D200 square/pixelated highlight points

Hi there folks.

 

I'm having a problem with my D200. The far highlight points (city lights at the

horizon) seem over-sharpened by the camera. Them have a square, pixelated

appearence.

 

When the points are large, using a small aperture I can get them to become

star-shaped, what is nice and avoid this problem. But with large apertures and

smaller highlight points I have this pixelation problem.

 

Is someone else experiencing this?

 

When I got the camera I tested it for banding and couldn't make it to show any

banding. I concluded that it was same in that regard. Anyway, this seem to me

like a 'residue' from a banding problem.

 

I don't know if there is a way to resolve the problem but I am just curious to

know if anyone else noticed this.

 

Cheers.

If you get "oversharpened "images a solution would be to switch in camera sharpening off and not to apply sharpening in post processing :-)

 

The D200 also offers to store images in RAW mode. You can process the downloaded images without any sharpening. In camera setting like sharpening that are applied to in camera produced "optimized" jpg images are not applied to the raw images.

 

Post processing allows more control of sharpening than what the tiny computer in the D200 can handle.

Can you post an example? Are you viewing at 100%?

Marcio, I suspect the effect you are seeing is what is referred to as 'ghosting'. This has nothing to do with your sensor nor sharpening. It is a function of the lens glass (coatings and optical design) and aperture. Some lenses will render the sun with pleasing, radiating, symmetrical 'spokes' while others deliver a blob-like orb. When shooting into the sun, a small aperture (f22) will deliver the far more pleasing look as compared to f2.8.

"<i>When shooting into the sun, a small aperture (f22) will deliver the far more pleasing look as compared to f2.8.</i>"<p>At the risk of being obvious, "pleasing" is a subjective term regarding <i>any</i> quality. <p>Consider also that F22 on some lenses is less sharp than that same lens at wider apertures, even though the image may be "in focus" at common focus planes. I agree you will get different results with F22 than with F2.8, and this is true in almost any comparison that can be reasonably made of these extremes. <p>I (also) suspect your problem is in-camera sharpening, which you might want to turn off and see if your undesireable effect goes away... t

Hi there fellows. Let me respond the observations so far:

 

I am shooting in RAW. I use the camera sharpening at normal.

 

I am viewing at 100% (I am posting examples below).

 

It's not a flare or optical phenomenon since it never happened before with my film cameras. With the D200 this happens with any lens. So I can only conclude it's a camera thing.

 

Here is an example:<div></div>

Just to explain the examples:

 

First, a 100% crop from a night scene. Observe like the points look more like squares.

 

The second image is the red channel from the first image. The arrow indicated a case where the phenomenom can be observed.

 

The third image is a sun setting behind some clouds (blue channel). Look how it seems pixelated. It even seems like JPG artifacts, which is not the case. All the other channels didn't have this problem, in this photo only the blue channel.

 

Well, thanks for your time and thoughts.

 

Cheers.