Help: Noise vs Lack of Sharpness

[sigamy]

I'm trying to get better in my photography...I just picked up an E-M10 so I'm learning it.

When I pixel peep these shots in Apple Photos, the photos are not sharp at all. my dogs hair, it looks like a mess of blob of color, not actual hairs...

I'm not clear if I'm seeing noise, a lack of sharpness due to one point focus, or both.

These are shot on E-M10 II with the Panny Leica 25mm f1.4, both wide open at f1.4. One is ISO 1250 and one is 1600. Is this just too high ISO?

is there a way to resize the focus square so that it is larger--like I can do on Panasonic bodies?

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[wjiang]

It's probably not a great idea to pixel peep high ISO m4/3 shots - the noise will definitely be there. What you're seeing is probably the noise filter, which will smear detail to reduce noise for in-camera JPEG. You can reduce this noise filter function or turn it off.

As for focus, yes you can change the AF targets, best to consult the manual as there are multiple ways that can be customised somewhat. You're shooting at f/1.4 though, so not much will be in focus, no matter what AF target you select.

 

[TNcasual]

You are viewing in Apple Photos. Are you shooting just jpegs? If so, those ISOs will be a bit blurry when pixel peeping. If you are shooting RAW, make sure you have Photos set to show you the RAW file.

 

[coffeecat]

Since you mention Apple Photos, what device are you using? I had loads of problems in the past with an iPad Pro, where the displayed photo in the Photos app was very poor, whereas if I looked at it on the same device, in Affinity Photo or Lightroom it was much sharper/higher res. I'll see if I can dig out the thread. This was even using raw files.

 

[sigamy]

Apple Photos on my Mac. Yes, shooting JPEG. Trying to make good use of the Oly SOOC jpegs, including art filters!

I will open a few pics in After Shot Pro. I have an older version of that too.

 

[coffeecat]

OK, thanks - probably not the problem I had then, since you are using a "proper" computer!

 

[TNcasual]

So these results are probably a combination of jpeg artifacts, higher ISO, wide open lens, shutter speed and motion. All of these things can contribute to a blurry image.

Also, make sure you are shooting at the highest quality settings.

 

[gwydionjhr]

I'm not trying to be insulting here, but I'm wondering if you are aware of just how narrow the Depth of Field is with a 25mm lens shot wide open with the subject that close to you. At 18 inches away from the subject, you've only got a plane of about 13mm that is going to be tack sharp, and that's pretty much what I see in the image. Personally for these kinds of shots I manually focus with peaking on, when the dots start dancing in the catch light reflection in the dogs eyes I hit the shutter.

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[agentlossing]

The thing to keep in mind is that the area in focus drops at a given aperture as you get closer to your subject. That's why even moderate apertures like f2.8 on an M4/3 camera can have lots of blurry background if you're just shooting your coffee from a foot away. So, when you are using a 25mm lens at f1.4 on a subject that's only a couple or three feet away, your focus is going to be exceedingly narrow. If you shot the same photo at f5.6 you'd still have blur as it got toward the outer limits of the focus area, but the whole pup's face would likely be within acceptable focus. But of course, you then have a lot less light coming into the camera, so it probably wouldn't have been so feasible here. Doggie faces are hard because of their long noses, you sometimes have to pick either getting the nose or eyes in focus, but not both.

 

[bargainguy]

This is the dilemma of m4/3. You can't have low noise while maintaining high resolution in poor light, as you're limited by the dynamic range of the sensor. Step outside with the doggy and into better light, your images will appear sharper. The level of resolution has not changed, but the noise becomes more apparent in poor light.

 

[sigamy]

Thank you all very much. focal plane as it relates to focal length, always something to learn. I did know that shooting at wide aperture gives razor thin focus, not sure why I forgot that....and I guess the noise/muddiness of these threw me off.

So...for this situation I can stop down to get more of the dog in focus (with figuring out impact to SS or ISO - or somehow adding light to scene).

Is another option to back up a bit and shoot this at 45mm? Or would the combination of backing up and longer lens get me to the same problem?

 

[Aristophanes]

I'm trying to get better in my photography...I just picked up an E-M10 so I'm learning it.

When I pixel peep these shots in Apple Photos, the photos are not sharp at all. my dogs hair, it looks like a mess of blob of color, not actual hairs...

I'm not clear if I'm seeing noise, a lack of sharpness due to one point focus, or both.

These are shot on E-M10 II with the Panny Leica 25mm f1.4, both wide open at f1.4. One is ISO 1250 and one is 1600. Is this just too high ISO?

is there a way to resize the focus square so that it is larger--like I can do on Panasonic bodies?

View attachment 782989 View attachment 782990

Posted images look fine. Not sure what the problem is.

 Photos has 100 and 200% zoom default. At 1600 ISO on those older 16mp sensors, even if you find the exact focal,point, yes, the noise will look kind of “blobbish”, especially on fine details like hair. Not a lens problem, but wide open you will see some slight softening, but the fact remains you are pushing the sensor limits for overall resolution and noise.

 

[gwydionjhr]

Thank you all very much. focal plane as it relates to focal length, always something to learn. I did know that shooting at wide aperture gives razor thin focus, not sure why I forgot that....and I guess the noise/muddiness of these threw me off.

So...for this situation I can stop down to get more of the dog in focus (with figuring out impact to SS or ISO - or somehow adding light to scene).

Is another option to back up a bit and shoot this at 45mm? Or would the combination of backing up and longer lens get me to the same problem?

https://www.pointsinfocus.com/tools/depth-of-field-and-equivalent-lens-calculator/#{%22c%22:[{%22f%22:8,%22av%22:%221.8%22,%22fl%22:45,%22d%22:823,%22cm%22:%220%22}],%22m%22:0}

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At the same framing, the only real DoF change you're going to see is brought from moving from f/1.4 to f/1.8.

You might want to look up the specs for your lens(es) so you know at which aperture they are the sharpest.

But really what you need is more light. If it was a non-moving subject you could easily trade off two stops of shutter speed to get two stops of ISO 1/60th --> 30th --> 1/15th - 1600--> 800 --> 400ISO. But handheld at a 15th of a second, you'd be lucky if 1 in 10 shots of a dog came out tack sharp, IBIS or no IBIS.

 

[hoggdoc]

I'm trying to get better in my photography...I just picked up an E-M10 so I'm learning it.

When I pixel peep these shots in Apple Photos, the photos are not sharp at all. my dogs hair, it looks like a mess of blob of color, not actual hairs...

I'm not clear if I'm seeing noise, a lack of sharpness due to one point focus, or both.

These are shot on E-M10 II with the Panny Leica 25mm f1.4, both wide open at f1.4. One is ISO 1250 and one is 1600. Is this just too high ISO?

is there a way to resize the focus square so that it is larger--like I can do on Panasonic bodies?

View attachment 782989 View attachment 782990

I see nothing wrong with these two images. What you are seeing is the limited depth of field caused by shooting the @ f1.4. If you want more of the subject to be sharp and not blurred you need to stop down the lens at least to f8.0 maybe even f11.0. Of course that will require you to slow the shutter considerably or pump the ISO so high as to get unacceptable noise.

 

[Lupin 3rd]

A couple suggestions that work for me:

1. Turn Noise Reduction off. It tends to smudge details and make images look flatter.
2. Shoot RAW + JPEG. If you’re happy with the jpeg, just delete the raw. But if you’re not then you can open the raw in Olympus Viewer (free) and edit the image to a higher degree than you can with the jpeg.

Hope this helps.

 

[994]

It sounds like you are implicitly comparing this to a different camera body? Which body did you use before?

 

[Bidkev]

is there a way to resize the focus square so that it is larger--like I can do on Panasonic bodies?

View attachment 782989 View attachment 782990

If anything you want a smaller focus square. Mine is permanently fixed at the smallest size to ensure that it's placed exactly. If you look at where your focus square is sitting, there is no guarantee that it will not focus on a subject to the edge of the square as opposed to bang in the middle of the square which you would normally place on your main focus of interest.

I remember some research that showed that in a particular Canon camera, the actual focus area was bigger than the square. In the light of this, whenever I used my 7Dmkll, 6D, and 5Dmklll canon, I often found that if I checked some non keeper images, it did in fact show that focus had locked just outside of the square which had nothing to do with front or back focusing as my camera/lenses were fully calibrated. Think of the focus square as being akin to spot metering eg, you want your point of focus as precise as your point of metering and particularly when you're wide open, it needs to be precise

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

What are you using for shutter speed? With IBIS and OIS (though you may not get both by mixing brands), you can usually lean on a slower shutter speed so you can use a lower ISO and/or a smaller aperture. At least that's how I do it.

 

[pondball]

@sigamy
As some others have already noted: you have some good shots here of your dog. The indoor lighting will always have a bearing on the result you get, so sometimes just moving your own position can provide you with enough light directly on your subject to lower lower your ISO, thus getting rid of at least some of your hair blodges... but the low f-stop (1.4), as others have shown with the charts, should emphasize that it is indeed a very thin DoF at 1.4.

This is most noticeable in any dog shot (or others for that matter) where the subject is facing you. One way around this is to shoot from the side... as in the photo (I got lucky with, IMO) in the link here . The settings aren’t shown below the photo for some reason but it was taken with Christmas tree lights and some window lighting as my only source of lighting. The shot was taken with my em5.2, Oly 25mm/1.2, at ISO 400 at 1/30th. I also use focus peaking/magnified and in this case the focus I was trying to get was on the dogs left eye. With the dog turned sideways to me there was less fuzziness in some other areas of her face, while still retaining a decent level of sharpness in the areas I wanted it. I also used manual focus as I find the auto focus for shots like this can be off by a bit and when you’re wanting to zero in on one thing only (ie the eye) auto just doesn’t always cut it.

I realize this is not the same camera or lens, but the principles are basically the same. Again, I have taken more than a few photos of this dog, but imo this was the only one worth posting... so I might have been a bit lucky... practice does that for you every once in awhile.

my advice? ... keep shooting... film is free! keep asking questions... you’ll get some great responses here.

looking forward to following your progress! ?

 

[KBeezie]

Generally speaking, it's better to go one higher on the ISO (and gain more shutter speed) if it gains proper exposure, as you'll suffer more noise generally trying to brighten an underexposed image (especially if you shot with raw).