Question about resolution and expectations

[dulaney22]

I don't want to become a fanatic about resolution, but I'm new to all this and would like to know just what to expect from the u4/3 format, or photography in general. I'm attaching a quick snap of my son and his cousin taken last Saturday. I used an E-P1 and Minolta Rokkor 28/2.8 set to hyperfocal at f/11. I think EV was turned to -.7 or so and shutter at 1/60. The first is an already slight crop and the second pic shows more than a 1:1 from Lightroom.

My ignorance relates to what you see in the zoomed shot, where the pixels or whatever they are are readily observed. It doesn't look so bad in the non-zoomed pic, but you can tell they are there even at that perspective. What you get is a less sharp image than what I do from the 20mm Panny lens. I don't know if it's because the subject moving, DR or what?

My question is . . . how do I or can I expect to make this picture sharper? This was shot in burst mode and I don't think shake was a problem. I don't know if I can expect anything more from the lens or the camera, but if I can I would like to know how to improve. I know I could add luminance in LR, but I only sharpened it a bit, added fill light and touched the overall exposure just a little.

Thoughts and suggestions will be much appreciated.



<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dulaney22/5074015286/" title="PA103615.jpg by dulaney22, on Flickr">View attachment 151159"1024" height="768" alt="PA103615.jpg" /></a>


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[Herman]

I'm sure other members will help you answering this question.
As to me. I'm looking forward to:
higher Iso settings as well as
weather sealed body (ies) and lenses
higher dynamic range (like nalog films)
simplicity (direct access, not via menu)

 

[dulaney22]

It almost has the noise, or at least the look, of a higher ISO but it was shot at the native 200. It was on auto and I never have taken a shot lower because I had read 200 was better. Oh well . . .

I'm going to do a bunch of tests with native and adapted lens just to satisfy my interests that it is what it is . . . LOL!

One other thing, most of the "issue" seems to be in the shadow areas, which I bumped up in exposure. That would lead me to conclude it may be a dynamic range problem.

 

[silverbullet]

Having a wide angle lens on a m4/3 camera will double the length of this lens (easy spoken).

To get the maximum out of the camera it's better to use the 20mm panny or the oly lenses in order to exclude the influence of (old) adapted lenses from the time of films and problems of fast focussing with manual lenses.

Yesterday I got the first book back from an internet shop CEWE which delivers a good quality.
The photographs were a selection of my Sicily pics and honestly - I'm totally satisfied in terms of details, colour preciseness and resolution of the sensor and the lens system. I'll make a print in DINA3 to check a larger format.

When we all look at the screen we are fooled by the 72 dpi res of the screen. The image is not what we have as datas. It's much more content compare to screen pics.
In your case it might be better to shoot moving kids with a native lens, the technique of hyper focal settings isn't the optimum with a 56mm length.....

 

[dulaney22]

Having a wide angle lens on a m4/3 camera will double the length of this lens (easy spoken).

To get the maximum out of the camera it's better to use the 20mm panny or the oly lenses in order to exclude the influence of (old) adapted lenses from the time of films and problems of fast focussing with manual lenses.

Yesterday I got the first book back from an internet shop CEWE which delivers a good quality.
The photographs were a selection of my Sicily pics and honestly - I'm totally satisfied in terms of details, colour preciseness and resolution of the sensor and the lens system. I'll make a print in DINA3 to check a larger format.

When we all look at the screen we are fooled by the 72 dpi res of the screen. The image is not what we have as datas. It's much more content compare to screen pics.
In your case it might be better to shoot moving kids with a native lens, the technique of hyper focal settings isn't the optimum with a 56mm length.....

Thanks Bullet. I'm waiting on a copy of Spyder 2 to arrive so I can get my colors more accurate. Right now they are just by sight comparing to prints, but I hope (after calibration) that this isn't too big a deal in the end with prints.

Maybe this shows up more with the wide angle, because I have a Pentax 50/1.4 M43 and a Contax G 45/2 that seem to have better resolving power. However, all reviews say this lens is pretty sharp. Well, from what little experience I have, it's no where near as sharp as the Panny 20.

 

[feppe]

Part of the problem is due to diffraction; small format (MFT/APSC/FF) lenses don't perform well at such small apertures. The thumb rule for sweet spot is two stops above maximum aperture, so f/5.6 for a f/2.8 lens. In my experience diffraction kicks in at f/8 and becomes unacceptable (to me) at f/11 with Panasonic 20mm pancake and 14-45mm kit lens.

Also, as you mentioned, using a lot of fill light to bring up the (noisy) shadows will reduce apparent sharpness in the shadows due to noise. The scene is extremely tough due to high DR, and shadows are something which MFT doesn't excel at.

Finally, your focus might be off. Not sure why you would want to shoot such a scene at hyperfocal in the first place. Just focus on their faces or prefocus like some street shooters do.

To recap to get optimal results from similar shots: move the kids to open shade to limit dynamic range, shoot at around f/5.6 at ISO 200 (you're right about that being the "native" ISO), focus on the kids' faces. Shutter speed is not a big issue with the (short) lens and relatively static subject, but it doesn't hurt having that faster than 1/100s. And ensure you don't jerk the camera when clicking the shutter, brace your arms to your body, etc.

Finally, stop pixel peeping at 100%. Nobody but you will look at the photos at 100% so it's largely a pointless exercise Composition and telling a story will always trump sharpness.

 

[dulaney22]

Feppe, you just pointed me to some interesting reading. I had no idea that aperture settings had an affect on sharpness . . . thought it was just depth of field. It does explain some things I've seen with pictures, wondering what gave a more blurred look when the image was focused. I thought that using a smaller aperture in bright light would be preferred.

Anyway, I've just started to mess with hyperfocal stuff. Only been shooting more seriously a couple months and I'll throw a lens on just to experiment. I really like the FOV this lens gives and I'm gonna take your advice and play some more. Thanks.

 

[feppe]

Feppe, you just pointed me to some interesting reading. I had no idea that aperture settings had an affect on sharpness . . . thought it was just depth of field. It does explain some things I've seen with pictures, wondering what gave a more blurred look when the image was focused. I thought that using a smaller aperture in bright light would be preferred.

Anyway, I've just started to mess with hyperfocal stuff. Only been shooting more seriously a couple months and I'll throw a lens on just to experiment. I really like the FOV this lens gives and I'm gonna take your advice and play some more. Thanks.

You're welcome. If you're really interested in how sharp your lenses are, put the camera on a tripod, use live view to focus accurately, and shoot the exact same shot at different apertures. If you have subjects in the frame at different distances you can see what the impact on DOF is as well, how bokeh looks like with the lenses, etc.

 

[PeteMarshall]

The Minolta Rokkor 28/2.8 is a pretty sharp lens, even fully opened. However to make a judgement on a lenses sharpness it firstly needs to be focused on something and for the shutter speed to be such as to stop motion. In the case of the image shown, there is both movement in the people, camera shake from the user and the focus plaine placed somewhere in the middle distance.

Whilst using hyper focal distance as a quick aid to pre focus or when focusing is impossible, will ensure the required DoF that gives the appearance of things being in focus, it is certainly no way to test the qualities of a lens as no real judgement of lens quality could be made from the shown image.

For the shot above I certainly wouldn't be using f11 (in fact I would rarely shut a lens down this much on any small format camera, let alone m 4:3 sensors, leave much below f8 for larger sensors and below f 11 for large format unless using the latest L series Canons and the like, older lens are great tool, but the CA when shut down is too much for digital sensor, you can hide a multitude of sins in a lens with film, that sensors soon expose).

As this lens is pretty good (I have one) I would most likely be shooting fully open, or stopped down perhaps a stop. In order to avoid camera shake and subject movement I would be at around 1/250. If I wanted some movement from the subject, I would make that more apparent by use of a much slower shutter speed, 1/20 or so with the camera on a tripod to avoid camera shake. Focus on one of the kids eyes and shoot. This would throw the background nicely out of focus, taking advantage of the excellent bokeh from the Minolta lens. Use the ISO setting to get the exposure settings correct.

To test a lens qualities follow the advice above if feppe's post.
By the way, here's an example of the very same lens in action on my GF-1. For street work I preset focus. This shot slightly stopped down..most likely a stop as that is how I usually work...but may be a stop and a half from the look of the background.
View attachment 151170
Street Scene by curmudgeonly troutmask, on Flickr