Does this Image Look Sharp?

<p>This is taken with my newly acquired D80 Nikon. The camera has a very tight lens flange. Nothing seems very sharp to me?<br>

I've already gotten a return label to ship it back. I thought I'd ask the gallery what you think? It looks fuzzy to my eyes, on my monitor.<br>

The lens is a 28/F3.5 AI Nikkor set to F8, shutter speed is 1/500th, focused to the hyperfocal distance of F5.6. this lens was always tack sharp on my old D50.</p><div></div>

<p>Steve,</p>

<p>If this is shot as a JPEG image check the picture control setting it was shot on. Portrait's tend to be a bit soft where Landscapes tend to be sharper. Might just be as simple as this, worth checking first.<br /><br />John</p>

<p>absolutely positively no way to tell with a reduced size jpeg on the web.</p>

<p>Yeah, it's way too scaled down to tell. Post a full size version or a 100% crop of an area that you had in focus.</p>

<p>Hard to tell, however, the D80 is going to need a little sharpening, as with most/all DSLRs. Is this your first DSLR? There is a learning curve, so don't panic.</p>

<p>Every time I get an image like that it is because I hand held the camera. Even at 1/500th of a second, there may just enough shutter/body movement to give the appearance of the leaves on the trees as less than tack sharp. I would try the camera on a tripod, any tripod, before returning it. </p>

<p>Whether the images you take with it have sharp focus or not, I would not want a camera with a very tight lens flange--seems problematic to me.</p>

<p>If the 28mm f3.5 works nicely on the OP's D50 and doesn't on his D80, with a tight flange, I'd suspect flange damage and a resulting misalignment. </p>

<p>However, I'm not quite sure I understand..</p>

<p>............"28/F3.5 AI Nikkor set to F8, shutter speed is 1/500th, <strong>focused to the hyperfocal distance of F5.6</strong>"...........what does that mean??</p>

<p>.."28/F3.5 AI Nikkor set to F8, shutter speed is 1/500th, <strong>focused to the hyperfocal distance of F5.6</strong>"...........what does that mean??<br>

This means that with a crop 1.5 camera. I'm allowing for DoF to be reduced. So I'm shooting at F8, but have the focus racked over to F5.6's, hyperfocal distance.<br>

Everything from about 6 feet to infinity should appear in focus.</p>

<p>Forget hyperfocal focusing and actually focus on something. If you want to check that there's proper register between the sensor and focusing screen, then take a picture of the moon with the lens set to infinity.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Everything from about 6 feet to infinity should appear in focus.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Only on a postage stamp sized print! There's really no such thing as depth of field, it's a fictional concept that depends on many variables, not the least on how big you print and your own definition of "sharp". If you want us to tell if that picture's sharp, you need to post a 100% crop from it, but it probably won't be if you've just been setting a random focusing distance from hyperfocal scales.</p>

<p>Oh, OK, like this? </p><div></div>

<p>I kinda get the idea of how you're trying to limit the DoF, but it's a pretty odd picture to do it to.....especially with the taking aperture of f8. You're never going to get much OoF effect. That puts the focal plane at 5m or 15 ft. There's nothing there and a lot of the DoF is your side of that...</p>

<p>Anyway, if this style worked for you on your D50 and doesn't on your D80, I'd send it back with a very suspect flange distance.</p>

<p>If you're trying hyperfocal photography with a messed up flange distance, I'd reckon this is what it would look like!</p>

<p>Can you focus on infinity optically rather than mathematically?</p>

<p>A curious lens that Mike. There are pink coloured D-o-F scale markings, but none of the aperture numbers are filled in pink! Does the Ai ring belong on that lens from new?</p>

<p>BTW, my D-o-F calculator shows that the hyperfocal distance for a 28mm lens on DX at f/8 should be around 5.2m or 17ft. Whatever. As you say, there appears to be nothing in the sample picture at 15 to 17ft from the camera.</p>

<p>Sorry Rodoe, the WB in my living room is kinda crap! Serial number 1940006. New pic is with flash...</p><div></div>

<p>this entire discussion is moot without a close-up (preferably of the center and one of the corners) that shows us if it's really sharp or not. The internet-sized jpeg is useless.</p>

<p>It may be how the camera is rendering color which can be perceived as a sharpness issue, especially on bright sunny days with blue skies and lots of contrast. If the camera is over saturating certain colors, which I know they can, then this over saturation blows the color out of proportion which can make objects like leaves and flowers appear less sharp. I’ve owned the D50 and currently have a D90. On both of these cameras light and color has always been a concern. So, to me, it is the lighting conditions combined with the color of the objects that are the primary problem and not necessarily the camera system. Your test image may also be slightly overexposed which can also appear to have less contrast and hence to our eyes look less sharp. You may want to send the D80 back anyway, but before you do, go back to this same scene on an overcast day and bracket a few shots.</p><div></div>

<blockquote>

<p>"absolutely positively no way to tell with a reduced size jpeg on the web."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Peter Hamm is absolutely right. You need to post 100% crops of the area(s) in question.</p>

<p>One type of "fuzziness" (a kind of blooming) can be the result of over-exposure, although it usually manifests itself in contrasty images in which only certain portions of the image are over-exposed. I'm not sure that this is a relevant consideration in the case at hand, but, if you go back to the NEF file and adjust exposure compensation, you can find out.</p>

<p>-----<br>

Oops! I see that Robert Melone commented on this possibility just above my post.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Everything from about 6 feet to infinity should appear in focus."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>"In focus" and "sharp" are two different animals. See Rodeo Joe's post above. It (depth of field) is an illusion, and only a single plane in the image is actually pin sharp. If you focus at 15ft, then everything in front of and behind 15ft will be gradually "less in focus". It isn't in focus and sharp at 6ft and suddenly out of focus at 5.9ft for example.</p>

<p>You may indeed have a problem, but as Joe noted above you need to forget about hyperfocal distances and focus on an actual target and evaluate the sharpness of the image at that particular distance to eliminate the variable of depth of field from your test. This is where photos of boring flat brick walls actually excel. You can not only judge overall sharpness, but any difference in sharpness from side to side or top to bottom that a deformed lens flange might exhibit. Just make sure that you are as close to parallel to the target as possible.</p>

<p>I'll just add to Michael's comment that most lenses don't have a flat field of focus. So if you a pretty close to the wall, say only a few feet away, most lenses won't produce an image that is sharp edge to edge because the field of focus is actually a curved surface. The further away you are from the wall the closer you get to having a field of focus that resembles a flat plane, so you will want to distance yourself as far as you can while still capturing enough detail to evaluate the sharpness. Certain lenses, most macros for example, do however have a flat field of focus and should be sharp edge to edge when focused parallel to a flat subject.</p>

<p>I think your photo is in focus but not necessary sharp, as I originally stated this could be as simple as the camera being set on Portrait picture control if your shooting in JPEG. If shooting in Raw then a little sharpening needs to be applied. See before and after shot below.<br /><br />Cheers<br>

John</p><div></div>

<p>OP, where are you?</p>

<p>We'd like to see 100% crops of centre frame and an edge please...!</p>

<p>Is it out of Focus or is Depth of Field not masking Out-of-Focusness and just looking not-right??</p>