# Do all digital SLR's take a slightly out of focus shot?



## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

Do all digital SLR's take a slightly out of focus shot?

I have been pushing my self to get a Nikon D80 and today went in to take a couple of pics so i could take a CD home and check the images out

In general it seems like a good camera and great lens combo for £799 < they also got buy now pay later.

But the shots seem just a little out of focus, great amount of detail in the image and I should think they look great on 5x7 prints.

So do all digital cameras take a slightly out of focus or fuzzie shot and therefore need a bit of sharpening? Or is it just that model?


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## D-50 (Sep 20, 2006)

I dont have any experience with that model but DSLRs take extremely sharp pictures compared to a point and shoot. You may have not been focusing correctly, there is no way a DSLR should give out of focus results on purpose.


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## Big Mike (Sep 20, 2006)

At what magnification were you viewing the image?

I don't think that digital SLR cameras are any more or less accurate than film SLR camera are...but very few people looked at 35mm film at 200% with the resolution of a computer screen.

You can adjust the amount of 'in-camera' sharpening or use RAW (which has none applied)...or you can use Photoshop to sharpen the images.  A lot of people do find that images from a DSLR don't have the as much sharpness & saturation as images from digi-cams.  This is because digi-cams often have those settings cranked up to impress consumers who don't know anything about post processing.  It's reasonable to assume that a DSLR user will be more inclined to post process their images...and therefore don't want those settings cranked up from the camera.


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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

It wasn't a raw file but was on super fine so some compression

Took a couple inside the shop and two or three outside.

Had it on Auto focus and auto metering for speed.

My comarison is with a file thats been scanned from a 35mm neg at the highest res possible by the shop.


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## Jeff Canes (Sep 20, 2006)

Thats easy answers NO, IMO i would say the opposite DSLR are generally sharper that film at any speed, there could be hundred reasons why an image is out of focus, could you post some sample, that would help


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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

I'm just trying to find the best place to put the pic so you can see it.

Any tips?


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## Big Mike (Sep 20, 2006)

Photobucket.com


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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

hows this?

Much detail, but just very slightly out of focus on my screen


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## Soocom1 (Sep 20, 2006)

First, the image to me at least looks tack on!
I do notice the following though:

Your focused in on her left eye, and probably shooting at a wide aperture. 
looks like the camera is balancing out to the light spots, and this gives an illusion of out of focus.  
The screen I am looking at the image on is a Dell 1800 FP LCD monitor.  

IMOHO
If any advice, take a step or two back, drop the stop down by a half to full stop, and refocus in on her nose, and cheeks. This will allow for a sharper focus for her entire face.  (Notice the hair in front is out of focus.)


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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

So you think the depth of field is contributing to the issue rather than a general focus issue

I shot this really quick, stepped out of the shop and took 5 pics with the nervous assitant waiting by my side.


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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

Here are two with different ISO settings to check how it handled sky


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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)




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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

Interesting how it deals with the sky grad in the 1st one?

One is set on 200iso and the other 600 or 800iso


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## Hair Bear (Sep 20, 2006)

And just for a complete comparison this was taken on the trusty F-601 onto 200asa film, dev and scanned on to CD.

Please excuse the eye patch!


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## Soocom1 (Sep 20, 2006)

You got the idea...
Good use of DOF by the way.


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## ksmattfish (Sep 20, 2006)

Hair Bare said:
			
		

> So do all digital cameras take a slightly out of focus or fuzzie shot and therefore need a bit of sharpening?



The term "out of focus" implies operator error or AF malfunction to me.  It's my opinion that correctly focused, but unsharpened photos from most DSLRs are slightly soft, and can use a little sharpening in post-processing.  Most DSLRs apply some in-camera sharpening when shooting jpegs.  You might try adjusting yours to suit your taste.  I find the same is true when scanning film; I need to apply sharpening to the scan to get the sharpness I'd expect from a straight optical print.

That said, correctly focused photos from a DSLR should look pretty good as prints even without sharpening.  As Big Mike said, looking at your image files at 100% is like looking at a print with a magnifying glass.  I find viewing them at 50% or 66% is closer to what I'll see in a print 10"x15" or smaller.  

There are plenty of other influences on the sharpness of a photo though:  zoom vs. prime lens, hand held shutter speed, etc....  I've been disappointed with my Canon 20D auto-focus.  With apertures smaller than f/4 it does a pretty good job, but with larger apertures than f/4 it's often off a hair; which is the difference between sharp eyes, and sharp ears or nose.  I'm not a big fan of AF anyway, so my AF technique may be lacking too.  I put manual focusing screens in my DSLRs, and turned the AF off.


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## DeepSpring (Sep 20, 2006)

ksmattfish said:
			
		

> I put manual focusing screens in my DSLRs, and turned the AF off.



Can I ask what that is? Because I am also someone who keeps it on manual and seldom touches the AF


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## Rob (Sep 21, 2006)

DeepSpring said:
			
		

> Can I ask what that is? Because I am also someone who keeps it on manual and seldom touches the AF



With manual cameras and most film SLRs there is a bit of ground glass whose appearance changes when the focus is just right. DSLRs all have auto focus and are mainly supplied with a plain viewfinder.

For about £30 you can buy a bit of ground glass which does the same thing for a DSLR.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=14612329

Rob


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## Hair Bear (Sep 21, 2006)

Great feed back

Its a possibility that the scanner opperator is applying a sharped mask to the images or his software is by default.

When I have had contract scanning done for publication all my suppliers know not to sharpen the images in anyway as I don't like it and they all tend to over sharpen IMO.

So I get them raw and alter them myself.

With Snappy Snap I have never thought to ask them about sharpening so  it may already be on the file when I get it.

I did sharpen the digital file and it did improve it.

Still not convinced I can afford the D80 but working towards gettting it any way. Jessops having interest free!!! < need to be able to take pictures with my current set up 1st! LOL


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## THORHAMMER (Sep 24, 2006)

its easy to spot the piece of hair on her forehead that was blurry from the wind blowing it... You were probably shooting a 15th of a second too slow for perfect sharpness....


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## Hair Bear (Sep 24, 2006)

THORHAMMER said:
			
		

> its easy to spot the piece of hair on her forehead that was blurry from the wind blowing it... You were probably shooting a 15th of a second too slow for perfect sharpness....




And the second pic I posted was taken with a flash so would have stopped any hair movement?


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## THORHAMMER (Sep 24, 2006)

yes, but also what i mean is you were just barely too slow shutter speed to totally freeze her... if you had upped the iso a little you would have nailed it perfect.....Or opened the aperature a little....


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## Hair Bear (Sep 24, 2006)

Noobie question Thorn but is the upping the ISO going from 200 to 100 or from 200 to 400?


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## Hair Bear (Sep 24, 2006)

What Camera have a review of the D80 this issue and a couple of images to download from their web site.

One pic is of a womans face and it has similar problems looking very sightly out of focus, see link

http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/gallery/Nikon-D80

Again I feel to my eye there is lots of detail in the shot, some of it very fine. Both images looked much better with a little sharpening.

Is it to do with how the hair is made of lots of little pixels and therefore look slightly fuzzy?

The downlaod image is also in print and looks OK.


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