Focus or lens distortion Issue?

[ibenick]

delete

[coinslab]

Try an exposure higher then 1/125 and a high f-stop...

[ibenick]

Thanks. I didn't think of that. That was at f3.5 and 1 second for the middle exposure.

[R]

HDR is probably the culprit here. Since it has to blend three exposures, it mixes the average of anything that is different in the exposures, like movement in the plants or possibly in your case, the changes in resolution in the corners at different apertures. That lens is not particularly sharp at the corners at f/3.5, but is at f/8, and the failings at the corners look to me to be the result of that. Make sense?

[ibenick]

HDR is probably the culprit here. Since it has to blend three exposures, it mixes the average of anything that is different in the exposures, like movement in the plants or possibly in your case, the changes in resolution in the corners at different apertures. That lens is not particularly sharp at the corners at f/3.5, but is at f/8, and the failings at the corners look to me to be the result of that. Make sense?

That was what I thought it might have been but it is persistent throughout the three exposures, all of which at f3.5. Shutter speed was 1/4, 1s and 4s. Below are untouched crops from each of the originals.

[asdf]

f3.5 for a landscape?
Also the XSi is pretty slow at bracketing shots so like Richard if there is any movement like wind you are going to get some blur.

[ibenick]

f3.5 for a landscape?
Also the XSi is pretty slow at bracketing shots so like Richard if there is any movement like wind you are going to get some blur.

I just leave it on 'P' most of the time... I've learned some situations where I should use a different aperture, shutter, etc. but overall I'm still pretty new to it all. This is why I'm here trying to glean as much as I can from all of you. When hiking around doing landscape shots is it best to put it in aperture priority and set it at a higher aperture?

What do you think of doing HDR's off of a single exposure and creating the light and dark images by duplicating the RAW file and setting the exposure all the way up and down to get your three images? I've done that when I have a moving subject like a dog or a person in the frame and it's worked alright.

[asdf]

For landscapes/HDR I always use AV (aperture priority) mode.
With HDR this is a must or else you are going to have a fluctuation in your DOF between the bracketed images.

Smaller your aperture (higher number) the larger your DOF.

[archbishop]

A lot of variables here, but ya that's pretty bad softening around the edges. try a higher f stop See if that makes any difference. Forget about doing an HDR shots until you get to the bottom of this. Find a nice brick wall somewhere and snap a nice wide shot of the wall at various F stops. Compare the images carefully. Most if not all lens have a sweet spot for aperture settings to get the most edge to edge sharpness out of them. Try this experiment and you very easily see what it is for your lens. Then go back and try the HDR shots.
Good luck.

[ibenick]

Ahh the brick wall of shame. Off I go. Thanks everyone.

[R]

Dude, f/8.

[Dr. Nebz]

Zoom lenses cause more distortion than a fixed focal length lens does. Even wide angle zoom. So you are going to have points in focus and points out of focus with a zoom lens. Fixed focal length lenses, though not nearly as flexible as a zoom lens, do not have distortion issues and your photos will look more in focus from foreground to background. This is just some lens tech we learned in the photo program I am in at SLCC. As far as the HDR issue, I am not sure on that one. I do not do HDR photo doctoring. I have just not gotten into it very much. They look very nice, but to me, it seems more like photoshop art. But that is not to say that I do not like it. I try to use photoshop (Minus the RAW Converter) as little as humanly possible. More than 90% of my images have little if any photoshop editing done to them. I try to make sure that I am using the right color temps in my camera, and that I am getting the correct exposure for each photo I take. My light meter is my best friend. I am not sure if this will help, but I thought adding this to the conversation would maybe give some more insight on the distortion issue. Happy Shooting!

[asdf]

As far as the HDR issue, I am not sure on that one. I do not do HDR photo doctoring. I have just not gotten into it very much. They look very nice, but to me, it seems more like photoshop art. But that is not to say that I do not like it. I try to use photoshop (Minus the RAW Converter) as little as humanly possible.

I think my 7D has a more powerful processor than my first computer...

Photoshopping an image is when you add a unicorn or moon, as long as you can still say "I was here and saw this" you are good to go. I can adjust sharpening, contrast, saturation, WB ect. in my camera but I prefer to shoot RAW and make these adjustments on a more powerful computer with a large screen.
So if you want to look at it that way.. any RAW image is photoshopped.

Also, HDR has been around for over 100 years and is hardly "doctoring". The purpose is to increase the dynamic rang of an image not make it look like a cartoon ... most people seem to miss that.



as far as the blur
Mr Richard nailed it.

[ibenick]

as far as the blur
Mr Richard nailed it.

Indeed. Tried and tested now. Learning is fun.

[Dr. Nebz]

I think my 7D has a more powerful processor than my first computer...

Photoshopping an image is when you add a unicorn or moon, as long as you can still say "I was here and saw this" you are good to go. I can adjust sharpening, contrast, saturation, WB ect. in my camera but I prefer to shoot RAW and make these adjustments on a more powerful computer with a large screen.
So if you want to look at it that way.. any RAW image is photoshopped.

Also, HDR has been around for over 100 years and is hardly "doctoring". The purpose is to increase the dynamic rang of an image not make it look like a cartoon ... most people seem to miss that.



as far as the blur
Mr Richard nailed it.

I was not, to be clear, insulting HDR photos by any means. I was talking about the end user that is relying on photoshop to make their pictures look the way they do with no time taken to really push the limits of their gear. If we have an adjustable camera with flexible settings, and we are going to just do everything in photoshop, seems like a waste to me if you are not using photographic concept to capture your image.

RAW conversion is the digital post process. I use it as well. But I make minuscule changes and really try to stay true to the image as I shot it.

HDR has been around since 1850. And it's post process was time consuming, and a lot of work in the darkroom. CS2 has only had Merger to HDR since 2005.

[ibenick]

I was not, to be clear, insulting HDR photos by any means. I was talking about the end user that is relying on photoshop to make their pictures look the way they do with no time taken to really push the limits of their gear. If we have an adjustable camera with flexible settings, and we are going to just do everything in photoshop, seems like a waste to me if you are not using photographic concept to capture your image.

RAW conversion is the digital post process. I use it as well. But I make minuscule changes and really try to stay true to the image as I shot it.

HDR has been around since 1850. And it's post process was time consuming, and a lot of work in the darkroom. CS2 has only had Merger to HDR since 2005.

But if you think of HDR as an extension of the computing power of the camera then it really is no different than the difference between cameras 100 years ago and cameras today. It's just getting us closer and closer to what the human eye actually sees. We get so used to seeing landscape shots with blown out clouds because the camera won't naturally be able to properly expose both in many situations. Making it into an HDR or post-adjusting in other ways like the shadows/highlights seems like a pretty reasonable way to get the photo to truly represent what is seen by the human eye.

[Dr. Nebz]

But if you think of HDR as an extension of the computing power of the camera then it really is no different than the difference between cameras 100 years ago and cameras today. It's just getting us closer and closer to what the human eye actually sees. We get so used to seeing landscape shots with blown out clouds because the camera won't naturally be able to properly expose both in many situations. Making it into an HDR or post-adjusting in other ways like the shadows/highlights seems like a pretty reasonable way to get the photo to truly represent what is seen by the human eye.

I do not want to argue. I just think there is more than one way to solve this problem without photoshop.

I prefer to use the Zone System for digital photography. Highlights are the problem, but this can be resolved without relying on HDR to do this for us in the digital post process.

[ibenick]

No argument, just good discussion.

[Dr. Nebz]

No argument, just good discussion.

Agreed!

[R]

I'm not deriding HDR either, when it's good HDR. But to be quite honest, most HDR is tacky and poorly-executed, to the point of being obvious and annoying.