Tips for taking sharper photos

[Sean Mullen]

As basic as it is, I would also add READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.
I was getting disappointing results from a Fuji 9000. I drilled down deep into the menus and found the factory settings for sharpness and contrast were not what I wanted, so I changed them. A few disappointing shots in the automatic mode later , I looked again and found that in the automatic mode, all settings defaulted back to the factory settings.
As many here have said before, manual modes are probably best.

Sean

 

[Bill Hark]

These are all great suggestions. I'll add one more: While in Africa, I sometimes didn't have the luxury of a tripod when stuck in a jeep. Luckily, when asked, the driver shut down the engine. While taking pics of animals, I rested my camera on a bean bag. I used a beany baby dog though I suspect there are professonal bean bags that are available. I was able to take very sharp pics using a long lens.

Bill Hark

 

[Dann Cianca]

These are all great suggestions. I'll add one more: While in Africa, I sometimes didn't have the luxury of a tripod when stuck in a jeep. Luckily, when asked, the driver shut down the engine. While taking pics of animals, I rested my camera on a bean bag. I used a beany baby dog though I suspect there are professonal bean bags that are available. I was able to take very sharp pics using a long lens.

Bill Hark

That's actually a really good idea, Bill. I've found that the rubber window liner seems to compress and then slowly decompress when you put a camera on it ... which makes lightning shooting very frustrating. I'll have to try the bean bag approach.

 

[Darren Addy]

I used a beany baby dog though I suspect there are professonal bean bags that are available.

Excellent suggestion, but this is one area where you certainly don't need to spend money. A sock filled with (uncooked) rice works very well and costs pennies.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Excellent suggestion, but this is one area where you certainly don't need to spend money. A sock filled with (uncooked) rice works very well and costs pennies.

Personally, I just gut a snake and fill the skin full of sand or dirt. Sorry, just trying to figure out an even more frugal route, and have been overly bored today.

 

[Tyler Burg]

I always use manual focus, I usually zoom in as far as I can on the lens, then focus it, the zoom out to the focal length I want to shoot at, Im not sure, if this is a bad technique but its worked fairly well for me, with the exception of night sky photography.

Does anyone know if Nikon D40 has the infinate focus? I cant find it.

- I usually use a window clamp mount, because I lost the quick release on the road once, when I was trying for some day lightning (forgot my tripod) so I had to improvise, and I took of the quick release and put it on top of the car just to prop it up so the lightning was in the frame, and used the remote shutter. Then it started raining, so I drove off, with the release still on the top of the car. looked everywhere never found it. Its a crappy tripod too, I need to invest in a real solid one.

- I like the affect of stoping down to f/14, gives the sun a cool affect.

- during the day, I almost always have ISO at 200 or 400

(dont you hate it when your shooting night shots, then the next day your shooting some cool stuff, then you realize that you're ISO is at 1600! I dont know how to get rid of the graininess either, I was pissed. I hate that, its happend a few times now.)

 

[Scott Taylor]

I always use manual focus, I usually zoom in as far as I can on the lens, then focus it, the zoom out to the focal length I want to shoot at, Im not sure, if this is a bad technique but its worked fairly well for me, with the exception of night sky photography.

There are only a few zoom lenses out there that are parfocal (maintains the same focus point regardless of zooming). Most zooms out there aren't parfocal, and the ones that are are on the higher end of cost. I'm not familiar with the Nikkor zooms, so I don't know which ones, if any, are parfocal zooms.

On a side note, for Canon folks, here's a partial list of Canon's L lenses that are parfocal zooms:

EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM
EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF 70-200mm f/4L USM

Does anyone know if Nikon D40 has the infinate focus? I cant find it.

This will be a capibility of the lens itself, not the DSLR body. Just about any lens you can buy and mount on your D40 should have an infinity indicator on the focus distance scale.

HTH
Scott

 

[Wes Carter]

I have a couple of things to add I don't remember seeing so if I'm stealing anyone's thunder, my apologies.

1. The old formula for slowest hand holding speed was 1/fl where fl=focal legnth of the lens. However, since most digital sensors are smaller than full-frame 35mm this needs to be bumped up one stop. At least for me it does. I can hand hold OK at 1/fl but I end up with softer images often. Enlarging exposes this. It's hard to tell with a 4x6 print however.

2. Shoot with your aperture close to the middle of the range. Don't shoot stopped down or wide open. Most lenses are sharpest around f/8-f/11.

3. When shooting with a big lens on a tripod (assuming the lens has a tripod mount on it) place one hand on top of the lens right above the monopod. It steadies the camera quite a bit.

4. If you shoot on a tripod, use an electronic release. If the exposure is between 1/30 sec and 1, second, use the mirror lock up. The reason for this range: At faster shutter speeds the vibration of the mirror is frozen by the shutter speed. At speeds slower than 1 second, the time the vibration occurs is much, much less than the total exposure time so it has a negligible effect. But in between those speeds, the shutter speed is not fast enough to stop the vibration nor slow enough to make it a neglible percentage of the shutter open time.

5. When shooting landscapes, remember that the depth of field extends 1/3 in front of and 2/3 behind the focus point. So, foucus your landscape, then find the point closest to you that is still sharp, and refocus on that point. Assuming you are stopped down to f/11 or f/16, the whole landscape should be in focus including the foregrgound.

 

[Darren Addy]

Found a page of really good info, including some of what has been suggested in this thread. But there are a few more good tips to be found on this page: http://www.bythom.com/rightpixels.htm

 

[Laura Duchesne]

I love my Manfrotto 190XPROB with 804RC2 head. Caught this surprise bolt using the tripod when photographing a mammatus sunset in Childress, TX this year... although I am sure it was all in just the timing, but there is no way I would have caught that on a slower shutter speed hand held.

I also use the unsharp mask tool found in photoshop or paint shop pro for sharing pics on the web, just a little bit will do. If done excessively, you can tell that it was sharpened it some paint program.

On my first plains trip in 2006, I photographed nice anvil crawlers in KS, but since I had used the lens that originally came with my digital rebel, trying to focus was a pain in the neck. They came out blurry and I was very disappointed, so I purchased a Tamron 18-200 lens and have been pleased with it thus far. Caught my best crisp lighting shots this year so far.

If photographing clouds, one thing to consider is cloud movement... on longer exposures, they may appear blurred to some extent depending on how fast the clouds are moving, so try to shoot at a faster shutter speed if you can. Sometimes blurred clouds can look neat, but it is a matter of personal preference and the look you are after.

 

[Oscar van der Velde]

For storms, turn auto focus off, it will either hunt or you lose time to compose the image by focusing on the horizon. It is very convenient to use lenses that are focused at infinity when turned all the way to the end of the scale, if not, it should have a marker -but be sure to check if it indeed corresponds to infinity by using it at open apertures. For example, my Sigma 20mm is at infinity when the R (for infrared) is at infinity, not the bar. An easy to find infinity focus position is indispensable for lightning photography in the dark.

Shoot raw, this way you have way more room to tune the correct exposure and contrast after the shot has been taken, while it usually also has better sharpening and less smoothing than in the camera for JPEGs. After resizing for web, some unsharp mask with small radius is needed, e.g. 100 0.4 1 (and you could increase local contrast slightly by using 10 30 0, for example - beware for halos).

Oscar

 

[Christian Neumann]

Some remarks about tripods. there is a large variety of tripods available on the market and it highly depends on your purpose for what kind of photography you wish to use it. I started with Mandfrotto 055, which is a well produced and rather stable all-rounder. However, for longer hikes, especially in the mountains, it was much to heavy for me and I purchased a Gitzo 3540LS which is made of carbon fibres. The drawback of this tripod is that it is so leigh-weight that starts to vibrate in the slightest breeze and you need to attach a beanbag or other weights to make it more sturdy. If you want the most stable and highest quality tripod available, I would recommend a wooden tripod such as Berlebach’s reporter series, made of ash wood. There is nothing better!
I always use a cable release and mirror lockup whenever possible

I use a car window mount only when photographing lightning (together with a cable release). In this case, I prefer manual focus (same as Mike). When photographing wildlife from the car (with a long lens), I use a beanbag and handheld the camera, open up the aperture to get a fast shutter speed (at least 1/1000 sec). This makes you fast and you can react to fast moving action much easier than with a mounted camera.
Cheers, Christian

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

There are only a few zoom lenses out there that are parfocal (maintains the same focus point regardless of zooming). Most zooms out there aren't parfocal, and the ones that are are on the higher end of cost. I'm not familiar with the Nikkor zooms, so I don't know which ones, if any, are parfocal zooms.

On a side note, for Canon folks, here's a partial list of Canon's L lenses that are parfocal zooms:

EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM
EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF 70-200mm f/4L USM



This will be a capibility of the lens itself, not the DSLR body. Just about any lens you can buy and mount on your D40 should have an infinity indicator on the focus distance scale.

HTH
Scott

Thanks Scott -- I have one of those lenses and it never occurred to me that it was parfocal. That makes a big difference for some of the shooting I do. Awesome.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

Now that Canon has come out with LiveView, do those that have it find it better than the terribly small eyepiece for getting final focus?
Or is there any trade off?
Is it easy to flip from LiveView to the Histogram for composing your shots?

FWIW - Canon is betting a lot on this improvement; is there an appreciable improvement in focus and the final products overall sharpness?
Pros and Cons?

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Now that Canon has come out with LiveView, do those that have it find it better than the terribly small eyepiece for getting final focus?
Or is there any trade off?
Is it easy to flip from LiveView to the Histogram for composing your shots?

FWIW - Canon is betting a lot on this improvement; is there an appreciable improvement in focus and the final products overall sharpness?
Pros and Cons?

My comments/thoughts on live view for focusing are on page 2. Eye piece size vs 3 inch LCD soomed in 10x...or 30 inch image. It HAS to be better.