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Hi everyone!
Thanks for all the advice so far on my earlier post under 'lenses forum'. I think I need some more help now though!
I finally took the plunge and bought from Jessops a Canon 350d body (535), a Canon macro lens- 50mm f2.5 macro(200)-the only canon macro Jessops had in store and a battery grip. The only other two canon lenses were a 50mm f1.4 and a 100-400mm USM L which I decided against on grounds of having received mixed reviews. I really wanted a longer focal length macro than the one I ended up with but felt I needed to walk out of the shop with a complete kit and I could use and test straight away. A 50mm macro with such a wide aperture should prove a useful tool anyway.
All the major items I purchased were 'price- matched' and I walked out of the shop with what I thought was a bargain for just over 1000 including insurance, IGB lexar card and a couple of filters plus spare battery.
As it turns out either the camera or lens is causing problems in achieving sharpness over a relatively small subject. Someone else who saw my images commented that the pictures should be sharper so I decided to set up a system with a tripod, use AE aperture (auto exposure) and mirror lock up on a timer and photograph the same Red Campion flower(the flower was stationed in three quarter view against a plain background with diffuse indoors lighting ) over and over again until I got something acceptable. The subject was positioned about a foot away(just a little further than the camera's closest focusing distance). About a hundred shots later and nothing is presentable. Colours are fine but focus seems really out. I am getting a tad cheesed off.
Even stopping down the aperture incrementally right the way from f/2.5 to f/32(minimum stop on this lens) parts of the flower are off focus. The best shot(s) were taken at f/11 at 1/160 sec, whereby the centre of the flower was sharp and the rear petals were quite crisp too. The front side (nearest)petals were blurred though and this spoiled the shot. Since I had been focusing on the centre of the flower, I decided to try and focus a little nearer, i.e., just behind the nearest ones. Again no joy. I have been using 'evaluative metering.'
Another problem which may or may not be related to the first one is to do with the diopter wheel which has a range of -1 to +3. It is there as an aid for people who would normally wear glasses so that when using this camera they don't have to. The problem is that the diopter wheel needs to be turned fully to the left before the camera viewfinder information (green led's ) can be seen in focus. The entire range of dipter settings is divided up into 16 clicks.
The same friend who helped me with the comments on sharpness has near perfect eyesight and suggested that something was up here too. I do wear glasses but my prescription is for only 3/4 diopter in left eye and 1 in the other. The instructions with the camera say that the camera is set ordinarily to -1 diopter to make the viewfinder sharp.
I hope this has not been too lengthy a request for help but there it is. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Am I missing something obvious(apart from sheer persistence and dedication)? Did I waste my money on the setup? Surely that camera should be taking good photo's?
Thanks in advance,
Julian
Julian,
Did you either shoot in JPEG with in-camera sharpening set, or did you sharpen the images in post-processing ?
You'll need to do one or the other to get sharp images on a DSLR
Mike
DSLRs ive found aren't particualry sharp without using some Unsharp mask in Photoshop. many sensors are covered with an Anti-Alising filter which makes the photo seem sharp no matter how much you step down.
by suing USM in photoshop all the textures will come out. do not and i reapeat do not use teh cameras in built sharpening it is not worth it at all. don't use it.
You should have receive a copy of elements with the camera. Try using an unsharp mask of amount 100% radius 1 threshold 0. Vary the percentage level for each shot but about 100% should work. Well thats what I use for the older 300D. you should be able to get sharp photo's with your kit.
I have the much lower cost 50mm f1.8 lens with tubes to get a macro feature and it is pin sharp at above f2.8. On the 300D you have parameter settings, if the 350 has similar you may wish to experiment with pushing the contrast and sharpness ones up at least to +1 for JPEG photo's. It woks for most shots but for ones I am worried about I user RAW and it ignores these settings, but that is another story for a later day.
Not wanting to state the obvious, but when you say the f/11 picture was sharp in the centre and at the front, but not at the back, is this just due to depth of field? I don't know how big the flower is you are trying to capture, but with a macro lens at near minimum focus distance DOF will be limited.
With the diopter adjustment, I wear glasses when using my 350D without a problem - the diopter adjustment wasn't great enough fo me to use the camera without my glasses. The diopter adjustment won't have any effect on the final picture, unless you are using manual focus.
By AE aperture (auto exposure) do you mean green box mode?
There could be a point there. kick the camera into manual, set it 1 meter back from the subject, set shutter to 1/200 and the lens to f8. Popup the lash and now take some photo, are they in focus or not.
If some parts of the macro photo is sharp but others are not then the camera is capable of producing a focused image, just not where you expect.
Now in macro photography the depth of field is small, and you have to be certain where the focus point is. Most people manual focus SLRs for macro to get this spot on.
I would adjust the diopter setting till the display numbers look sharp, then adjust focus to get the bit I want in sharp focus. Auto focus works by looking for a contrast point, such as an edge. If you are close in it may be having difficulty finding a contrast point. Also if the light level is low that will not help. Finaly the ocus sensors are not exactlywhere the ed dot is, they are close.
Try some natural daylight outdoor shots first. Or try photographing some text. If you set the camera at an angle and photograph a ruler, you can set the position you are focusing on and see what parts of the photo are in focus. It is possible to get errors in focusing sensors, but I would not want to judge that on one set of macro photo's.
Not any help on the sharpness issue but you state that you really wanted a longer focal length macro than the one you ended up with.
Not sure if its any help but the Canon 50mm macro has an optional extra you can buy called the life-size converter EF, this then allows you to do 1-1 on the 50mm.
Chris
Thanks everybody for your kind consideration of my plight.
Frenchie
No,I didn't use any 'in camera' sharpening or post processing. Maybe I should have but I am a novice at this . So thanks for that advice. I was guessing that a digital slr would give me cracking images without the need to play too much.
Exclusive
Thanks too. Looks like I need to go to photoshop usm and take your point about in camera sharpening.
Just tried it and it seems to work a bit.... Hmm.
Strawman
No, I didn't receive Photoshop Elements and yes, there are parameter settings for sharpness and contrast and I can boost these in sets 1,2 and 3.
Yes I will try your idea on pushing the camera back even further from the subject and photographing text and ruler.
Here's hoping and...I will let you know the outcome. It's late now, so will do it tomorrow if I can wake in the morning!
Thanks for the advice I hope it works.
Sabreur
Well the DOF is tiny. That was part of the point I was making. Loads of pics all of a tiny flower no more than 3/4 of an inch=2cm across approx. When measured straight through this is probably nearer 1.5 cm max. All trying different apertures and then moving the focus point nearer to camera slightly. The camera sat back 12 inches from the subject. After all, a macro is a macro for good reason and if I pushed the camera too far back I wouldn't get high magnification results. Or would I? I will try this as you say.
The diopter adjustment is ...well...you know... I guess it's poor, but having someone wiht near perfect vision saying "what's that fuzzy greeen stuff at the bottom of the viewfinder?" when the camera was set at it's factory default of minus 1 diopter setting does leave that question still unanswered. The problem as I see it is that for macro shots, manual focus is almost a necessity at times and so the diopter adjustment is crucial.
AE aperture for me means auto exposure aperture priority, ie.,Av on the exposure mode wheel. Set the aperture youwant for depth of field and the camera takes care of the shutter etc. At least in theory.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Cokinman
Thanks too for your advice re: add on life size converter.
Julian
At 30cm with a 50mm lens on an APS sensor at f/11 you have... 1.5cm depth of field. calculate it yourself
Try to shoot with the stuff you want sharp all in the same plane?
But the viewfinder stuff sounds wrong - take it back and swap it, and try the replacement in the shop so you know it's right.
philwig
Thanks for the reply . The calculator link is excellent and I will test it right away. I might have been expecting too much but will measure the flower front ot back and then focus at a distance which should give acceptable DOF throughout. Will also try testing on a ruler or black and white text.
Regarding the diopter wheel thanks for that advice too.
Julian
If you really wanted a longer macro, why on earth did you just go for the one in stock. The Canon 50mm does not give true macro and is too short for insect work. If you have had it for less than 30 days then I think Jessops would alow you to return it in exchange for a 100mm, which is much more useful for bug shots.
Very narrow dof is something you have to live with in macro work, but it not all bad as it does allow you to have the main point of interest stand out against a smooth out of focus background.
Always use manual focus, get a good tripod suitible for this sort of work, and buy a cable release.
One more point, you may be wasting half of the limited dof, if you focus on the nearest part of the flower to the lens. If you do this and your dof is 1.5cm then only .75cm of the flower will be in sharp focus, the remaining dof will be used up in the .075cm of thin air in front of the flower. This one reason why you should use MF.
I have the 20D, 1Ds and had a 300D - and all need work to get good sharpness, people think it's easy to get good shots with DSLR's - personally I think you have to work harder to get good results!
If your doing a macro shot the depth of field is, by default, very narrow - and on such a small subject it's almost impossible to get everything in focus.
also you shouldn't think of the blurred parts as the enemy ... they are just as important as the focused bits on a photo, and you should learn to use them to your artistic advantage (think of it like a piece of music, if you had a tune that is full of notes but has no spaces between them, it would be pretty awful - the same goes for image sharpness.)
However - setting the sharpness a couple of notches up will help as well as photoshop processing
- also Keith H taught me a good trick... when you reduce the pixels to 500 for this site you have to sharpen the image again, cos reducing it actually makes it loose a little sharpness... so after reducing the image size, use the unsharp mask again, but to a lesser amount ... until your happy with the result.
For macro work I just use normal zoom lenses but with extension tubes (available from jessops at 79 pound - ish)
I often use a 28-135 (is) lens with the ext tube. It means you can vary your distance to the subject quite dramaticly using the zoom and focus.
also remember that if your taking macro shots, with such a small DOF any vibration or movement of the subject can easily throw out the focus - so set up your shots very carefully where there is not wind.
hope this helps
Paul
Thanks for the latest responses.
cambirder - Yes, good question regarding going for a short macro. I was kind of 'sold it' because it was a macro lens but also because I needed to be able to test the camera. They (Jessops) are supposed to offer a full refund or exchange within 7 days if not satisfied. Had I waited for the larger ones to come in and they couldn't say exactly when, I may well have been over the 7 day period so I thought that a 50mm macro would in this case justify itself as an addition. I wasn't sold it as a 'pup' though. It was supposed to be sharp and good. As it turns out after testing the flower again, it still seems soft. I have next to test the black and white text. I do use an old but good metal tripod which is fairly solid.
When focusing I am very critical of the focal point being exactly where I want it, so that I have dof both in front and behind that point. Using manual is a problem when one doesn't know that the diopter wheel is working correctly as I have already mentioned but I have tried both.
But yes, perhaps a blunder to buy that lens. It is certainly proving to be troublesome and worrisome.
park my ferret.
Thanks too. I am using mirror lockup indoors where there is no wind. You make several good points about dof being narrow in macro and using it as a friend. I have used the online DOF calculator f(rom the thread posted earlier by philwig) and run a test at 50cm where at f22 I should have loads to spare in focus but it doesnt work with me. Even f11 should be giving something back but some points still out of focus. Perhaps it is all very subjective. Circles of confusion are a bit more exacting and although one eye sees differently to the next, the camera shouldn't. As far as sharpening is concerned again thanks for the new advice. I have tried sharpening on some shots and it does work a bit butnot enough to gain the sharness I want.
I guess I have wasted enough of your time and it's time now to get onto Jessops.
Thanks anyway.
Julian
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