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Author Topic: Two from Japan  (Read 7859 times)

bjanes

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Re: Two from Japan
« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2015, 04:46:37 pm »

Yeah, I knew that, Keith, and I expect to hear about all the diffraction problems associated with f/22. Yesterday I went out and shot a whole series of HDRs at f/22. Here's one of them. Golly -- yes, visible softness from diffraction if you go to 100% with one of the nine 36 mpx D800 frames. But even a tiny bit of sharpening takes care of that. It's not a great shot -- just testing the latest Photomatix, which turns out to be pretty good.

The image looks OK on screen, but has a resolution of only 1440 x 961 pixels and appears somewhat flat with no "pop". It is difficult to judge the sharpness of an 36 MP image with a 4 MP screen preview. A quick application of Topaz Clarity Landscape Pop II does wonders with this image, IMHO. As is, the image you posted could make a decent 4 x 6 inch print.

I don't know what the image looked like before you tone mapped it, but the contrast does not appear that high and you might get better results shooting at f/8 and focus stacking with Helicon Focus rather than trying HDR.

Sharpening (especially with deconvolution algorithms) can improve contrast lost to diffraction at lower spatial frequencies, but high frequency detail may be reproduced at such low contrast that there is nothing for sharpening to work on. To illustrate, here is Bart's resolution target shot at f/22 with the D800e and Zeiss 135 mm Apo. The Nyquist frequency of the sensor is shown by the black circle. The limit of resolution in the image is shown by the white circle:



Sharpening with Focus Magic (a well regarded deconvolution algorithm) improves contrast at lower frequencies but does nothing near Nyquist.

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And finally, here is the image at f/4 with Focus Magic sharpening.



Which do you prefer? F/22 does reduce aliasing, but it is not bothersome in most landscape images.

Regards,

Bill
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RSL

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Re: Two from Japan
« Reply #21 on: January 15, 2015, 05:55:35 pm »

Ah Ha! Exactly as predicted by Keith and expected by me. Bill, as you implied, there's no way to tell from a 1.3 mpx HDR jpeg what the 36 mpx originals were like. With a little bit of sharpening from the Nik plugin the shot in the middle of the sequence was fine. You really should be over on Nikonians where they enjoy technical nitpicking and rarely post pictures unless they're of birds at feeders or dogs acting like humans. That's one of the lovely things about LuLa's User Critiques: we usually stay away from technical nits and concentrate on the art of photography. Mea culpa for violating that trend.

Oh, by the way, the contrast wasn't that high. It was an overcast day. There was a little bit of muted sun on the grass in the background, but the rest was reacting to the big softbox in the sky. It would be quite easy to enhance the "pop" with tone mapping, but I love the colors as they are. "Pop" isn't the point of the picture.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2015, 06:08:52 pm by RSL »
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Two from Japan
« Reply #22 on: January 15, 2015, 06:04:01 pm »

Ah Ha! Exactly as predicted by Keith and expected by me. Bill, as you implied, there's no way to tell from a 1.3 mpx HDR jpeg what the 36 mpx originals were like. With a little bit of sharpening from the Nik plugin the shot in the middle of the sequence was fine. You really should be over on Nikonians where they enjoy technical nitpicking and rarely post pictures unless they're of birds at feeders or dogs acting like humans. That's one of the lovely things about LuLa's User Critiques: we usually stay away from technical nits and concentrate on the art of photography. Mea culpa for violating that trend.

Using f22 on panos is a totally valid technical option obviously. You get probably 1/3rd the actual resolution of f4 (you pretty much end up working with a 12mp camera), but that is much faster than DoF stacking and is often the only option when light changes quickly and sufficient DoF is required.

Techniques are just that, I don't see any reason not to use the most appropriate one, same for equipment.

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: January 15, 2015, 06:25:10 pm by BernardLanguillier »
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armand

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Re: Two from Japan
« Reply #23 on: January 16, 2015, 08:55:01 am »

I tried some f/22 and let's say I prefer less DOF and more sharpness.   Both would be ideal though.

BernardLanguillier

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Re: Two from Japan
« Reply #24 on: January 16, 2015, 08:57:06 am »

I tried some f/22 and let's say I prefer less DOF and more sharpness.   Both would be ideal though.

That's what DoF stacking delivers.

Cheers,
Bernard
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