Chris Davidson Photography
Ruddy-3115-j
Ruddy Duck male (Oxyura jamaicensis)
New Jersey
A friend of mine has recently asked a question on image sharpness and detail. Since there are many things that effect it, I thought it might be interesting to put up some thoughts here and hopefully some of you may take a moment to chime in and either correct things I'll mention below or add more thought on the subject....
Here is what comes to mind right off the bat.....
#1 Equipment stability- Any movement of the camera during the exposure can result in image degradation. This is both a tripod and technique issue and is usually most prevalent at slower shutter speeds.. Poor technique results in poor images!!!!
#2 Equipment calibration- many of you have either done this or know someone whom has, personally I have never seemed to have this need. Let me know if you think I need to though, maybe I'm missing something!!
#3 Atmospheric conditions- many different weather related conditions can have a dramatic effect on our final images.
Heat shimmer, haze, rainy, snowy, or foggy weather are what first come to mind.
#4 Subject distance- the farther our subject is from the camera the more detail we loose, so essentially cropping an image way down will obviously result in a soft image.
#5 Equipment-There is good reason why many of us have invested in quality equipment and it has little to do with wasting money. That's not to say everyone has to invest tens of thousands of dollars in equipment to get good images...
There are more reasonable alternatives on the market today than ever before, most do have their limitations but one can often work around these...
#6 Exposure- I personally think this is one of the most often over looked subjects..... Many people set the camera on auto exposure and just fire away, cameras are pretty smart today but they are not that smart.
Both over exposure and under exposure can have effects on image color and detail.....
Ruddy-3115-j
Ruddy Duck male (Oxyura jamaicensis)
New Jersey
A friend of mine has recently asked a question on image sharpness and detail. Since there are many things that effect it, I thought it might be interesting to put up some thoughts here and hopefully some of you may take a moment to chime in and either correct things I'll mention below or add more thought on the subject....
Here is what comes to mind right off the bat.....
#1 Equipment stability- Any movement of the camera during the exposure can result in image degradation. This is both a tripod and technique issue and is usually most prevalent at slower shutter speeds.. Poor technique results in poor images!!!!
#2 Equipment calibration- many of you have either done this or know someone whom has, personally I have never seemed to have this need. Let me know if you think I need to though, maybe I'm missing something!!
#3 Atmospheric conditions- many different weather related conditions can have a dramatic effect on our final images.
Heat shimmer, haze, rainy, snowy, or foggy weather are what first come to mind.
#4 Subject distance- the farther our subject is from the camera the more detail we loose, so essentially cropping an image way down will obviously result in a soft image.
#5 Equipment-There is good reason why many of us have invested in quality equipment and it has little to do with wasting money. That's not to say everyone has to invest tens of thousands of dollars in equipment to get good images...
There are more reasonable alternatives on the market today than ever before, most do have their limitations but one can often work around these...
#6 Exposure- I personally think this is one of the most often over looked subjects..... Many people set the camera on auto exposure and just fire away, cameras are pretty smart today but they are not that smart.
Both over exposure and under exposure can have effects on image color and detail.....