Is it my Lens?
Discussion
Purchased a cheap 400mm prime lens to get a bit closer to the action, taken a bit of time to play with it but not getting all the results I would like. Hopefully the experts on here can advise.
Taking the advise to have the aperture back a bit to f/8.0 and shooting from a tripod with remote so no movement but still set to a reasonably high speed but trying not to set the ISO too high.
One I am happy with, nice colours, good focus and seems pretty sharp to me.
Red Squirrel Sunshine by taitalan, on Flickr
The others seem to have lots of speckling and just aren't as sharp as I would like, even after some cleanup in Photoshop. Best seen in the sky of this shot though the other osprey pictures are similar when zoomed in.
Osprey Adult In Tree by taitalan, on Flickr
or this one
Young Osprey Eating Dinner by taitalan, on Flickr
Like it has been over processed and left grainy.
Just a lenses that isn't that great or something I could do to improve things?
Taking the advise to have the aperture back a bit to f/8.0 and shooting from a tripod with remote so no movement but still set to a reasonably high speed but trying not to set the ISO too high.
One I am happy with, nice colours, good focus and seems pretty sharp to me.
Red Squirrel Sunshine by taitalan, on Flickr
The others seem to have lots of speckling and just aren't as sharp as I would like, even after some cleanup in Photoshop. Best seen in the sky of this shot though the other osprey pictures are similar when zoomed in.
Osprey Adult In Tree by taitalan, on Flickr
or this one
Young Osprey Eating Dinner by taitalan, on Flickr
Like it has been over processed and left grainy.
Just a lenses that isn't that great or something I could do to improve things?
Edited by Crusoe on Wednesday 22 August 10:53
About $200 for a nikon fit Sigma APO 400/5.6, which is cheap for the length for an autofocus lense and not too heavy to hand hold.
Some shots seem fine though so don't think it is any dust on the lens (looks fine and I tried with the filter removed etc.) Is it just the ISO being too high causing noise that gives a grainy look? Or the Noise standing out as the darker images are a bit under exposed?
Edit - suggested on a review forum that the high ISO noise reduction settings on the Nikon D90 should be turned off to get sharper images with that lens. I might give that a try next and see if it makes a difference - think mine is set to normal.
Some shots seem fine though so don't think it is any dust on the lens (looks fine and I tried with the filter removed etc.) Is it just the ISO being too high causing noise that gives a grainy look? Or the Noise standing out as the darker images are a bit under exposed?
Edit - suggested on a review forum that the high ISO noise reduction settings on the Nikon D90 should be turned off to get sharper images with that lens. I might give that a try next and see if it makes a difference - think mine is set to normal.
Edited by Crusoe on Wednesday 22 August 11:50
Instead of the $200 lens, get the equiv Nikon - then the photos will be just fine 
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-nikon-400mm-f2-...
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-nikon-400mm-f2-...
The Nikon D90 is of a similar age / price scale to my Canon 40D so I would assume it's performance is similar. 1000ISO on my camera produces very visible noise so my assumption would be that the issue you're seeing here is ISO noise. Looking at the exif (1/4000 secs . f/8.0 . ISO 1000 . 400 mm) for the shot of the adult osprey I would have selected a considerably lower ISO and lowered your shutter speed to compensate, particularly if the shot was taken from a tripod. As a general rule the minimum shutter speed should be the inverse of the focal length, i.e. 400mm should be a minimum of 1/400 sec. In that shot I would have been looking at somewhere between that 1/400 and 1/800, this would have meant a considerably lower ISO and therefore a much higher image quality ... as can be seen from the squirrel shot which was taken at 640ISO. Incidentally you'll also suffer less noise if you stick to full stops of ISO; 100, 200, 400, 800 & 1600.
Hope that helps, keep going because the squirrel shot in particular shows real promise.
Hope that helps, keep going because the squirrel shot in particular shows real promise.
Dogsey said:
tim-b said:
Dogsey said:
....Incidentally you'll also suffer less noise if you stick to full stops of ISO; 100, 200, 400, 800 & 1600.
Really? Another thing I've learnt from here.... It's because the part stops in between are just full stops that have been amplified I believe.
Dogsey said:
The Nikon D90 is of a similar age / price scale to my Canon 40D so I would assume it's performance is similar. 1000ISO on my camera produces very visible noise so my assumption would be that the issue you're seeing here is ISO noise. Looking at the exif (1/4000 secs . f/8.0 . ISO 1000 . 400 mm) for the shot of the adult osprey I would have selected a considerably lower ISO and lowered your shutter speed to compensate, particularly if the shot was taken from a tripod. As a general rule the minimum shutter speed should be the inverse of the focal length, i.e. 400mm should be a minimum of 1/400 sec. In that shot I would have been looking at somewhere between that 1/400 and 1/800, this would have meant a considerably lower ISO and therefore a much higher image quality ... as can be seen from the squirrel shot which was taken at 640ISO. Incidentally you'll also suffer less noise if you stick to full stops of ISO; 100, 200, 400, 800 & 1600.
Hope that helps, keep going because the squirrel shot in particular shows real promise.
Thanks for the info, will try again when it is a bit brighter outside so I can drop the ISO. Didn't have any noise problems up to 3200 ISO with my Nikon 135 lense but this one will take a bit of practice. Hope that helps, keep going because the squirrel shot in particular shows real promise.
Noise becomes a lot more evident if images are a little dark or very contrasty. If you are processing jpgs in camera you are at the mercy of the Manufacturers programmers.
I agree with Dogsey here EXCEPT that a 400 on a 1.5 crop is a 600mm equivalent and many might claim that for ultimate sharpness - especially when the subject is so distant that it will still be small no matter what - the inverse of lens length rule should be not less than the inverse of the equivalent length. Or even a tad more.
Plus, and you may need to dig out some reviews here as I have no experience of the Sigma at all, many long telephotos are designed to be sharpest and optically at their best at wide open or only a tad shut down from wide open. The economics of making a big heavy and relatively 'fast' lens sort of demand this. f8 may not be ideal. Dunno for certain.
Intermediate ISO's do often have an apparent slight that one sees less on the 'standard' ISO values although it is not always evident.
Finally ... the images have a sort of Adobe colourspace being presented in sRGB look to them. Might just be the sun light colour although I note that the EXIF info suggest Adobe RGB was used to shoot them (if I read the copious Nikon EXIF info correctly) so I wondered if they had been converted to sRGB for web use at some stage in the process? Also the EXIF indicates that WB was set to 'Cloudy' which, normally, would be warming things up and probably won't do much for the blue in the sky or the green leaves, especially by the time noise reduction has done its bit.
Did you shoot them as NEF files? The general conditions and the small effective size of the target subject are always going to present a challenge but it's the sort of challenge that, if there is any really big improvement to be found, is likely to be found from a RAW file.
However, realistically, despite the 600mm equivalancy I think that the subject is a little too far away for a strong result (unlike the squirrel shot). I have loads like that - shot optimisticaly on the basis that once in a while one may work out to be acceptable. Usually that's quite rare though.
I agree with Dogsey here EXCEPT that a 400 on a 1.5 crop is a 600mm equivalent and many might claim that for ultimate sharpness - especially when the subject is so distant that it will still be small no matter what - the inverse of lens length rule should be not less than the inverse of the equivalent length. Or even a tad more.
Plus, and you may need to dig out some reviews here as I have no experience of the Sigma at all, many long telephotos are designed to be sharpest and optically at their best at wide open or only a tad shut down from wide open. The economics of making a big heavy and relatively 'fast' lens sort of demand this. f8 may not be ideal. Dunno for certain.
Intermediate ISO's do often have an apparent slight that one sees less on the 'standard' ISO values although it is not always evident.
Finally ... the images have a sort of Adobe colourspace being presented in sRGB look to them. Might just be the sun light colour although I note that the EXIF info suggest Adobe RGB was used to shoot them (if I read the copious Nikon EXIF info correctly) so I wondered if they had been converted to sRGB for web use at some stage in the process? Also the EXIF indicates that WB was set to 'Cloudy' which, normally, would be warming things up and probably won't do much for the blue in the sky or the green leaves, especially by the time noise reduction has done its bit.
Did you shoot them as NEF files? The general conditions and the small effective size of the target subject are always going to present a challenge but it's the sort of challenge that, if there is any really big improvement to be found, is likely to be found from a RAW file.
However, realistically, despite the 600mm equivalancy I think that the subject is a little too far away for a strong result (unlike the squirrel shot). I have loads like that - shot optimisticaly on the basis that once in a while one may work out to be acceptable. Usually that's quite rare though.
Crusoe said:
Shot in both NEF and jpeg with jpeg shown. Will take a look at the raw files and see if they are any different. Bit soft at wide open but better at F8/F9 according to reports so was trying to stick within that range but it does restrict you to good light conditions.
Few things to try
OK.Few things to try
I'm a Canon user with Canon lenses and the long telephotos tend to be most rewarding at very close to wide open. As intended by the designs.
If your Nikon experience is anything like my Canon experience then you may find that it's very noticable, when pushing to the limits, that the RAW version of a file has a lot more available than the jpg. That does not mean to say you will feel happy with it - just that it should look obviously better than the jpg, no matter how far short of what you were hoping for, after suitable processing.
Dogsey said:
The Nikon D90 is of a similar age / price scale to my Canon 40D so I would assume it's performance is similar. 1000ISO on my camera produces very visible noise so my assumption would be that the issue you're seeing here is ISO noise.
D90 is old school nikon still, well a bit, and has poorer high iso noise than canons of the same age, but its not terrible.Shooting 400mm/5.6 on crop means you need high shutter speeds to combat shake, even higher for movement if your shooting birds in flight.
Learn to expose to the right and learn how to clean up noise in post - its much easier to do that than fix a blury photo! Also learn good hand holding technique, elbows in , braced, get your breathing right etc you can easily shift a stop or so doing things right.
I've had sharp shots form a 7d/400 at 1/60th with good technique but your keeper rate goes way down, shooting BIF I try and keep it over 1/2000th
GetCarter said:
Instead of the $200 lens, get the equiv Nikon - then the photos will be just fine
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-nikon-400mm-f2-...
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-nikon-400mm-f2-...
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