Man in the street

[ANSORB]

7D Canon 70-300mm DO USM IS. Shot at f9, 230mm 1/2000 ISO 1600, Is on

This hasn't been a favourite lens but noting Colin's comments on using higher ISO I gave it another go and this is considerably better than I am used to getting. It is a straightforward street shot, cropped, denoised in ACR and sharpened with FocusMagic and not much else. I did blend the green channel into a duplicate layer to get better contrast and tone in the face and then set the layer blending mode to Luminosity and I think that helped. It doesn't look quite a sharp as did on my monitor which I don't understand.



CC welcome, and thanks Colin for tip about ISO. An L lens might do better, but I am happy with this now and can save for something else.

[Donald]

Excellent one John. A very good candid capture. You've really achieved a lot of 'pop' in the image - stands out beautifully.

[Dave Humphries]

7D Canon 70-300mm DO USM IS. Shot at f9, 230mm 1/2000 ISO 1600, Is on

This hasn't been a favourite lens but noting Colin's comments on using higher ISO I gave it another go and this is considerably better than I am used to getting. It is a straightforward street shot, cropped, denoised in ACR and sharpened with FocusMagic and not much else. I did blend the green channel into a duplicate layer to get better contrast and tone in the face and then set the layer blending mode to Luminosity and I think that helped. It doesn't look quite a sharp as did on my monitor which I don't understand.



CC welcome, and thanks Colin for tip about ISO. An L lens might do better, but I am happy with this now and can save for something else.

Hi John,

Why does it look softer?


Well one reason, because it was uploaded at slightly over 700px on longest edge, it will be scaled to fit in the forum and this makes it softer, as shown above. If you click the image in the thread, it should open in a Lytebox at the now 1:1 size of 617 x 768px, but it'll only do that if your browser (and screen) have enough vertical pixels available (F11 to make browser go full screen for more chance of success)

Looking at it, I think you have been fairly succesful in your aims, but looking critically, that I can still see noise makes me wonder ...

was it shot RAW?
did you denoise before ANY sharpening?
is it a significant crop from the full frame captured?
did you sharpen after the downsize for web?

It might stand a little less saturation where you have brought up the shadow side of the face - the sunlit side is fine.

Also, with noisy pictures, I wouldn't sharpen much at all until after the downsize for web display, because that helps by not sharpening any residual noise (e.g. the shadow side edge of his chin).

Also (2), do yourself a favour; download the trial of Neat Image, it is much better at noise removal than ACR, especially if it isn't the latest ACR (6.x). Here's how to use Neat Image.

I don't think L glass will help much here, you can do better with what you have.
If that is sunlight your 'man in the street' is lit by, why did you need iso1600?
Was there a polarizer, or ND filter, on the camera?

Hope that helps,

[ANSORB]

Glad you liked it Donald, I was very pleased to have got something so much better than I had before.

To answer Dave: After I posted I realised resizing was likely to be behind the loss of sharpness and yes, clicking on it brings it back.

To reply to your questions, the answers are Yes, yes, yes, and yes. but I take your point about not sharpening at all until after downsizing, I hadn't thought of that.

As to why I used ISO 1600 the reason was simple, camera shake. With this lens hand held and zoomed out much I can't keep the brute steady at less than 1/1000 and this was an experiment to give the lens a chance to perform better. Hence the ISO 1600 and f9 with a shutter priority 1/2000. It did do better, or maybe I did. Next time I'll set it at 1/1000 and ISO 800 and see what happens. That might be a problem in variable light conditions but we will see.

The noise in the posted image was, I thought, acceptable at the size it would be seen. It still is to me. You must have eyes to die for, or did you enlarge it to check? No complaint if you did, I'll make sure I do so myself before I post the next one.

And just one other thing. I have programmed the 7D to seperate focus and exposure so that a half press on the shutter release sets the exposure and starts the IS. Focus (AI Servo) isn't achieved until the * button is pressed on the back, by which time the IS is fully up and running. That should help with lower ISO settings too.

All in all, a very useful reply. Thank you.