I'm not happy with this: advice please

[Davejl]

I took some shots recently on a beautiful crisp day and was very disappointed with nearly all of them. As an example, I took this using my Canon 70D and Sigma 10-20, f13, 16mm, 1/80 sec, ISO 400 with CPL. I don't like the sky, but more significantly the left side rocks and brick tower seem very soft. Is it just not a particularly good lens? The details in the brickwork and rocks more centrally seem far better.

[pnodrog]

Polarising filters do not work well with wide angle lenses as the lens view is wider than the polarising angles of the sky so some parts of the sky will be darkened by the filter and other parts not. What I find a bit odd is that there is an unevenness of exposure across the photo that appears to be in excess of that I would expect from a high quality polarising filer alone. You could try correcting it to a certain extent in PP by using a horizontal graduated adjustment layer on the image.

[Urbanflyer]

I have several thoughts on this and others will agree, disagree, or add their thoughts. I am not really tech savy about lenses (which may be part of the issue in the sky)--but I know that I can correct that issue with dodging in Photoshop. I agree it is a distraction. In terms of sharpness, with a 16 mm focal length and f 13 your depth of field is not huge. Therefore where you choose to set your focus will make a huge difference on what is sharp and what is not. Your focus seems to center on the foreground rocks. Therefore I would expect the distant towers to be less sharp. However, even then the appearance of sharpness can be affected by the amount of contrast in the subject. Thus the tower walls facing the sun, like the far left one, where there is less shadow (contrast) because of how the bricks/grout catch the sun, would appear more muddled than the walls which are oblique to the sun. Again, in Photoshop I would use selective adjustment with clarity on those sections which seem muddled in order to improve the shot. As I am always learning I look forward to the ideas of others on this one!

[Davejl]

Thank you Paul, I will give the graduated adjustment a try.

Dave

[Manfred M]

+1 to what Paul has written.

One other consideration strikes me as well. Photography is all about the lighting, and if the metadata is correct, then you took this image around 12:30PM, i.e. mid-day, where the lighting is hard and unattractive (the harsh shadows are the giveaway here). Had you taken this shot at "golden hour", in the morning or afternoon, you would have ended up with a far more attractive image. The lighting is soft and diffuse and the shadows will be soft and long.

[Manfred M]

In terms of sharpness, with a 16 mm focal length and f 13 your depth of field is not huge.

Sorry, Judith, but let me disagree here. The DoF at those settings is huge. With the settings Dave is shooting at with his crop frame sensor anything from around 1m / 3ft to infinity should be in sharp focus. Check the numbers in the CiC hyperfocal distance calculator.

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...l-distance.htm

[Davejl]

Thank you Judith. I think that the way that the sun is catching the left tower and the left side of the rock outcrop may have something to do with it as you suggest. The left side of the rocks were not many feet away from the centre of the outcrop and yet seem much less crisp. On the other hand, I think that the slate roof and right side, distant brick tower are considerably further from the camera than that left-side tower, and yet they seem less fuzzy.

Dave

[rpcrowe]

IMO, a bit of post processing help might bring this closer to what you were aiming for.

I put a slight vignette which seems to somewhat counteract the uneven sky.
I selected the buildings and used NIK Viveza shadows slider and structure slider.
I did an overall sharpen with Photoshop CC
Finally, I cropped a bit from image right.

[Davejl]

Thanks Manfred. Unfortuately at this time of year it is a question of making the best of very infrequent appearances by the sun and rather limited daylight. On the day I took this the sun would have disappeared completely before 4pm and it never gets very high in the sky at any time. I'd probably be better to try for the shot latish on a nice May evening

Dave

[Davejl]

Thank you Richard, I like this. It puts emphasis on the foreground rock textures and the vignette not only gives it an appropriate "old-worlde" feel but helps with the unven sky as you say.

Dave

[Manfred M]

Thanks Manfred. Unfortuately at this time of year it is a question of making the best of very infrequent appearances by the sun and rather limited daylight. On the day I took this the sun would have disappeared completely before 4pm and it never gets very high in the sky at any time. I'd probably be better to try for the shot latish on a nice May evening

Dave

You are a bit further north than I am, so the sun sets around 4:20PM where I am at this time of year. Golden hour, on the other hand starts at around 3:30PM, so I would expect it to be about 15 minutes earlier up where you are. That being said, I got virtually no outdoor photography done this November - overcast skies are the norm here too. December, especially later in the month, tends to starts to get better as the skies can often be nice and clear as the cold weather sets in.

[mknittle]

Thanks Manfred. Unfortuately at this time of year it is a question of making the best of very infrequent appearances by the sun and rather limited daylight. On the day I took this the sun would have disappeared completely before 4pm and it never gets very high in the sky at any time. I'd probably be better to try for the shot latish on a nice May evening
Dave

Maybe a cloudy day with defuse light may be an option. or clouds before after a storm in black and white?
I think this place has possibilitys

[Tronhard]

I agree with Manfred about the DoF, wide angle lenses normally offer the best DoF and at f13 you have a very narrow aperture which should further enhance the DoF. And here there may be an issue...

I dialed your body+lens combo into DxOMark: a company that does exhaustive technical testing on lenses and bodies. Each lens behaves differently on a different body, so I had to input both the lens and body you were using, and I got the following results:
https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Sigma...surements__895

Many lenses have their focal 'sweet spot' at a much wider aperture than is popularly believed. If you look at the measurements tab you will observe that, according to their results the lens performs best around f-4. The f-13 aperture you chose puts it well inside the poor focus zone for this body.

Sorry, Judith, but let me disagree here. The DoF at those settings is huge. With the settings Dave is shooting at with his crop frame sensor anything from around 1m / 3ft to infinity should be in sharp focus. Check the numbers in the CiC hyperfocal distance calculator.

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...l-distance.htm

[Davejl]

Thanks for the golden hour info Manfred. As for the weather, totally unpredictable as usual. Brilliant sun with frost on the odd day, then foggy then just dull and chilly. On Monday I cut short a bike ride because my feet were too cold, today I wore my cycling shorts. As for later in the month, maybe cold and crisp, or maybe endless low pressure systems with wind and rain

[Davejl]

Thanks Trev, this is very interesting and not at all what I had expected. I will check out DXO and for my other lenses too

[Urbanflyer]

Thanks for the disagreement! I know nothing about crop frame sensors..and am still learning the limits of DOF with different focal lengths..

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the disagreement! I know nothing about crop frame sensors..and am still learning the limits of DOF with different focal lengths..

I suggest you might want to have a look at this article here on CiC as a refresher.

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...h-of-field.htm

[Tronhard]

And further to that, in the Stanford University lecture series hosted by Google, there is a fun app that nicely shows the relationship between focal length, aperture and depth of field. The series itself is worth watching.
https://sites.google.com/site/marcle...depth-of-field

I suggest you might want to have a look at this article here on CiC as a refresher.

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...h-of-field.htm

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Dave,

About 80% of the overall problem is due to the polariser, they are generally a bad idea on such a wide angle lens.

The other 20% is due to the fact that with such a wide angle of view and the sun's angle in relation to certain faces of the brick walls, we can see that those front lit have the least contrast, while those being grazed by the sun have the most, plus more texture. The same will apply to the rocks, the ones on the left are more front lit by sun, so have less contrast.

We know that polarisers work best on sky darkening when at 90 degrees to the sun (i.e. sun on either shoulder), and least when we're facing toward, or away from, the sun. Your lens encompasses a view that exceeds 90 degrees, so it is highly likely that you'll see both the minimum and maximum across the field of view.

In such a situation, just shoot a stop less exposure to retain more blue in the sky.

Even without a polariser, (and to naked eye) you'll probably see a lightening of the blue sky when facing the sun as dust and moisture suspended in the atmosphere is lit by the sun and causes a veiling flare effect (unless atmosphere is very clean just after a shower).

These are things we all learn when shooting with UWA lenses - just part of the fun and learning experience.

Cheers, Dave

[Davejl]

Dave,
Thank you for this, Dave