Fall rains

[Urbanflyer]

Rather than do the 52 week challenge this year I have decided to work through many years of our fall and spring trips and pull out what I think are the strongest images. This is from a trip in fall of 2013. Really appreciate critique so I can continue to grow.

Fall rains-6 by urbanflyer, on Flickr

[Manfred M]

Judith - this is a lovely, simple image. I do like it a lot.

Comments - It's a fairly small image, so I can't be sure but is seems to be just a touch soft. There is lots of negative space around it; playing around with the crop might be worth considering.

[Wavelength]

Simple and beautiful. If you can, may fade the yellow somewhat to avoid the visual distraction

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Judith,

I also wondered about the aspect ratio of the crop, it feels as though it were influenced by something you have cropped out.

These days, PS CC has the ability to fill, if you extend the canvas, after cropping.
This has helped me get an image frame back to an aspect ratio that suits the subject shape after removing extraneous content.

With this, the obvious would be to extend the right-hand side, but other possibilities exist - e.g. add to the top, remove from bottom, making a tall thin frame with subject at/below the lower third, hinting at the height from which the drops fell.

What did make me think, was your inclusion of the orange blob in the background, it gives depth, but because underlaid with the subject, doesn't distract as much as if it had been elsewhere in the frame. I'm not sure I'd have captured that, had I been shooting the scene, I would probably have positioned it away from the subject and cloned it out in PP.

Nandakumar's suggestion to desaturate the blob (in my view, not too much), has some merit.

Take care,
Dave

[Urbanflyer]

Judith - this is a lovely, simple image. I do like it a lot.

Comments - It's a fairly small image, so I can't be sure but is seems to be just a touch soft. There is lots of negative space around it; playing around with the crop might be worth considering.

I get the comment that my images seem soft often enough that it is really something I need to address. Sometimes softness is part of the vibe I want the image to have, but most often it is not. I don't know if it is my eyes that don't see it nor what to do to correct it. Comments would be welcome.

I meant to make a slim image but can see playing with the crop as a good exercise. Thanks for constructive thoughts

[Urbanflyer]

Simple and beautiful. If you can, may fade the yellow somewhat to avoid the visual distraction

I had not focused on the fact that the "blob", as Dave called it, was more orange than the branches. I will play with that. Thanks for constructive comments!

[Urbanflyer]

Hi Judith,

I also wondered about the aspect ratio of the crop, it feels as though it were influenced by something you have cropped out.

These days, PS CC has the ability to fill, if you extend the canvas, after cropping.
This has helped me get an image frame back to an aspect ratio that suits the subject shape after removing extraneous content.

With this, the obvious would be to extend the right-hand side, but other possibilities exist - e.g. add to the top, remove from bottom, making a tall thin frame with subject at/below the lower third, hinting at the height from which the drops fell.

What did make me think, was your inclusion of the orange blob in the background, it gives depth, but because underlaid with the subject, doesn't distract as much as if it had been elsewhere in the frame. I'm not sure I'd have captured that, had I been shooting the scene, I would probably have positioned it away from the subject and cloned it out in PP.

Nandakumar's suggestion to desaturate the blob (in my view, not too much), has some merit.

Take care,
Dave

The crop was a deliberate choice but I see that I need to rethink that. Changing the canvas size and filling it will give me some increased flexibility to play.

The "blob" was a choice but I did not recognize the color was off. That I can change.

Thanks for constructive comments.

[xpatUSA]

I get the comment that my images seem soft often enough that it is really something I need to address. Sometimes softness is part of the vibe I want the image to have, but most often it is not. I don't know if it is my eyes that don't see it nor what to do to correct it. Comments would be welcome.

Yes, Judith, in an image with drops, much of the appeal is in the sharp edge and, if going to extremes, a perfectly sharp image contained therein. Looking at a profile plot through one of the drops in the image - they are indeed soft, taking several pixels to go from background level to drop level and vice-versa. The number of pixels taken to go from one level to another - assuming a sharp edge - is a measure of softness, the more the softer.

The corrections for this shot would have been:

Shoot closer if possible or use a longer lens to avoid cropping.

If possible, focus in live magnified view with focus peaking set to ON.

Make sure, if you shoot JPEG, to have all JPEG settings at default because your favorite editor is much better than in-camera trickery.

In post, view the detail, especially edges, at at least 200% zoom with no zoom smoothing applied.

Read the Tutorial on sharpening here, and apply that knowledge to your edit. A very slight halo can work wonders.

In the application of sharpening, micro-contrast, there are many ways to skin the cat and all here will have their own methods.

Good luck with the quest!

[DanK]

Judith,

Your photo didn't include exif information, and I don't know what equipment you used. However, I would place a bet that your problem is depth of field. When you shoot close like this, depth of field is very narrow.

Since I don't know your equipment, etc., I just concocted a few examples.

With an crop sensor camera and a 60mm lens shooting at a distance of 6 inches and f/5.6, total depth of field (front and back) is only 0.03 inches! Changing to my usual equipment (full frame, 100 mm lens) reduces DOF to 0.01 inch. In other words everything is necessarily soft. To get a sharp image would require at least a narrow aperture, but this appears deep enough that this might not be enough.

Without knowing the specifics, I can't really know, but my guess is that IF the three droplets were lined up nearly vertically so that they are similar distances from the lens, you might to OK with a tripod, a long exposure, and a narrow aperture, letting the other branches go out of focus.

Most often, I focus stack when confronted with something like this.

If I'm right about what this is, sharpening post hoc in postprocessing won't compensate for it.

Dan

[lovelife65]

Lovely image! Really like it a lot. I too see some softness. I am not sure where I would crop, as the top part of the image has the nice colors. I guess you could crop some from the bottom, yet the negative space to me is not overdone and it adds a nice background to the subject.

[Urbanflyer]

Judith,

Your photo didn't include exif information, and I don't know what equipment you used. However, I would place a bet that your problem is depth of field. When you shoot close like this, depth of field is very narrow.

Since I don't know your equipment, etc., I just concocted a few examples.

With an crop sensor camera and a 60mm lens shooting at a distance of 6 inches and f/5.6, total depth of field (front and back) is only 0.03 inches! Changing to my usual equipment (full frame, 100 mm lens) reduces DOF to 0.01 inch. In other words everything is necessarily soft. To get a sharp image would require at least a narrow aperture, but this appears deep enough that this might not be enough.

Without knowing the specifics, I can't really know, but my guess is that IF the three droplets were lined up nearly vertically so that they are similar distances from the lens, you might to OK with a tripod, a long exposure, and a narrow aperture, letting the other branches go out of focus.

Most often, I focus stack when confronted with something like this.

If I'm right about what this is, sharpening post hoc in postprocessing won't compensate for it.

Dan

Here is the image with the blob color adjusted. The EXIF follows: Nikon D40 200 mm (in 35 mm 300mm) 1/25th sec, f 5.6, ISO 400, shutter priority, spot metering. 300 ppi

Fall rains-6a by urbanflyer, on Flickr

[DanK]

There’s the culprit: f/5.6.

With crop sensor camera like yours, diffraction from a small aperture starts at a wider aperture than it does with a larger sensor, but its effects are trivial compared to the blur from overly narrow DOF. Your best bet would be trying a narrower aperture, perhaps starting with f/13 or so. Given that you don’t have a lot of light, this would require a slow shutter speed and probably a tripod or some other support. Not being able to see the plant, I don’t know whether that would be sufficient.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[royent]

Sorry Judith but the blob now looks a lot worse to me

[Manfred M]

Judith - a couple of "red flags" in what you have supplied here.

The f/5.6 at 200mm is going to give you depth of field issues, as others have stated. There are plenty of DoF calculators around, but I just used the one found here on the CiC website. I don't know how close to the subject you were, but I'm going to guess you were probably reasonably close, say 4 feet. I don't know what model of lens you are shooting with, but most of the lenses that were matched up with the D40 would have had a minimum focus distance between around 1.5 ft and 3.5 ft. When I throw that data into the CiC DoF calculator that suggests that your DoF would have been about 1/4". That's not much!




If you stop down to f/22, the DoF grows to a bit over an inch.


The other issue I see is the 1/25th second shutter speed. For the image to be as sharp as it is, you were likely using a tripod or some other way of stabilizing the camera. The VR on the lens is good, but not that good.

BTW I agree with Roy, I find that turning the orange blob to red makes it even more noticeable.

[xpatUSA]

With crop sensor camera like yours, diffraction from a small aperture starts at a wider aperture than it does with a larger sensor ...

Sorry, Dan, I don't understand that at all.

Firstly, diffraction doesn't "start" at some given aperture - it is present at any aperture.

Secondly, the degree of diffraction is dependent only on wavelength and actual aperture diameter. It is independent of sensor size.

However, I'm sure that you are aware of all of the above, so I must be missing something?

[Manfred M]

Sorry, Dan, I don't understand that at all.

Firstly, diffraction doesn't "start" at some aperture - it is always present.

Secondly, the degree of diffraction is dependent only on wavelength and actual aperture diameter. It is independent of sensor size.

However, I'm sure that you are aware of all of the above, so I must be missing something?

Ted - I suspect that what is missing in your argument is the amount of magnification required to get an image the same size from a crop sensor versus a full frame.

I have never heard of anyone criticizing the quality work of Group f/64 that Ansel Adams founded. Their group was named after the aperture that they most commonly shot at. Why don't we have an issue with diffraction in their work? Probably because their 8" x 10" negatives did not show any signs of diffraction because the image wasn't enlarged all that much.

Take a piece of their negative and crop in to the size of an APS-C or full frame sensor; diffraction would certainly be noticeable.

[xpatUSA]

Ted - I suspect that what is missing in your argument is the amount of magnification required to get an image the same size from a crop sensor versus a full frame.

I have never heard of anyone criticizing the quality work of Group f/64 that Ansel Adams founded. Their group was named after the aperture that they most commonly shot at. Why don't we have an issue with diffraction in their work? Probably because their 8" x 10" negatives did not show any signs of diffraction because the image wasn't enlarged all that much.

Take a piece of their negative and crop in to the size of an APS-C or full frame sensor; diffraction would certainly be noticeable.

But Dan said "diffraction from a small aperture starts at a wider aperture than it does with a larger sensor".

I know it's splitting hairs, Manfred, but "the effect of diffraction" would be correct and account for all of your above, eh?

No big deal of course. It's akin to lens reviews that say that diffraction "sets in" over a certain f-number ...

[Manfred M]

But Dan said "diffraction from a small aperture starts at a wider aperture than it does with a larger sensor".

I know it's splitting hairs, Manfred, but "the effect of diffraction" would be correct and account for all of your above, eh?

No big deal of course. It's akin to lens reviews that say that diffraction "sets in" over a certain f-number ...

Yes, if you are correct but I understood what Dan was trying to say and I suspect most people do.

I also understand where the camera / lens reviews are coming from, even though the statement is far from accurate and does not clearly state what their implied assumptions are. Pixel peepers are going to notice the impact of diffraction far sooner than someone who is sitting a couple of feet back from full-size image on a 24" screen or looking at an 8" x 10" print at arm's length.

Most people are looking for practical answers that they can use in their work rather than having a first year university physics course (which is where I first learned about this stuff, coming up on 50 years ago...). Dan's answer does that for me.

[DanK]

I think this is a discussion that may obscure the main point for the OP, but since asked:

I mentioned that the camera is a crop sensor only because of pixel size.According to the calculator at this site, the Airy diameter exceeds the pixel size of a D40 about f/5.6.

Re the continuous / discontinuous distinction: yes, it's continuous, but that reference isn't necessary for my point.

so to clarify, I could have written: "because your camera, like many crop-sensor cameras, has small photosites, any given level of diffraction will arise at a wider aperture than it does with larger photosites. Because diffraction softens an image, many people would advise you to shoot at f/8 or below to avoid visible softening from diffraction. However, the effects of diffraction are very small until apertures are very narrow, and with an image like this, the greater clarity arising from greater DOF will far more than offset the softness from diffraction, so I would advise you to close the aperture far more than you did."

[xpatUSA]

I think this is a discussion that may obscure the main point for the OP,

Yes, the question was aimed at your good self, not Judith.

but since asked:

I mentioned that the camera is a crop sensor only because of pixel size.

[For example,] According to the calculator at this site, the Airy diameter exceeds the pixel size of a D40 about f/5.6.

Ah! that's what I was looking for! Now it is clear, Dan ... thank you.

Wasn't so clear to me because for example my current DSLR is 1.7 crop but has bigger pixels than the full-frame D700! In other words, it does not necessarily follow that a smaller sensor has smaller pixels.

Re the continuous / discontinuous distinction: yes, it's continuous, but that reference isn't necessary for my point.

Agreed.

so to clarify, I could have written: "because your camera, like many crop-sensor cameras, has small photosites, any given level of diffraction will arise at a wider aperture than it does with larger photosites. Because diffraction softens an image, many people would advise you to shoot at f/8 or below to avoid visible softening from diffraction. However, the effects of diffraction are very small until apertures are very narrow, and with an image like this, the greater clarity arising from greater DOF will far more than offset the softness from diffraction, so I would advise you to close the aperture far more than you did."

Good clarification, thanks again.

It seems that technical questions in threads started by "most people" are frowned upon. So perhaps I should just refrain from butting into such threads.