Before and After editing, still unhappy with both. Not sure where to go.

[SergeTheBlerge]

Ok, out shooting today, very bright day and tried my best to keep my ISO low and shutter slower, as well as keep my camera on one point of focus. Very difficult to keep my shot histograms at good exposure without being too under or overexposed. It seems even with all these precautions my shots are STILL coming out far too soft and I honestly don't even know where to go. I can't use a tripod for absolutely every single shot and try my absolute best to keep my camera as steady as possible. It seems my OLD Canon SD50 Powershot had better image quality than my new Rebel T6i. Here is one image I took before and after editing:

F/16, ISO 200, 1/160, no flash, metering mode set on "pattern" (or most centered point of focus).

Before edit:




After edit - Despite turning up the sharpness using my editor (photoscape) the rocks on the bottom left are still soft. The sky is somewhat pixelated as well (where the 'blue' area blends with the clouds, it doesn't seems a seamless fade, I'm having trouble using the dehaze option without making pixels appear). On the top corners you'll also notice a few dark spots. My wide angle lens attachment tends to make those appear if I zoom out completely. I have a Vivtar attachment that came with my camera package. It attaches to the standard 18 - 55mm lens I was using. I'd have to crop those out if I want to use this photo.




Ok, my question is if there is any type of editor I can use that can help these images. I'm not sure why I'm having such a hard time achieving not only the best exposure ("bell curve") but also decent sharpness. I used a tripod for another shot and still it seems my camera isn't giving me absolute 100% sharpness that I'd like. I figured since it was a bright day I'd have little trouble but this seems a consistent problem.


**please keep in mind this shot was edited specifically to post my issue on here. It's the JPEG shot but for ALL shooting today I had my camera set to JPEG + RAW, therefore I do have this file on RAW as well.

[Mike Buckley]

It's very difficult to tell when viewing such small images (I strongly suggest that you post larger files), but it's not just the foreground rocks that are soft in the unedited image. The entire image seems a little soft. Even so, I would expect an image downsized to such a small size to be soft if indeed you didn't apply output sharpening.

My guess is that the sweet spot (the apertures with the sharpest focusing) when at a focal length of 21mm is not f/16. Try the same kind of shot at f/8 or f/11.

Even so, the post-processed photo is plenty sharp at least at this tiny size, so why are you concerned?

You mentioned that the bell shape curve is the ideal histogram. That's just plain wrong; there is no ideal histogram. Instead of paying attention to the middle of the histogram, pay attention only to the far left and right sides.

You don't have to crop the image to eliminate the dark spots in the corners. Simply use a clone tool to zap them. One click on each corner should do the trick.

[dje]

Hi Sergio

My guess is that the Vivatar wide angle lens attachment might be contributing to the softness of the image. Are you getting similar results without it ?

Also, if you wanted to post your raw file on something like Dropbox, we could download it and have a play with it at full resolution.

Dave

[Stagecoach]

My wide angle lens attachment tends to make those appear if I zoom out completely. I have a Vivtar attachment that came with my camera package. It attaches to the standard 18 - 55mm lens I was using. I'd have to crop those out if I want to use this photo.

I was not sure what a 'Wide Angle Lens attachment' was so did a google

"" Vivitar Wide angle lens purchased from amazon for $18 ""

That suggests something to me if we are looking to get the best quality from a lens

It seems even with all these precautions my shots are STILL coming out far too soft and I honestly don't even know where to go.

With your concerns about 'sharpness' and hence possible causes I would suggest the first thing you do is set your camera on a tripod and take some test shots of anything, exposed correctly.

Use the self timer or mirror up functions to achieve the best possible steadiness and try different focal lengths and a few different apertures, e.g. f/8, f/11, f/16. Also try with and without the wide angle adapter. Diagnose the images.

From the results you will learn what your camera/lens can produce w.r.t sharpness[/U]. If you then find shots you take after are not as good sharpness wise chances are it's user error.

[loosecanon]

hi
Your kit lens should ngive reasonable results between f8 to f11. However if you put another lens in front of it such as your wide angle device you have to accept that the image is never going to be very sharp. A lens is optimised to give good resolution, and a wide apdaptor on it introduces a whole range of aberations that will soften the image as well as other distortions.

The image you presented as sharpened seems to have its saturation increased a lot? This is not the same as adjusting the exposure. Incidentally is the camera set to sRGB colour space, if set to adobe it will appear less saturated on a non colour managed screen.

What radius is the sharpening set at? A wide radius will not so much sharpen as change contrasts within the scene. Sharpening an 8 bit image especially blue sky can easily introduce artifacts that look like grain.

Output sharpening only changes the visual perceeption of the image, it cannot add detail which has been lost.

[rpcrowe]

I was wondering how the image turned out unsharp UNTIL, I read that you were using a wide angle attachment. Neither the wide angle nor the telephoto attachments (which fit on the front of your lens) produce the sharpest of imagery, They also tend to vignette and also may have some off color problems.

I played with this and tried, unsuccessfully to correct the fuzziness and the color using the various sliders in NIK Viveza with very little success as you can see...



However, copying an unsharp image is usually not the best way to get a sharp image...

I would try to shoot with a bare lens and with the adapter and see whether the adapter can produce quality at the point where you might think it is worth using...

[Brev00]

I agree with Richard above. It is interesting how you added the wide angle attachment detail later in your post sort of offhandedly as if you never considered it could be a culprit yet it stood out to me and others as a key possible cause. Easy enough to remove it. I would not use something like that anyway. If you want wider focal lengths, get a true wide angle lens. That is the advantage of a dslr. You can change lenses to get the specific results you want. Adding additional pieces to a lens seems to me to be looking for trouble. That and your f 16 setting suggest to me that you are trying too hard to get good clarity. Better to relax a bit. Shooting at f 16 is not something I would universally discourage, but, when shooting hand held, such small apertures can add an unnecessary complexity. They slow the shutter speed and force us to raise the iso if we want a faster shutter speed. F 8 is often sufficient especially when shooting at the wide side of kit lens. Wide focal lengths make for a pretty deep dof without much effort. It becomes more a matter of choosing a good focal point than narrowing the aperture.

It is often a good thing to almost forget about the entire histogram when shooting raw and just keep an eye on the right side. I generally like to keep the histogram right up to the point of clipping. Even a few blinkies are typically well within the raw's tonal range. Then, lower the brightness in post. This is a pretty standard technique but many will not choose to do it. Different strokes. This image seems pretty good to me in terms of exposure. The sky is nice and light but with good texture from the clouds. I might just darken the foreground a notch to create some more contrast. The tone seems a little uniform right now. I would take the wide angle piece off, relax, shoot at f 8 and enjoy.

[William W]

. . . My wide angle lens attachment tends to make those appear if I zoom out completely. I have a Vivtar attachment that came with my camera package. It attaches to the standard 18 - 55mm lens I was using.. . F/16, ISO 200, 1/160, no flash, metering mode set on "pattern" (or most centered point of focus). . . I'm not sure why I'm having such a hard time achieving not only the best exposure ("bell curve") but also decent sharpness. I used a tripod for another shot and still it seems my camera isn't giving me absolute 100% sharpness that I'd like. I figured since it was a bright day I'd have little trouble but this seems a consistent problem.
. . .

my question is if there is any type of editor I can use that can help these images.

No. A Post production editor will not assist these issues, the problem is the MAKING of the image.

> Don’t use the “wide angle attachment”. It is crucifying the very good image quality of you lens especially at the edges.

> A “Bell Curve” histogram is not “the Best Exposure”. Histogram shape will change dependent upon the Lighting Scenario.

> Canon DSLRs do not have “Pattern Metering” if you were using “Partial Metering” then that will bias the metering to the centre of the image frame: for that scene EVALUATIVE METERING would be the best metering mode to use. If you are unsure of the best exposure to use for that type of scene, then one very good technique to use is to make an EXPOSURE BRACKET of ±⅔ Stop (using EVALUATIVE METERING as the centre point).

> F/16 is not the best aperture to use for that lens – the lens performs best between F/7.1 and F/11.

> That lens does not come with a Lens Hood, provide shade for the lens to avoid VEILING FLARE when shooting is bright conditions.

> If you were not using a tripod, 1/160s hand held is too slow to expect optimum performance even if the Image Stabilization was engaged. 1/1500s would be safer. Additionally I do not understand why you wanted to keep the shutter speed slower for that shot.

> If you are using a ‘protection’ filter, then take it off for those shots in bright sunlight.

WW

[DanK]

Good comments so far. I'll add just a bit.

First, the biggest issue by far is likely to be the wide-angle attachment. You won't solve this problem if you put things like this in front of your lens.

Second, the metering mode has nothing to do with sharpness. The metering mode is simply a choice to help you get the right exposure. And as Mike and Bill said, to see if you have the right exposure, look at the histogram, but forget about the bell curve. In most cases, you want the histogram to be as far right as you can go without hitting the edge. If you haven't yet, read the tutorial on this site about interpreting histograms.

Also, this not exactly correct, but it is close enough: exposure is not the issue if your image is unsharp.

I'm guessing that the foreground rocks are too close for the depth of field you had, but not knowing where you focused, it's hard to know.

While it is true that you will lose a little sharpness from diffraction by shooting at apertures smaller than f/11, I doubt that shooting at f/16 had all that much effect in this case. The effect of diffraction at that aperture is pretty small. However, if you have the option, I would open up more and stay within the f/8-f/11 range.

Finally, I just want to repeat one of Bill's points for emphasis: this is not primarily a problem of postproduction. It's a problem of how you have taken the image.

[rpcrowe]

The wide angle and telephoto attachments which fit in front of a lens are quite inexpensive but, you get what you pay for. The play havoc with image quality

A better choice for getting a wider view would be to shoot a several frame pano and combine these in post production. While a tripod or monopod can help in shooting for a pano image, you can, if your are careful, shoot the images hand held.

BTW: IMO, it is virtually impossible to effectively shoot images for a pano if you are hand holding a camera and using the LCD as a viewfinder. As Rudyard Kipling said about hand holding panos using the LCD. If you can do that effectively, "You're a better man than I am Gunga Din"

However if you are interested in generally sharp imagery, a tripod or even a monopod can often help.

You would be better off shooting with a bare lens and cropping your image than adding a telephoto attachment.

There is one possible use for an attachment that fits in front of a lens... The Canon 500D closeup lens attachment will provide quite decent imagery if used correctly. However, the price of this attachment is far higher than any eBay telephoto or wide angle attachments.