No sharpness, Please help...

[raamakants]

Hi, I bought Canon 7D with 100 MM f2.8 L lenses. The problem I am facing is that I am not getting sharp images with this camera.

I shoot following image using 2 Elinchrom FX400 Ri strobe with soft-boxes (4 o clock and 8 o clock). I took reading from my sekonic exposure mater and set camera to following setting:

ISO: 100
Aperture: F5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250



As you can see this image doesn't have sharpness and light is also uneven on her face. It looks like shooting without any light.

I am not being able to understand that it's camera or lense problem or some setting problem.

Please help.

[OsmosisStudios]

Without being able to see a larger size, I really couldn't tell you. I'd almost need 100% crops.

Originally Posted by raamakants

As you can see this image doesn't have sharpness and light is also uneven on her face. It looks like shooting without any light.
.

That's a lighting issue, not a camera or lens issue.

[sk66]

I think there IS an area of sharpness, it's just very shallow due to DOF (f/stop and distance) and the image lacks contrast which hides sharpness (lighting).

[xd40c]

Originally Posted by sk66

I think there IS an area of sharpness, it's just very shallow due to DOF (f/stop and distance) and the image lacks contrast which hides sharpness (lighting).

Agree. her nose and forehead appear sharp , but the hair on the back of her head is already out of focus.

Maybe higher f/stop or move back a bit?

[BigVinnie]

Hard to tell with the small image but it looks like our focus point is off. The hair on the top of the head in front appears to be in focus.

Take the lens off of autofocus and try manually focusing on the eyes. I've found with my camera that the focus point is easily fooled with people. I usually manually tweak the focus just after the half press.

[raamakants]

Thanks to OsmosisStudios, sk66, xd40c and BigVinnie for your time to check this. Here is the URL of big image:

http://www.clickmanic.com/images/dps/IMG2457big.jpg

I used single point AF, focus on her eyes and recompose the shoot.

Can we bring life to this image with post production?

[OsmosisStudios]

Looking at the eyes: They *are* in focus.

As I said in my first post, when you shoot RAW your camera applies NO processing. This includes sharpening, which you WILL see on the LCD at the back of the camera but that you WONT when you open it in your RAW converter. You need to add the sharpening yourself in editing. I'd recommend reading up on the High Pass filter and using it.

I threw it into photoshop really quickly and added a High Pass filter to it with a radius of 1.5px (rather small) and it cleaned it right up.

Shooting in RAW means doing alot of work yourself, and that incudes sharpening. Learn to add it to your processing routine.

As for contrast and bringing "life" to the image, that's not done in post, it's done with lighting, so it's a bit late now. You've got good microcontrast, you just need to change the way your lights are set up to bring out a bit more depth. Again, something I mentioned in my first post.

[venkatvijay2000@yahoo.com]

From the catch lights in the eye of the model, I can make out that the lights are placed bit far off for a FX400Ri. Hope the power was at least 3.0 or more.

Pls. check some samples clicked with only one FX400Ri and a foamcore ( Thermocol) sheet as reflector. Slight sharpening was added in post processing

Avani Photo Gallery by V Vijay at pbase.com

camera D300 , lens 100mm F2 DC

[sk66]

Here's a fairly-quick edit:
Duplicated image to new layer and then sharpened original(bottom layer). Erased eys from duplicate layer. Copied sharpened eyes to new layer and did shadow/highlights adjustment layer mode to overlay (I think). Merged layers and did levels/curves adjustments. I wasn't overly careful in editing, but it gives you an idea of what can be, and normally is, done for portraits.

[BigVinnie]

There is nothing wrong with the image as far as sharpness. The problem is lack of shadows.

I took the image and first corrected the white balance by choosing the white reflection in the eye on the left. I brought the eyes and lips up a bit then added a B&W mask to just the hair. I did not do any sharpening.

I really think the complaint you have is more to do with lighting than anything else. There are no edge shadows and that fools the eye into thinking it is soft. All photoshop does to add sharpness is place white and black pixels around the existing ones to give contrast.

Play around a bit with using one light with a softbox or umbrella in close.

I'm really new at photoshop so forgive the rough job on this image.