's a silly question).

You are going to get a fair bit of noise with ISO2500. I have a 600D which has the same sensor and I would never use it with that high an ISO because of the noise. If you shot this in raw, you should be able to apply some noise reduction. But you're still going to have a problem with lack of sharpness and I doubt that sharpening will solve the problem.

Dave

[dje]

Thank you. I'll begin by removing such filters. BTW, do you recommend a particular website to upload the RAW file? I have one for this file. Thanks again.

DropBox is one.

[Donald]

DropBox is one.

Google Drive and Mediafire are two others.

[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi,

Can you please post a couple more so we can get another perspective.

Thanks

Victor

[monkeymind]

thanks. i'm loading a couple on google drive. taking a while.


here's link to original RAW photo on google drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwt...it?usp=sharing

[nimitzbenedicto]

thanks. i'm loading a couple on google drive. taking a while.


here's link to original RAW photo on google drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwt...it?usp=sharing

Denied access. Maybe you need to make it public or something.

[monkeymind]

Sorry first time using Drive. Public now. This link should be public and contains 3 RAW photos.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...0k&usp=sharing

[dje]

Hi monkeymimd

I had a look at your raw file (corresponding to the jpeg posted) and it is very noisy. I think your ISO setting of 2500 is the culprit. Suggest you re-shoot with ISO100 and a tripod and see what you get.

Dave

[batmura]

monkeymind, may I ask why you set your ISO so high? You could have opened your aperture and still have acceptable sharpness. I'm not going into the uv or no uv debate, but I don't use one and always shoot with a tripod and lens hood. My ISO never goes that high either. I'm sure the experts will be more helpful...

[ajohnw]

There is an immense amount of noise in the shot you posted. If that is mostly filtered out the shot needs reducing to try and gain detail and remove noise that is still left. I suspect most of the problems here is iso 2500.

The shot showing branches under water appears to be focused on those rather than the scene in total. The branches are a little blurred as they are under water. I couldn't find a sharp focal plane on the posted shot either so might all relate to a filter or camera problem.

The 3rd shot with well exposed clouds in places shows the same blurred symptoms as the other 2 with a different lens.

The lenses you used aren't too bad resolution wise actually. Both by their nature are compromise lenses. One because it's rather wide angle and the other because of the zoom range. According to some tests you wouldn't do all that much better switching to L lenses.

Have to be suspicious about the filter if used on both lenses and maybe the AF on the camera not doing it's job for some reason. If you happened on a linear polariser the AF is unlikely to work according to this tutorial.

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...ng-filters.htm

According to this they should enhance saturation rather than loose it.

I had a quick play with one of them. Rather a lot of sharpening full sized and some saturation boosting. Reduced and sharpened again, still on the heavy side. Then stretched the histogram and removed a little mid tone level blue and added a bit of green to that tone level as well. I get the impression that all have a blue cast but that could be down to not using the correct camera icc file.



Probably not ideal but something could be recovered from all 3 shots. The trees look a bit artificial - different levels of sharpening could help with that. I also added a tiny bit of tone mapping which probably makes that aspect worse. Local retouching could bring in the trees to top left up to match the others or even that effect out.

John
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[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi monkeymimd

I had a look at your raw file (corresponding to the jpeg posted) and it is very noisy. I think your ISO setting of 2500 is the culprit. Suggest you re-shoot with ISO100 and a tripod and see what you get.

Dave

Hi Monkeymind,

I guess John & Dave found the " culprit", your high ISO2500.

HTH

[nimitzbenedicto]

There is an immense amount of noise in the shot you posted. If that is mostly filtered out the shot needs reducing to try and gain detail and remove noise that is still left. I suspect most of the problems here is iso 2500.

The shot showing branches under water appears to be focused on those rather than the scene in total. The branches are a little blurred as they are under water. I couldn't find a sharp focal plane on the posted shot either so might all relate to a filter or camera problem.

The 3rd shot with well exposed clouds in places shows the same blurred symptoms as the other 2 with a different lens.

The lenses you used aren't too bad resolution wise actually. Both by their nature are compromise lenses. One because it's rather wide angle and the other because of the zoom range. According to some tests you wouldn't do all that much better switching to L lenses.

Have to be suspicious about the filter if used on both lenses and maybe the AF on the camera not doing it's job for some reason. If you happened on a linear polariser the AF is unlikely to work according to this tutorial.

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...ng-filters.htm

According to this they should enhance saturation rather than loose it.

I had a quick play with one of them. Rather a lot of sharpening full sized and some saturation boosting. Reduced and sharpened again, still on the heavy side. Then stretched the histogram and removed a little mid tone level blue and added a bit of green to that tone level as well. I get the impression that all have a blue cast but that could be down to not using the correct camera icc file.



Probably not ideal but something could be recovered from all 3 shots. The trees look a bit artificial - different levels of sharpening could help with that. I also added a tiny bit of tone mapping which probably makes that aspect worse. Local retouching could bring in the trees to top left up to match the others or even that effect out.

John
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Hi John,

Thanks for an actual photo showing your settings/editing.
This makes it easier for readers/viewers of your post.

So difficult to visualize how a photo would look like based on a lot of words.

[Manfred M]

Hi Monekeymid - welcome to CiC.

All kinds of issues with the image. Unlikely to do with shooting with a polarizer (I rarely remove mine when I shoot outdoors).

The image is not sharp (likely cause by camera movement and inappropriate focus point). ISO 2500 is way, way overboard. A lot of the issues can be fixed in post (just the usual stuff). Not sure about your shooting or working in post experience; so that makes it a bit difficult to give specific direction.

Here are a before and after image (CAUTION: long loading time; these are full-size).

[ajohnw]

Another one. I like playing with problem shots for practice. This one is curious. I did more or less the same as the other and then for speed just selected a rectangle and did more on that. Main effect was a reduction in blue and more saturation again. This needed rather a lot of noise reduction while full sized. I did that on the basis of removing 1/2 plus of the noise that could be seen at 140% view in the water. The histogram hasn't been stretched so far on this one. The other was pushed as far as it can go..



I can't help wondering if some of the fuzzy effects are down to pixel counts and lenses but feel something is wrong somewhere. Maybe haze from a damp day on the lens/filter. Mist never helps but the shots don't appear to be sharp close up until they are reduced by rather a lot.

If Colin has a go I'm sure he will do better with both. On the other hand PS might crash as it expects better quality and just refuses to work on them.

John
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[ajohnw]

Looking at the exif's on here I wonder if the camera sharpness setting has something to do with it. I generally leave that off as it can have unpredictable effects and that can always be cleaned up via post processing. Where I will use full auto everything including noise reduction is in hopeless low light conditions where things are likely to be difficult.

The exifs now show dcraw processing - true for conversion but the rest was done with Fotoxx. Ist one gaudy apart from the trees etc. 2nd a little more real. There is also a 2nd selected blue reduction in the lower portion of it. Hard to see. In this case it has spoiled part of the tree a little.

John
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[ajohnw]

As this cropped up in a recent thread Lightroom - Lightzone I had a quick adjust using Lightzone to get a similar effect to Manfred's.

Full sized too but I feel it's best to do the last adjustments at final size.

The settings for this was default raw conversion and zone mapping, hard relight, Hue, saturation- eye dropper on distant trees and then the luminosity reduced. 2 others that make little difference really - crisp look and local contrast enhancement. I feel it's too big for viewing really.



Doh - as uploaded it wont go full sized.

John
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