Double take

Captured this today, c/c welcome.

Thanks for looking

Gareth.

I found street photography of being one of the most difficult (but rewarding) areas of photography. An this is because it is really hard to become "invisible" and position yourself optimally when you take the shot. In time I realized that a small compact super-zoom (no longer than 10x) may be a better tool than a big DSLR with a very long telezoom. The reason? The little camera (the smaller the better) is far more inconspicuous and let you get closer to the subjects ("Yeah! Another all-you-can-click tourist... Just ignore him!" they say).

Your photo has all the good intentions of not only capturing a scene of life but also bringing a smile on the viewer faces. And this is a good thing.

There are few issues I'd like to address:

• the two subjects (the lady in the background and the little girl in the foreground) are almost on the same direction making it difficult to distinguish them properly;
• the photographer with the phone has very little contrast which makes him almost disappear in the decor -- here is one place where B/W does not help very much;
• the whole image is too soft; I suppose this is the effect of using such a long focal length -- a bit of post processing may help.

The family in the foreground is very well captured. I like their authenticity. They deserve to be highlighted through post-processing. I tried something myself -- you will be the judge. Use it as a starting point.

Overall, a nice capture that promises a lot in the future. I'm sure you won't stop here. In the end this was just a test for your new D7000 camera. Enjoy!

P.S. You have some very good street shots in your portfolio -- Seikou Susso is definitely one!

Hi Stefan, thanks for looking and taking time to help. I agree that sometimes the big DSLR is the wrong choice for street imaging, although on this occasion I was a fair distance away.

I am still getting the hang of the D7000 it is a lot different to a D60, I could use the 'auto' settings but really want to learn to choose the settings myself. Getting the right combination of focus mode, focus area and metering is proving to be a challenge, add to that ISO and aperture etc... Lots to take in.

As for post processing I am a complete novice, I have PSE9 installed but my skills so far extend to 'auto fix' and cropping. It is my intention to learn new skills over the winter months. I like what you have done to this image with the contrast and agree that the composition could have been better.

Once again thanks for looking

Regards

Gareth.

Hi Gareth,

One reason why the sharpness is off a bit is because there is some motion induced from hand holding the 300mm lens at 1/400 second.

Raise up the ISO to resolve that issue.

This is probably a Nikkor zoom lens which has a maximum aperture of F/5.6 at 300mm. I am speculating since the lens type used was not shown in the details. Even so, the sharpness at F/6 should be better than seen here.

Best Regards,  Mike

Hi Mike, thanks for stopping by, you are right about the lens it is my 55-300 that I have concerns about. On this occasion I had it on a monopod so not entirely hand held, I am wary about upping the iso too much due to noise and also this was on a bright sunny day so I assumed a low iso would be ok.

I am going to take some shots in the D7000 auto settings and see if that makes a difference but so far I have not seen much difference to my D60.

I simply think I haven't got the measure of the camera yet.

Regards

Gareth.

Hi Gareth,

I examined your image further. From the grass to the furthest point back, the  lens definition is compromised. Judging by the unclear "letter" on the boy's jacket, and the lack of sharpness of the boy's hair (several feet in the background) and the woman's hair in the foreground, you most likely have a zoom lens issue.

1] If the plane of focus was off, something would be in sharper focus, and nothing is.

2] If it is not hand shack, then I would suggest having the lens serviced by Nikon.

The lens itself has optical issues.

When I test lens and find this  redcuced level of  performance, the lens either goes from my lab to Nikon, or we service the lens at my facility.

As for ISO use, you need to become familiar with using ISO settings up to ISO 800 or 1600. The Nikon D7000 has many options built into the camera that can assist you to manage noise without the need of too much post processing.

If a scene is well exposed using high ISO, it will have much less noise than a scene that is barely recorded at the same ISO setting.

Best Regards,  Mike

Hi Mike, I have been looking back at some of my previous work and not all my images have this problem. This is the first VR lens I have used and I am wondering if I am taking the shot too soon and not giving the 'VR bit' time to settle? I have read that the 55-300 is slower than the 70-300 and maybe the VR cannot keep up with the focusing speed of the D7000. I have taken shots today and although not great images the focus error dosen't seem a problem. My image 'cleaning windows' seems ok even if my post processing is not great.

I had no problems with my D60 and this lens, although the focusing is slower so maybe the VR had more time to do its bit.

I guess the way to do a test would be to switch the VR off and see what difference it makes. You were right about upping the ISO though that does make a difference.

Best regards and thank you for your time.

Gareth.

Hi Gareth, I experienced some occasional blur with my Canon EF 70-300/4-5.6 IS USM which, as yours, doesn't carry a high price tag. It seems that the lens is responsive enough (doesn't require a settling time before shooting) but the results are not always perfect. I've studied a bit different "in-the-lens" image stabilization systems and they seem to rely on a floating lens element that is moved orthogonally to the optical axis; as a result, the light passing through the lens is shifted from its true optical path with some effect on the image projected on the sensor, especially in the areas supposed to be out of focus. Additionally, these systems cannot compensate very well for vibrations around the optical axis.

In practice, with my telezoom, I noticed good results in the center of the image but so-so results in the peripheral areas. It is not an effect of the optical softness of the lens because I tested by taking pictures of the same scene in three different conditions: handheld with IS on, monopod with IS on and tripod without IS. Comparing the results, I can say that the IS system is effective but not perfect: while the central part of the image was sharp in all cases, the peripheral area was sharper in the tripod case than in the handheld case. Unfortunately, these results are not very consistent -- you need to experiment a lot to draw a conclusion.

Your lens, like mine, is probably not in the high end class. Professional class lenses have the IS systems enhanced by all kind of corrections, including for the shift of the light from the optical path I mentioned above. I'm not sure how they actually solved the vibration around the optical axis, but I guess they have a solution for this too.

In the end, if you are looking for technical perfection, you should be ready to pay the premium for a high-end lens. But if you are like me, with budget constrains, you will have to learn the peculiarities of your equipment and find workarounds; one being using high ISO and shorter exposure times as Mike suggested.

In the end, you can apply the good old rule to determine the longest "safe" exposure that prevents motion blur for someone with relatively steady hands: assuming a 35 mm (full-frame) sensor, use 1/f where f is the focal distance in mm. For example, a 300 mm corresponds to 1/300 s. Starting from this limit, the IS system can only help. In street photography you should probably shorten the exposure time by a factor of 2...5 to take into consideration that you may not have enough time to take a steady posture yourself.

I'm sure that Mike may come with a more documented explanation and I would be really curious to hear his opinion regarding IS systems. It will be a learning experience for all of us reading this thread.

Hi Stefan, thanks for the comments and input.

I have done some test shots today and not once had the focus issue, I agree at times the centre is sharper but stopping down seems to help this and with increased ISO (up to 6400 without problems) I am starting to get better results.

I will admit the lens I have is not top of the range and knowing what I know now would have spent more on the 70-300. This lens is also not ideal for street photos as it is a bit too slow and bulky, although again much better with increased ISO.

Going back to the above image I think there is camera shake(even with use of monopod) certainly too low ISO(therefore slow shutter) and prehaps the small boy was moving at the time of the shot. So altogether not a very good image but at least it has got me exploring the right areas to make improvments. I have every intention to return and try again to see if the changes I am making work.

On another subject the memory card I have is a SDHC class 4, Nikon recommends at least class 6, I am wondering if this could have an effect on the way the data is stored. If anybody has any thoughts on this they are very welcome.

Gareth.

Don't worry about the class so much. It does nothing on the quality of the image - it will just slow you down in some situations.

It all depends how much you rely on continuous shooting. The class indicates the speed and does not affect the integrity of the data. The only noticeable difference is that, once the camera used the entire internal buffer, it will slow down to keep up with the memory card.

So, if you are a wild life or sports photographer go for the fast cards. Street photography will benefit as well.

Please visit Rob Galbraith's CF/SD Performance Database for more details. D7000 is not in the database, but you will get the idea by looking at similar cameras.

The SD cards are relatively cheap now, even class 10 are not too expensive. Just go for a reputable brand like SanDisk and Lexar; there are a lot of other cheap ones but you may experience occasional image file corruption (it happened to me). However, don't look for much higher than 6 (recommended by the manufacturer) - you will pay a premium for a marginal performance increase.

Good luck!

Thanks Stefan, I will stick to my current sandisk for now then.

Gareth.