Need advice on getting "tack sharp" photos

I have attached the pic touched up in Aperture 3. The first thing I did was add close to 1 stop to the exposure. Then bumped up WB temp by ~300k to add some warmth. Third item was bumping the Level to add contrast and finally added in an additional .25% sharpening. The image was then exported at 25% the original size, 72 DPI and 5 for image quality.

I think there are a few things primarily affecting the image though. First and foremost is "critter movement" and slow shutter speed. Don't be afraid to bump the ISO to 400 at the same aperture in order to increase the shutter speed. Also, try using center-weighted average metering for your exposure. I have found that Canon cameras meter better in this mode overall. You could also try Partial metering too, with this shot.

The only other tip I would suggest is to keep practicing your long/zoom lens technique. Not sure if you handheld the camera for the shot. If you did handhold, remember to squeeze the shutter release as you exhale. That way you can work on minimizing camera induced shake.

Outside of these minor tweaks, I have been really impressed with your flickr images. You seem to have a really good eye for your subjects :)

[attachments posted prior to 4/27/2010 have been deleted by admin. be sure to link images to make sure they don't get removed]
 
"zackiedawg" said:
Agree with the others - lens is #1, aperture can be very important too...a
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FWIW, there are now certain lenses where wide open is the sweet spot. ; Odd when you think about it, but that's the case. ; It just seems sharper at times because of the increased DOF....
 
Totally agree here. My 300 f/2.8 and 500 F/4 are at their best wide open and only increase minimally stopped down.

"Roger" said:
FWIW, there are now certain lenses where wide open is the sweet spot. ; Odd when you think about it, but that's the case. ; It just seems sharper at times because of the increased DOF....
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"Zeagle" said:
Totally agree here. My 300 f/2.8 and 500 F/4 are at their best wide open and only increase minimally stopped down.
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Yeah I didn't want to say "If it costs more than $3k, and has been updated in the last 8-10 years, it's probably designed for use wide open"

I don't think that the 1200/5.6L is sharpest wide open however.
 
Wow...

I am so impressed and intrigued by all of you. ; This thread has been amazing. ;

Tim...I got it. ; Good glass. ; Good technique. ; Learn post processing skills. ; You also taught me that there's a sweet spot I need to look for. ; hee hee. ; I won't tell you where my mind went on that one. :-[ ; But seriously, that was a great tip.

Code...I "saw" through your eyes and realized my photo was underexposed. ; I checked, and the camera was set to auto exposure, so that was an interesting lesson. ; The camera doesn't always make the right choice. ; I haven't had a chance to figure out how to turn up the sharpness filter yet, but I will.

Dan...I just like the way you say things. ; You make me feel "listened to". ; Maybe your snow leopards truly are your totem. ; Because of you, I will remember to focus not just on sharpening, but on other things as well, particularly the saturation and how a photo "pops". ; Thank you so so much for tweaking my original photo. ; Your second one was beautiful to me. ; It popped AND it had an element of sharpness that I so crave. ; I also loved how even the seed he was eating seemed to stand out more. ; Trust yourself and your instincts. ; I think they are very good and I learned alot from listening to you.

Justin..you have been more than willing to offer advice and a lending hand since my very first posts and I always feel glad when I see you've chimed in. ; There's some seriously technical stuff I just don't get, and you have been great about taking the time to reassure and tell me it's ok..I'm doin' alright. ; It's comforting. ; I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the photo. ; If you can..send it to gmail and yahoo and I'll be sure to get it.

Zeagle..you have a steady patience and your treatment of the photo gave it a clean, soft, soothing feel to me. ; I'll try to remember to exhale when I squeeze (grin) and I need to do some reading about center weight and spot metering. ; I haven't figured that out yet. Your encouraging words mean so much and when you complimented me on "having a good eye for my subjects"..my heart soared. ; I will carry those words like a treasure and they were a great gift that will continue to motivate me. ; That meant a real lot and I thank you for saying it.

Gary...you make me laugh. :D ; Your posts have alot of humor most of the time, but you gave me some serious advice and I will remember that "f/8 and be there" means something. ; Learning doesn't have to be boring, does it? ; Oh, and I'm going to Barnes and Noble this week and I will look for some Scott Kelby books..

Roger...I like it that you jump in now and again with your .02. ; A man of few words, but when you say something, you say something..hmm? ;) ; I'll take your .02 any day.

Jeff...what can I say? ; You were my very first Flickr contact and then you invited me to join your Disney bokeh group. ; Your photos are inspiring to me in ways I can't even name and I learn alot just by poring over the ones I love and reading the exif data. ; I want to be a photographer like you, I really do. ; Your photos have heart and a good deal of passion. ; I posted a week or two ago about how photographers are a dime a dozen and I wanted to know what makes a truly great photographer stand out. ; I still don't know for sure...but I do believe that your work does. ; It does in my book, truly. ; Your photos are a gift to me and I am quite certain they are to many others. ; Thank you for sharing them. ; And how fun is that expando thing, people? :D ; Really! ; Hey...I created a squirrel monster today!

I think I might be wrong though. ; I think maybe photographers are not a dime a dozen. ; I think maybe they are one in a million...

Thank you all for taking the time to help. ; It really did mean so much.
 
Roni, everyone else was covering so I had nothing much else to say. ; Then there is something else like "I have no other life except TMIP" ; hahahah
 
I e-mailed the two shots last night...they were huge files, so hopefully they transferred OK.

If you resize those shots, then sharpen a bit, you can really get a ton of improvement. ; But even the originals could handle some USM and sharpen up a bit without adding too much in the way of noise or haloing.
 
Justin, wow. ; Thank you so much. ; Emailing them to me gave me the opportunity to pull yours and mine up side by side and compare them. What you were able to do in Aperture 3 convinced me that I need to upgrade. ; It came through just fine and I love what you did. ; It was very valuable to look at the two together.
 
I know I'm late to the game here! I only quickly read everyone's response because I did not want to accidentally change my thoughts, so some of this may be repetitive.

I do believe that glass is important to sharp images, but it isn't everything.
I have many enlargements made at 20x30. For all of these, they are either with the D80 or D300, which is fine, but they are all with the 18-200, which is generally thought of as a moderate quality lens only for amateurs. ; All of these images are super sharp, even when looking at them from a few inches.

I believe technique is crucial. Holding the camera properly, proper stance, and proper pressing of the shutter all contribute greatly to making a sharp image.

I do use unsharpen on my images. I use a small radius (2) and then bump up the sharpen. Always sharpen as your last step after reszing for the web. Your images will look super sharp for the web!
 
I'm always amazed at the different ways that people can use the unsharp filter. I start with 150%, radius of 0.5 (less that 1) pixel size, and 0 level, and basically never use a mask.

Erich
 
I'm similar to you, Erich...I tend to start with somewhere between .5 and .75, with 125% and 0. ; I rarely change the percentage - I usually keep it around 125% and adjust the radius between .5 and .75 as needed. ; I also don't use a mask...though sometimes I'll duplicate layers and apply USM on the second layer, so I can erase off any sections I don't want to apply the USM to.
 
There are also settings to help reduce haze in a lic without sharpening it. ; USM is an amazing tool with many possibilities. ;
 
I find USM frustratingly cryptic.. I just have no idea what the settings mean, so although I've read up on the various methods to use it I don't really understand what's going on and so can't really adopt them.

For others it's a subject of infinite subtlety with multiple applications with widely differing values.. I sort of crudely adjust the strength until I don't think I'm over sharpening and leave it at that.
 
i don't really know what the settings mean either. ; what i did was found some preset numbers from some of the photoshop gurus and created actions so i can call on them whenever i like for a particular purpose. ; sliders? ; i hardly ever mess with them.
 
Thanks for mentioning that tip about using unsharp to remove haze. I Googled it, and I'm definitely going to have to try that! As for knowing what settings actually do, well, I understand "save image as", but other than that, I'm more of a "play with the buttons until it turns out better" kind of Photoshop user.

Erich
 
Erich and Dan...I'm glad I'm not the only one who does that! :) ; But I want to learn the extent of what those tools can do for me. ; I have both Photoshop Elements and Aperture on a beautiful large screen mac, but I don't tap half of their potential. ; I intend to change that this year.
 
I know just the basics of USM...I think we all know 'amount' pretty well...the radius adjusts the number of pixels wide along contrast lines that will be included in the sharpening process. ; The bigger radius numbers are needed for larger MP photos, in order to 'see' the USM result - too small a radius and the sharpening effect is too faint to be perceived. ; Too large a radius number, and the sharpening becomes too obvious, usually resulting in extreme white haloes along all the contrast lines and edges. ; The third number seems to have to do with decreasing the highlight maximum of the contrast edges, which will reduce the sharpening effect slightly, but help to control unwanted white pixels in the shot along contrast edges. ; This slider rarely has to come into effect in my experience, as long as the radius is kept reasonable and amount isn't boosted too much.

Because USM is working off of a local contrast principle, looking for lines of contrast and boosting the contrast differential to make lines stand out more clearly, that's why USM can be used to reduce haze, or even produce an "HDR" like effect, as it is manipulating the contrast by mapping at differential lines.

How, and which settings to use to make all these manipulations...I have no idea! ; I use a starting point, adjust radius depending on how big my photo is (if working with a full-size 14MP photo for example, I need radius of 1-2...if sharpening my resized shots for posting to web, which are usually around 1024 pixels, I have to lower radius to .5-.7 or so...since a wider radius would be too wide at the lines and cause severe haloing. ; Either way, amounts of around 120-130 seem to work well for both settings.
 
Unfortunately I can't parse anything out of that description of radius that means anything to me.. I mean anything more than a different kind of "amount". ; Perhaps because I don't really understand what USM is doing. ; I mean I know it's somehow fiddling with areas of contrast.. but no more than that.

I guess I oughta make a few presets using the standard recipes.
 
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