A bit bad quality photos...

Chronicle

Chronicle

Chronicle

Soldato
Joined
4 Jul 2004
Posts
2,647
Location
aberdeen
Hi
Used my tamron 55-200mm lens propperly today for the first time, but a bit disapointed with the results, they seem quite unsharp...

Here is a crop (zoomed in at 1:1/100%) of something taken at 200mm.



Here are some of the exif data...

Make - NIKON CORPORATION
Model - NIKON D80
Software - Ver.1.01
DateTime - 2007:03:14 02:49:10
ExposureTime - 1/3200 seconds
FNumber - 7.10
ISOSpeedRatings - 1600
ExifVersion - 0221
MaxApertureValue - F 5.66
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
LightSource - Auto
Flash - Not fired
FocalLength - 200.00 mm
FocalLengthIn35mmFilm - 300 mm
SceneCaptureType - Standard
GainControl - High gain up
Contrast - Hard
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Normal
ISO Setting - 1600
Color Mode - COLOR
Image Quality - FINE
White Balance - AUTO
Image Sharpening - AUTO
Focus Mode - AF-A
Flash Setting - NORMAL
Flash Mode -
White Balance Adjustment - 0
White Balance RB - 710
Exposure Adjustment - 68608
Thumbnail IFD offset - 2738
Flash Compensation - 67072
ISO 2 - 1600
Tone Compensation - AUTO
Lens type - AF-D G
Lens - 802
Flash Used - 8

(I removed the parts that i didn't think are usefull)

Would it be due to the lens, or because of bad settings? Would you say the ISO is too high? Looking at it, it seems it is...
 
I wouldnt use over iso400 if the condition where anything like here today, was fairly sunny.
At 1/3200 there is not chance of camera shake, and you could have easily taken that at 1/500 or 1/1000. So i recon it must have been poor focus.
 
Yeah - you have your ISO set at 1600 - you are always going to get image degredation due to the camera having to work on noise reduction - As a rule of thumb I try to stay above ISO 400 and work with apature and shutter speeds. Also how far away from the subject were you? I think the focus looks ok but the cameras active noise reduction kills it.
 
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The ISO is far too high for sure, that's what causing the image noise - the speckling across the flat colours. The ISO, shutter speed and aperture form a triangle which make a correct exposure, if you alter one then one or both of the other 2 must change to keep the exposure correct.

In this case you're using f/7.1 which is OK, most lenses perform best a stop or two down from the maximum (widest) aperture, f/5.6 in your case so there's nothing wrong with that. The shutter speed is 1/3200 which is very fast, normally you'd aim for 1/focal length as the slowest you can hand hold so with a 200mm lens you'd want to shoot at 1/200 or 1/400 to be safe. That means you're shooting 3 stops faster than ideal and 4 faster than necessary. As a result the ISO is 3-4 stops higher than it needs to be.

So...... In other words you could shoot 1/400, f/7.1 & ISO200 and still get the same exposure but the noise would be far less.

Other than that the sharpness looks not too bad. What would give a huge improvement is the weather, looking at it the light is pretty flat so I'm guessing it was an overcast day. Once the weather improves you'll see a massive difference in the shots you can get.
 
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