Kaphias wrote:

I'd also suggest a slightly looser crop, particularly at the nose.

Good point.

Thanks for all the feedback, hoping this is a bit better.

Still soft and actually a bit blurry now (hich could explain the softness). The blurryish parts I see are the main titles and nose, but kinda the entire fuselage.

airkas1 wrote:

Still soft and actually a bit blurry now (hich could explain the softness). The blurryish parts I see are the main titles and nose, but kinda the entire fuselage.

OK. When I view the original at full size, to me it appears sharp right down to the "proudly all Boeing" on the nose. Do you think that something I'm doing when sharpening/masking or the bit of noise reduction that I applied could be causing the soft/blurry appearance? I could share the full size original and you can see if I just don't have the eye for blurriness. Or I can just give this one up and move on.

It could be fixable, I'd be happy to have a look at the original. You can share it here, but if you're not comfortable with that you can PM me.

airkas1 wrote:

It could be fixable, I'd be happy to have a look at the original. You can share it here, but if you're not comfortable with that you can PM me.

What's the best way to share the original without having compression issues like I was having with Flickr?

You can E-mail it to airkas1[at]airliners.net. If the file is too big, use www.wetransfer.com to the same E-mail.

Here's something a bit different. I've been trying to get a bit closer to try and produce sharper photos

Hello.

I am afraid that the whole aircraft is soft in this new photo.

When you look at the image on your screen do you see that? Key areas that immediately give it away are the lack of definition in the frames of the flightdeck windows at front; those side flightdeck windows; and especially the Number 1 (right as we look) engine nacelle, and that whole left wing leading edge (in the sun).

Just whilst commenting, I would also avoid a crop which has the tip of the tailplane so close to the edge of the frame. For me that is way too tight and theres a lot of 'dead' ground in the foreground which leaves the overall image unbalanced to my eye.

Cheers.

Paul

Psych wrote:

Hello.

I am afraid that the whole aircraft is soft in this new photo.

When you look at the image on your screen do you see that? Key areas that immediately give it away are the lack of definition in the frames of the flightdeck windows at front; those side flightdeck windows; and especially the Number 1 (right as we look) engine nacelle, and that whole left wing leading edge (in the sun).

Just whilst commenting, I would also avoid a crop which has the tip of the tailplane so close to the edge of the frame. For me that is way too tight and theres a lot of 'dead' ground in the foreground which leaves the overall image unbalanced to my eye.

Cheers.

Paul

Thank you for the feedback, it's much appreciated. I can kind of see the softness you're referencing. With that said, I still don't have a good eye for it which is why I will continue to share my images here. Seeing as all my images are soft, is there something anyone here could recommend that I could do differently in camera to help with this problem? Would increasing the DOF by bumping up aperture by a 1/4 stop or so help? I'm still experimenting, trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. Thanks again to everyone here for being so patient and helpful!

Hello again.

My apologies - I am a Canon user, so my knowledge of your Nikon equipment is next to nothing. But some of the key ingredients for successful images are not just the quality of the camera body and the lens, but also the air through which you are shooting. So some apparent softness might be as much to do with the air quality as, say, the lens. Another factor is the distance you are from the subject (i.e. far away tests your lens more but also you have to shoot through more air). The United photo we spoke about above looks like you were some distance from the aircraft, which makes it harder.

I would always suggest a mid range f-stop for a 'standard' image like that - say f/8. Depth of field won't be having much effect at that distance. Although RAW is obviously the best way to capture an image, I still have many of my photos here from jpeg originals. The key way in which I find RAW helps is with exposure but, other than that, my editing process is just the same for a RAW original than a jpeg. If you are shooting a complex landscape, then no doubt RAW is what is required, but I wouldn't be put off shooting jpeg - as you say, it can make editing quicker.

I have my camera set so that the camera is minimally impacting on what it produces - so the image parameters are set to zero. That means everything that comes out of the camera needs to be edited for it to look good - otherwise everything would look slightly soft, and muted colours etc. But that way I am in control as much as possible of the image (having said that, when a camera creates a jpeg image it is obviously doing something to the image to create that). So - in answer to your question, I would say not to do anything in the camera that is 'adding something' to the original - as much as you can, you should be doing that in your editing (my opinion, of course).

You can't rescue an original that looks like the United 737: with a soft original trying to make it sharp by adding lots of sharpening just makes it look oversharpened quickly. That's why it's possible to have a rejection for 'soft' at the same time as 'oversharpened'.

If there are any specific ways in which you feel I can help please say.

Cheers.

Paul

Psych wrote:

Hello again.

My apologies - I am a Canon user, so my knowledge of your Nikon equipment is next to nothing. But some of the key ingredients for successful images are not just the quality of the camera body and the lens, but also the air through which you are shooting. So some apparent softness might be as much to do with the air quality as, say, the lens. Another factor is the distance you are from the subject (i.e. far away tests your lens more but also you have to shoot through more air). The United photo we spoke about above looks like you were some distance from the aircraft, which makes it harder.

I would always suggest a mid range f-stop for a 'standard' image like that - say f/8. Depth of field won't be having much effect at that distance. Although RAW is obviously the best way to capture an image, I still have many of my photos here from jpeg originals. The key way in which I find RAW helps is with exposure but, other than that, my editing process is just the same for a RAW original than a jpeg. If you are shooting a complex landscape, then no doubt RAW is what is required, but I wouldn't be put off shooting jpeg - as you say, it can make editing quicker.

I have my camera set so that the camera is minimally impacting on what it produces - so the image parameters are set to zero. That means everything that comes out of the camera needs to be edited for it to look good - otherwise everything would look slightly soft, and muted colours etc. But that way I am in control as much as possible of the image (having said that, when a camera creates a jpeg image it is obviously doing something to the image to create that). So - in answer to your question, I would say not to do anything in the camera that is 'adding something' to the original - as much as you can, you should be doing that in your editing (my opinion, of course).

You can't rescue an original that looks like the United 737: with a soft original trying to make it sharp by adding lots of sharpening just makes it look oversharpened quickly. That's why it's possible to have a rejection for 'soft' at the same time as 'oversharpened'.

If there are any specific ways in which you feel I can help please say.

Cheers.

Paul

What great feedback!
Thanks for your basic insight, it was pretty much to the point.
This stuff should be included in the owners manual of any DSLR.

No Tax On Rotax

I looked at the EXIF data and the focal length shows at 200mm. If you were using a xx- 200mm lens and were zoomed out to the max, it is not unusual to get a soft image since most lenses (except for the high end ones) are typically soft when maxed out. As mentioned by Paul much depends on how far away you are from the subject. The amount of air and quality of it can affect the clarity and sharpness of a photo. The closer the better. Also, if you're at a distance and you need to crop in order to get an image that fills the frame, you will lose sharpness and clarity. What model lens are you using?

Jehan

jelpee wrote:

I looked at the EXIF data and the focal length shows at 200mm. If you were using a xx- 200mm lens and were zoomed out to the max, it is not unusual to get a soft image since most lenses (except for the high end ones) are typically soft when maxed out. As mentioned by Paul much depends on how far away you are from the subject. The amount of air and quality of it can affect the clarity and sharpness of a photo. The closer the better. Also, if you're at a distance and you need to crop in order to get an image that fills the frame, you will lose sharpness and clarity. What model lens are you using?

Jehan

This was shot with a nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR. As nikon lenses go, it doesn't get much better than that so the poor image quality is due to user error, Imo.

Psych wrote:

Hello again.

My apologies - I am a Canon user, so my knowledge of your Nikon equipment is next to nothing. But some of the key ingredients for successful images are not just the quality of the camera body and the lens, but also the air through which you are shooting. So some apparent softness might be as much to do with the air quality as, say, the lens. Another factor is the distance you are from the subject (i.e. far away tests your lens more but also you have to shoot through more air). The United photo we spoke about above looks like you were some distance from the aircraft, which makes it harder.

I would always suggest a mid range f-stop for a 'standard' image like that - say f/8. Depth of field won't be having much effect at that distance. Although RAW is obviously the best way to capture an image, I still have many of my photos here from jpeg originals. The key way in which I find RAW helps is with exposure but, other than that, my editing process is just the same for a RAW original than a jpeg. If you are shooting a complex landscape, then no doubt RAW is what is required, but I wouldn't be put off shooting jpeg - as you say, it can make editing quicker.

I have my camera set so that the camera is minimally impacting on what it produces - so the image parameters are set to zero. That means everything that comes out of the camera needs to be edited for it to look good - otherwise everything would look slightly soft, and muted colours etc. But that way I am in control as much as possible of the image (having said that, when a camera creates a jpeg image it is obviously doing something to the image to create that). So - in answer to your question, I would say not to do anything in the camera that is 'adding something' to the original - as much as you can, you should be doing that in your editing (my opinion, of course).

You can't rescue an original that looks like the United 737: with a soft original trying to make it sharp by adding lots of sharpening just makes it look oversharpened quickly. That's why it's possible to have a rejection for 'soft' at the same time as 'oversharpened'.

If there are any specific ways in which you feel I can help please say.

Cheers.

Paul

Awesome, thank you for the detailed reply! My take away from this discussion and others in this thread is: just as there is no substitute for good lighting, there is no substitute for quality air and good weather. Is that an over-exaggeration? With that said I still feel like many of the excellent photographers on this site could've gotten a useable shot in the conditions I shot in, from the same spot, using the gear that I did. I've taken thousands of photos these past few months and I've improved in most areas but softness has been a persistent problem that I just can't seem to shake. I understand there's no magic bullet for this and certain things just come with experience but I can't help like feeling that there's something I could be doing differently. I'm shooting in RAW with all In camera (active D-lighting, noise reduction, etc.) off, I'm using very good glass, not cropping in post, getting as close as I legally can, and I've tried to shoot in only mild conditions. Is there anything in particular such as temperature that make for good spotting conditions or do you just look for milder weather in general?

SNA74787 wrote:

thank you for the detailed reply

You are very welcome - let me know if I can help out in any other way.

My view is that every type of photography is ultimately about the light. There are certain times when I would never choose to pick up the camera - but obviously many times circumstances determine our schedule.

Taking your United 737 as an example, it looks like the sun is quite low, so you have chosen your light well. The verticals on the hangar to the far right indicate some level of heat haze, but it's not terrible, and that might, in part, be jet efflux. It's the front of the aircraft that perturbs me - it is so unsharp. Do you have software that would allow you to see retrospectively the point at which the camera was focusing? The tail of the bizjet behind the 737 is almost better than the flightdeck/nose of the 737, so I am wondering if focusing may be an issue - which may be to do with you or may be a lens-related issue. But when I look at your Alaskan 737, that looks not bad at all, so maybe I am barking up the wrong tree here.

Do you have any other recent examples to look at?

Paul

The Nikon 70-200 f2.8VR is a solid lens which I use as well and it provides exceptionally sharp images for me even when using a 1.7X tele-converter. You might want to have the lens checked out for any malfunctions--just to eliminate it as a cause.