raaj

<p>I also new to photography, but I'm also considering a new tripod. Here are the problems I'm having with the current one I have (which is more of a video tripod vs photo) that you may want to avoid.<br>

1) It's not tall enough (eye level) without extending the neck. I find extending the neck make you vulnerable to vibrations, especially if you're shooting telephoto, and you're in a situation where there's sources of vibration, like a bridge or a windy location. I guess this only applies if you're shooting long exposures, like at night.<br>

2) It's not very convenient to adjust the horizon level, especially if you have to setup quickly.<br>

Good luck.</p>

<p>Wow! Thanks Ben. I was aware of avoiding halos and over sharpening, but I didn't realize that there was so much more to sharpening. I will definitely try what you've suggested, as well as doing more research on this.</p>

<p>You're also right about focusing, I haven't got the hang of it yet. I've experimented with trying to get perfect focus, and I've noticed that two images that I thought were focused exactly the same came out visibly very different.</p>

<p>Back to more practice....</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Thank you all for your comments.<br>

It's very comforting to know that I don't have a defective camera, and that I'm not doing something terribly wrong. I actually thought the image could be razor sharp at 100% pixel view on the screen.<br>

I've been playing with "sharpen" in Photoshop, and it's seems to be able to do wonders with a decent image. I will also try higher f stop and see if I can improve the original RAW image.<br>

Thanks again,<br>

Raaj</p>

<p>I'm new to digital photography. I have a Nikon D80, and I have a suspicion that it's producing soft images, but I'm not sure. Before I take it in to be checked, I'd like your opinion; I may be expecting too much. The following images were shot with the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lense at f/8, ISO 200, and on a tripod with cable release. The images were shot in RAW, converted to TIFF (no compression) then saved as TIFF (LZW). I'm using Photoshop Elements 2, but the images were NOT altered any other way. The shutter speeds are a little low, but there was absolutely no wind or other sources vibration. Also, I get similar results at higher shutters. I included the whole image (reduced) as well as a crop (not reduced) of the area that I was focusing on (manually). <br>

Image <a href="http://www.arniscanada.ca/1A.tif">1A</a> and <a href="http://www.arniscanada.ca/1B.tif">1B</a> were shot at 1/15s shutter<br>

Image <a href="http://www.arniscanada.ca/2A.tif">2A</a> and <a href="http://www.arniscanada.ca/2B.tif">2B</a> were shot at 1/125s shutter<br>

Image <a href="http://www.arniscanada.ca/3A.tif">3A</a> and <a href="http://www.arniscanada.ca/3B.tif">3B</a> were shot at 1/10s shutter<br>

Thanks,<br>

Raaj</p>

<p>Caribbean in Toronto Canada<br>

<img src="http://arniscanada.ca/20090701-0072.jpg" alt="" /></p>