On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:55:57 -0500, "Reginald P. Smithers III, Esq."
wrote:

Steve wrote:
On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:49:08 -0500, Boater
wrote:

Reginald P. Smithers III, Esq. wrote:
Jim wrote:
Reginald P. Smithers III, Esq. wrote:
Yesterday, my wife and I went to North Georgia to enjoy a quiet
Thanksgiving Day in the mountains.

We visited a beautiful waterfall, Minnehaha Falls, off of the beaten
path. It was about a 5 miles drive on a one lane dirt/gravel road so
it really was quiet and secluded, especially on Thanksgiving.

Of course, I had to screw around with mother nature. Absolutely NONE
of my photos come close to the way it looked in real life.

This is the way it looks in real life:

http://www.fs.fed.us/conf/ne-ga-wate...ha-falls.shtml

This slide show shows how an amateur can screw up perfection:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/slideshow/568959352vWicBu


I loved those pictures, particularly how you worked with the motion.

These Qs will show what a dummy I am.
How did you get the pics so sharp yet blur the motion just right in
some shots and a little too much in others?
Were you using a tripod?
Is there a shutter speed that simulates how we see movement?
I used a heavy tripod and focused on the rock or a patch of leaves, so
that the non movement area was in focus. I had the camera set on
manual. so I could adjust the aperture and shutter speed separately. I
played with the shutter speed and it ranged from 1/15 of a sec, to
probably 4 secs. By adjusting the aperture I could balance the exposure
so I could get the detail on the rocks and leaves, without blowing out
the water. I had the camera set up on Matrix Exposure, and found I
would have to under expose the photo by 2 or 3 stops to compensate for
the white water. If I used the exposure setting the camera told me was
correct, it would completely blow out the water, so the water would just
be white with no detail.

So you are using a heavy tripod. As careful as you are, I wonder if your
camera has a problem. Look at the photos you posted "full size" on that
site. Something is happening there with focus.

It could be a few things besides the focus. First, jpegs right out of
a D200 are notoriously soft compared to other cameras. It's just the
way it's set up by default. But they take sharpening very well. So
after you resize (using sinc/lanczos as the resizing method and if
your program doesn't do that, get one that does) apply some
sharpening. If you shot raw, you also have to apply some sharpening
as the last step.

Second, if you resized or rotated (to fix a non-level image althought
with a tripod there's no reason you should have to do that) with a
program that doesn't use sinc/lanczos interpolator, that could be what
you're seeing. Get one that does. I think Lightroom does, but I was
reading online about some bugs in their implementation. I use XnView
as the last step in my workflow to batch resize (using lanczos),
sharpen (around 15 or so on the slider) and then save to final jpeg
(jpeg options DCT method set to float, SubSampling set to 1x1, and the
quality slider to whatever you want the final size to be. I use 85
for web shots.)

Third, when you're doing long exposures in bright light, you have to
stop down the lens so far that you're diffraction limited. Too small
an aperture will soften the image. I didn't look at the exif data (is
it available?) and different lenses show different effects, mostly
because their sharpness where diffraction isn't a problem are
different. But once you get down to f/11 or so, it can start showing
up and soften your image. Some lenses that are super sharp will even
show softening at f/8. Once you get down to f/16 and smaller, it can
be a real problem with any lens.

What you need to do is open the lens up to where it's sharpest
(usually a stop or three smaller than it's max aperturn) and use a
neutral density filter to reduce the light so you can take a longer
exposure.

If you want more depth of field, you can stop it down some. But once
you get to f/12 and higher, you'll probably notice more softening due
to diffraction than any better focus due to more depth of field.

Steve

My aperture was probably in the F11-F32 range, depending upon the
shutter speed. Since F8 really is the sharpest for my lens, they would
have been sharper if I had used a ND Filter, but really in RAW using
Lightroom standard "Landscape Sharpening" they do look sharp.

There's a good interactive demo of what diffraction does at:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...hotography.htm

For camera type, pick a camera that has a similar pixel density to
yours. The D200 is about halfway between the D2X and EOS20D/350D so
you'll have to guestimate

You'll see that at f/32, your 10MP D200 is only able to resolve the
same detail as an around 2.5MP camera used at a non-diffraction
limited aperture.

Steve

Steve wrote:


There's a good interactive demo of what diffraction does at:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...hotography.htm

For camera type, pick a camera that has a similar pixel density to
yours. The D200 is about halfway between the D2X and EOS20D/350D so
you'll have to guestimate

You'll see that at f/32, your 10MP D200 is only able to resolve the
same detail as an around 2.5MP camera used at a non-diffraction
limited aperture.

Steve

Very good interactive tool, and does highlight the benefit of using the
NG filters. Thanks for the response.

I also looked at the using the Lightroom preset landscape sharpening
option after the batch convert, and it did improve the clarity and
sharpness of the small jpg's.

Feel free to critique and make any suggustions

Reginald P. Smithers III, Esq. wrote:
Steve wrote:


There's a good interactive demo of what diffraction does at:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...hotography.htm

For camera type, pick a camera that has a similar pixel density to
yours. The D200 is about halfway between the D2X and EOS20D/350D so
you'll have to guestimate

You'll see that at f/32, your 10MP D200 is only able to resolve the
same detail as an around 2.5MP camera used at a non-diffraction
limited aperture.

Steve

Very good interactive tool, and does highlight the benefit of using the
NG filters. Thanks for the response.

I also looked at the using the Lightroom preset landscape sharpening
option after the batch convert, and it did improve the clarity and
sharpness of the small jpg's.

Feel free to critique and make any suggustions




I hope you didn't take my "critique" the wrong way. I liked those
waterfall photos much more than many photos you have posted because to
me most of them looked as they would if you were strolling in the woods
and came across the site. I was a little surprised by what I perceived
as "soft" focus, though, because I know you don't usually have a problem
with that. Well, not with your camera, anyway! :)

Boater wrote:
Reginald P. Smithers III, Esq. wrote:
Steve wrote:


There's a good interactive demo of what diffraction does at:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...hotography.htm

For camera type, pick a camera that has a similar pixel density to
yours. The D200 is about halfway between the D2X and EOS20D/350D so
you'll have to guestimate

You'll see that at f/32, your 10MP D200 is only able to resolve the
same detail as an around 2.5MP camera used at a non-diffraction
limited aperture.

Steve

Very good interactive tool, and does highlight the benefit of using
the NG filters. Thanks for the response.

I also looked at the using the Lightroom preset landscape sharpening
option after the batch convert, and it did improve the clarity and
sharpness of the small jpg's.

Feel free to critique and make any suggustions




I hope you didn't take my "critique" the wrong way. I liked those
waterfall photos much more than many photos you have posted because to
me most of them looked as they would if you were strolling in the woods
and came across the site. I was a little surprised by what I perceived
as "soft" focus, though, because I know you don't usually have a problem
with that. Well, not with your camera, anyway! :)

Nope, I didn't and critiques really don't bother me. Even if I
disagree, I normally learn something from all comments.