Terrible image quality on my new D7000?! Pics..

[Ett]

Hi there guys.

Just got myself a D7000 today, and I'm pretty disappointed in the image quality this thing is giving me. My shots look like compressed JPEG images. Here's an example:

Here's a shot I took this afternoon at 1:1





Here's that same shot at 3:1





Now that's on a D7000, with an 85mm f/1.4 lens. Here's another photo taken with a D80 paired with a 50mm 1.8

1:1





3:1





So what's going on?

EXIF for the first shot:

1/800
85mm at f/1.4
ISO 320


The second shot was at ISO 200.

Now, I don't know why the shots from the D7000 are so terrible. The image quality in the D80 is obviously better, which simply shouldn't be possible. The D7000 shots also feel quite noisy.

They were shot in RAW, with the RAW compression set to lossless, and at 14 bit.

The only thing that I did differently with these photos is that I shot them in sRGB, as opposed to Adobe RGB. Would that be the cause of this?

So I suspect that it's a setting I've done or something. Any ideas?

[OsmosisStudios]

Hard to compare the two: the first image is soft. It's out of focus and underexposed. The second is properly exposed and sharp. That's where the noise is coming in (under/overexposure), and why the image quality looks bad (focus).

My main issue: Why are you comparing them at 300%? 100% is already too much (75% is ample), but 300% is actually showing you pixels.

You *are* getting jpeg compression artifacts: were they processed/saved EXACTLY the same way? If not, you cant compare,

[IABoomer]

85mm @ f/1.4 is going to give you a really shallow depth of field, depending on how close to the subject you are. My initial thought is that it's a missed focus issue and something in the frame that isn't her face might be in good focus. Could you post a scaled-down full version of the first image to see if something other than her face is in focus?

You could try shooting another test shot in full-auto (green box) mode just to make sure the camera/lens combo actually works. After that, you can start digging through settings, or possibly look in the manual for a reset procedure to get things back to factory fresh.

[ptremb3043]

From what I can see there is 2 things about those pics that are different straight off. 1) the first pic is out of focus as compared to the second. 2) the second shot is more brightly light with no shadow areas to show noise. Not having the entire pic of both shots makes it hard to compare them. Look at the histogram for both pictures, are they centered or is one more to the left or right. Also going more than 100% will make the enlarged picture look extremely nasty as the pixel scale is magnified to match the resolution of your viewing source, hence the reason the d80 looks better than the d7000 at 3:1 as there is less pixels to blend for a given monitor size. Redo this w/ a control subject in the same light w/ the same lens on both cameras and make sure to include some shadow in the image to compare the noise level in the shadow areas to get a good comparison.

[Ett]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Hard to compare the two: the first image is soft. It's out of focus and underexposed. The second is properly exposed and sharp. That's where the noise is coming in (under/overexposure), and why the image quality looks bad (focus).

But is it really? Here's another shot, perfectly in focus, and here's the same problem:

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

My main issue: Why are you comparing them at 300%? 100% is already too much (75% is ample), but 300% is actually showing you pixels.

Yeah, I know that going up so high isn't practical, but I'm just trying to see what the picture looks like on the two cameras at a similar zoom. While I might be seeing pixels at 300, I'm also seeing all the artifacting that shouldn't be happening.

Photos from a $1200 camera with a $2000+ len should be crystal clear at 100%, at least. Shouldn't they?

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

You *are* getting jpeg compression artifacts: were they processed/saved EXACTLY the same way? If not, you cant compare,

Yep. Both of these shots have been shot in RAW, imported into lightroom (converted to DNG in the process), and then just exported right now.

Originally Posted by IABoomer

85mm @ f/1.4 is going to give you a really shallow depth of field, depending on how close to the subject you are. My initial thought is that it's a missed focus issue and something in the frame that isn't her face might be in good focus. Could you post a scaled-down full version of the first image to see if something other than her face is in focus?

Yeah, you're right. So I've added a new set above, and here's a scaled down full image:

[Ett]

Originally Posted by IABoomer

You could try shooting another test shot in full-auto (green box) mode just to make sure the camera/lens combo actually works.

Alright, I just tested this now. I shot the same image in Manual, with the lens at 1.4, and then on Auto, and the camera shot that at f/2. The results were actually pretty disappointing, for the lens. Here's the shot in Manual at f/1.4:





Close up:





Same shot at F2:





Close up:





This is quite disappointing. Everything I read about this lens was good, and one thing that really stood out was that you could shoot at 1.4 and still have an incredibly sharp photo. But one stop down and it's significantly sharper?!

I got this lens today as well, and did an entire shoot with it at 1.4 this afternoon, thinking it would be fine.

So if I had shot all of this at, say, f2, I wouldn't have these issues? Is this basically the solution here?

[OsmosisStudios]

Your new example is still slightly off. Without crops, I'd say her necklace is in focus more than her face is. It's also still underexposed: boost it by about +1/3 and we'll talk.

The artifacting youre seeing at 300% isnt artifacting: it's pixels. Youre mistaking the two.

The issues with both noise and artifacts you're running into are also likely exacerbated by whatever editing youre doing/not doing to your images.

No lens is perfect wide open, but for f/1.4 that's pretty damned good. Very good in fact. At f/2, which is still VERY open and plenty fast and still gives you shallow DoF, youre getting even better performance.

Youre gonna have to start being more specific about what it is youre not liking. Give us an example with specific points you dont like: Im not seeing anything wrong on the camera/lens side.

[Ett]

The more I'm playing around the more I'm discovering that all my "unhappiness" with regards to these shots are related to the lens not being as sharp as I expected it to be at 1.4. See, I bought this camera and this lens today. Having read a bunch of reviews about the lens online, I was under the impression that it would have been less fuzzy at 1.4. Here's another example. I took a photo of a label. Here's the scene:





And here's the label, starting at 1.4, stopping down to f2.8. At f2 it's already significantly better, at 2.8 it's golden.








So I think that all of this is just related to my shooting at 1.4. I'll do some more testing this weekend, and more shooting at f2 and 2.8.

Thanks for your help guys, I'll keep you posted.

[IABoomer]

I suppose it's also entirely possible that your lens is front or back focusing a little, which would show up more wide open because of the shallow DoF.

You might want to setup a little focus test like this one to see if the lens is focusing in front of or behind the target. I'm pretty sure the D7000 can make micro-adjustments for this, but you'd have to search the manual for step-by-step instructions.

DIY - Micro Adjustment And Calibration Tool For Lenses | DIYPhotography.net

[homank76]

Shooting at F/1.4 is a skill that takes a lot to master. I would look at a DOF calculator and see exactly how small your range of in focus area will be...you might be shocked.