micro nikkor 85/3.5 toothy edges

<p>hi there, recently I bought micro nikkor 85mm 3.5 because of AF issues having with sigma 150/2.8 macro. Was quite happy with overall behaviour of this lens but I found that it somehow renders toothy edges with my D2X body. Don´t know why this happens and would like to get rid of it. Canceling automatic sharpening in camera doesn´t help. Have someone met with this issue?</p>

<p>sample picture</p><div></div>

<p>Jaggies and aliasing can usually be minimized with more careful sharpening. Avoid global sharpening in-camera or during post processing. That includes heavy global re-sharpening of photos reduced to smaller dimensions for web display.</p>

<p>See this thread for tips to more effective sharpening (and try to ignore the tiresome digressions in that thread - just concentrate on the actual info provided by the original poster): <a href="../digital-darkroom-forum/00UZQR">3 STEP SHARPENING - Photo.net Digital Darkroom Forum</a></p>

<p>as I already wrote, this jaggies are visible even without any post process sharpening and with in-camera sharpening set to NONE.</p>

<p>JPEG or RAW? NX2?</p>

<p>raw, processed in adobe camera raw, but it is visible already on the display of the camera.<br>

it looks like some kind of interference with bayer mask, on 400% percent magnification is visible that it always skips in 2x2 pixels instead of 1 pixel step<br>

i have several other lenses, tack sharp primes, none other do this thing</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"as I already wrote, this jaggies are visible even without any post process sharpening and with in-camera sharpening set to NONE."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't recall reading that in your original post. EXIF data shows the sample JPEG was sharpened both in the camera and during post processing. However EXIF data viewers can misinterpret meta data for edited JPEGs.</p>

<p>Perhaps you could reshoot a sample photo ensuring that no sharpening is done in the camera or during post.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"...it is visible already on the display of the camera."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I doubt the D2X LCD has high enough resolution to accurately spot sharpening characteristics such as aliasing. My D2H gives me only a general idea of whether a photo is in focus, but nothing about critical sharpness or aliasing.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"...i have several other lenses, tack sharp primes, none other do this thing..."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The lens wouldn't be a factor in this.</p>

<p>Yes, I too understand the lens should have not effect here. It must be something in the processing stage (camera or computer).</p>

<p>Hmmm... That sample picture of yours simply looks <strong>upsampled</strong> to me, i.e., we are seeing it at more than 100%. I agree with Lex that this has nothing to do with a particular lens - it must be in the post-processing. Or "pre-processing", if we are talking in-camera settings :-)<br /><br />Try shooting the exact same picture with two lenses and process them identically.<br /><br />BTW, I just calculated that if your monitor is 72DPI, and you look at the image at 400%, that corresponds to 18 DPI or an image size of 20 x 13 feet for a D2x. I wouldn't be suprised to see jagged edges at that size for normal monitor viewing distances :-)<br /><br />Soeren</p>

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

<p>I need to upgrade from my D2H to a D2X. I never see elephants standing in snow in my photos.</p>

<p>hmm, my english is probably very poor that you don´t understand me<br>

crop of the picture is not upsampled, you can see many lines there that actually are NOT jaggy<br>

and yes this particular picture was sharpened in body and even in post-process, so that you can clearly see what is happening, but unsharpened image doesn´t look much different</p>

<p><em>"visible already on the display of the camera."</em> The camera's display show your in-camera settings for JPGs even though you are shooting RAW so if you have the sharpening turned up, it will show on the camera's monitor. </p>

<p>Do you see the effect in your prints or only at extreme magnification? Have you done side-by-side comparisons of the identical shot with two different lenses?</p>

 

<p>There does seem to be some 2x2 blocking going on. My first suspicion would have been the 2x2 chroma downsampling on lower-quality JPEGs (and higher quality ones, as produced by my D700). If you have a boundary for which the colour change is more significant than the brightness change, which <i>might</i> be the case on some of these edges, you do tend to see some blocking. Processing in RAW and saving JPEGs with no chroma downsampling (in Photoshop, this means quality > 50%, I believe) ought to help.<br />

<br />

However, if you're already using RAW and you can see the problem on-screen before saving the image, I agree that it's probably a bayer issue. Again, bayer patterns are better at recording changes in luminance than colour, so if you have a sharp edge with a significant colour shift on it, a bit of blocking isn't too surprising. A different RAW converter might use another algorithm, and do better with it. I'm surprised the low-pass filter isn't smoothing it out, though.<br />

<br />

Have you considered smearing some vaseline on the lens? :-) (Actually, since I've mostly heard bad things about the 85mm micro, it's good to see that it's sharp enough to cause this problem!)</p>

<p>that is exactly what I thought when I saw it for the first time<br>

i will try Nikon capture nx2 or maybe some low-fi filter mounted on if it won´t help<br>

thank you Andrew</p>

 

<p>[belatedly] you're welcome, Karol - I hope it helps. Please report back? I'll be interested to know what you uncover.</p>

<p>capture NX2 pretty much canceled jaggies, here is sample (just opened and saved)</p><div></div>

<p>Now it appears unsharp overall. Take a look at the thread I referred to in my first reply. <a href="../photodb/user?user_id=760139">Patrick Lavoie</a> is a genuine expert and professional photo editor. I learned a few tricks for refining sharpness without going overboard into aliasing from his techniques.</p>