General Photography Chat
 

i can already tell you that it's backfocusing. looks like focal point was directly on your nose, with the backfocusing moving it back to your cheeks and almost to your eyes.

you know how to properly tune it?

if not... here, all the info you need and even a downloadable focus sheet that you can print.

To me it looks like its focused on the hat. Might just me be though. I normally use manual focus when doing portraits.

I do. do you?

I have been fucking with test charts, my tripod and the fine tune setting all week. The D7000 is tough to dial in... especially with how sensitive it is with the new sensor and the higher megapixel res.

The sharpest settings I have found so far with the 50mm: Standard mode, +6 on the sharpness slider, +1 on the contrast slider, setting the focus to AF-C and with 9 focus points, and then adjusting the lens to -5 in the fine tune settings.... its been rough to say the least. All in all very very frustrating and annoying.

Would not recommend this camera to beginners....

But on a side note.... if it were back focusing wouldnt the side of my face and/or the background be much more clear? The focus point is at my nose you are right and that seems to be tack sharp however I am concerned with the softness everywhere else.

I cant manual focus on myself though

all of this doesn't matter right now as sharpness doesn't have anything to do with changing what is and isn't in focus..

just work on setting the a/f properly, then dial in your sharpness.

1. use a tripod
2. 45 degree shooting angle at the chart
3. shoot with your fastest aperture and longest focal range
4. shoot at the minimum focus distance
5. use spot focus (and select the single center a/f point)
6. aim/fire
7. zoom, examine, tune, repeat if needed.

you'll see the range of focus move up/down the sheet upon zooming in.

as the guy in the link said, at full focal range, have it on the verge of being oof. that way when you zoom back out, you have the rest of the a/f area coming forward. hope this makes sense.

I am not concerned with the focus really.... I mean that is part of it but more so the overall softness of my pictures compared to the D80. A lot of this is user error I know... higher sensitivity, more pixels etc. but along with the majority of d7000 users I am struggling getting this camera tack sharp for every shot.

too be honest i think its your lens. i was reading some stuff a little while back that the 50mm 1.8 and the 35mm 1.8's have a lot of distortion at f1.8. try shooting at 2.0-2.2 and see if its a little crisper on the edges. the shirt that you were wearing prolly didn't help much either since there's a lot of detail in the fabric, as opposed to have just a plain t-shirt that isn't textured.

this is a good site... i'll add it to our help thread

The Nikon 1.8 is supposed to be one of the sharpest on the market, which is why I decided to sell the 1.4 and pocket the extra cash when getting this. I will try some 2.2 or 2 to see if that helps for sure. As far as the shirt goes... I want to be able to shoot complex patterns like this (actually why I chose this particular one) I dont want to have to mask softness with non complex objects.

In fact the d7000 is known for "soft images" unfortunately to this point. Mainly because of its super sensitive sensor, and higher MP range. It's proving difficult to overcome although in time Im confident that I'll get it to a point that will produce the results I want.

makes sense... if you need more "advice" or whatever you wanna call what i gave, just email me and i'll try to help.



good stuff man.

It is really common for people that upgrade their body's to think that their sharpness is not as good. When you take a photo and you sharpen at say 3 pixel radius on a resolution of say.... (theoretical) 1000x800 you are sharpening at 0.3% of the pixel width. Now when you upgrade to a body that shoots at 1400x1200 you are now sharpening at 0.2% which is 33% less. So you would increase your radius to 4 pixel's instead of 3 pixels.

I had this same problem when upgrading from my rebel XT (8 mega pixel) to my 7D (18 mega pixel). The sharpening techniques i was accustomed to were showing vastly softer images. After I got used to the photo i realized it was merely just more detail being hidden due to the resolution. Try exporting your photo to the same resolution as your D80, and then use the same sharpening techniques as you are used to.

The picture you posted above looks fairly sharp to me.

edit: i posted this originally before other posts were made. I am not saying that this is 100% of your issue. I have not used toe D7000 or read on its softness as much. However didn't they swap the sensor in the D7000 to one that isn't as sharp?

Quite the opposite, the d7000 sensor is the best on the market rivaling even the D3.

In fact the new 16 MP sensor in the D7000 will emphasize any and all of the shortcomings in both your shooting technique and the lenses you are using. In particular, some of the lenses you loved on your previous cameras -- especially kit lenses and consumer grade zooms -- may produce comparatively disappointing results. The D7000's sensor is easily capable of out-resolving many of the consumer grade lenses that Nikon and other third parties sell. It is a shame they added the 18-200 VR as the Sensor is too much for this lens... I feel bad for any fool that shelled out the extra cash to get this lousy lens.

And I know that every time you move up to a camera that has a higher resolution, by nature it will look softer. I also know that Sharpness is determined by two things:



Resolution: lines per inch detail.



Perceived Acutance: Edge contrast 



The higher resolution camera would have perceived less acutance when compared to the older because it has higher megapixels. To achieve the same perception of sharpness either the sharpness setting is increased OR a better lens is needed. 



This is especially obvious for those who moved to the D90 from a 6 MP camera or even 8MP (D40/D50/D60 and D80). This would also be noticeable to those who moves from D90 to D7000.

SO why a better lens? Because the lens you are using might not be good enough for the sensor, in short the sensor is better than what the lens can resolve. This is why you need better lenses for full frame and is especially obvious for the D700/D3s user same goes for the Canon's 5D MK II they mostly look good (or need) only with f/1.2 L or 'L" line lenses and looks soft on just about anything else. This is also why the newer AF-S lenses and specially those with nano coatings look better than their AF-D version on the newer DSLRs.

Really, in short…. The soft images are all user error, as I have “known” extremely sharp and capable lenses. I just need to figure out what settings I need to adjust to compensate for my ill handling of this camera.

also keep in mind that adjusting sharpness on camera will only yield results on the camera display. Once lightroom opens that raw file, the camera settings are wiped clean. (Unless lightroom is now supporting Nikon camera settings)

It is, there was a firmware update for the d7000 I believe it was the 3.3 update

Do you know if they did an update on cs5?

From what I have read RAW files from the d7000 are still not compatible 100% with CS5.

Adobe Camera Raw 6.3 is out now.

I don't mean if it supports. I mean if it supports raw camera settings. Such as +3 sharpness. It would have to create a "preset" for what +3 means. As light room doesnt just have a simple sharpness slider, there are multiple sliders. A way to test is take two identical photos, one with +10 saturation, one with -10. Import to light room and check the saturation.

well there you go.

you're a well there you go

lol...
"Dont judge me monkey"

Close but needs to be better (Cant read text on sides very well)

The paper was tilted on the 50mm shots so I think its acceptable, the 35mm seems pretty clear to me although may be front focusing a little.

looks like you were shooting from the right side of the paper? I'm sure if you set it up to be shot straight on, you'll be just fine..

you can see in the 35mm pic the 10mm on the left and the 10mm on the right are completely different.

why would you even go through all that trouble and not have the paper square? its just like a chemistry experiment, you'll have contaminated data if your control data is flawed.

All smart sounding

not necessarily a lot of trouble (5 minutes tops) and as long as the middle is clear its a success.

You know what I think we need a general photography thread. I am not saying anything is wrong in here but people always bitch about everything in this thread.

General Photography Chat
 

Okay, completely open general chat! Post pictures, ask questions, opinions, articles, anything photography related! We usually chat in the post a picture thread and people always complain, so here is a general thread! :)