D-Lux 3 Unsharp Photos

[lieberdavid]

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I'm an M and R film user who's been watching the development of digital photography. I do not own a digital camera yet, but I'm about ready to begin learnng to use one. I have my eye on getting a D-Lux 3. The picture samples using this camera posted by others that I see on this and other forums, however, seen to me to be almost uniformly unsharp.

 

Can anyone comment on this?

 

Thanks.

David

[DaveEP]

I have an M8 and a DLux3, and I can tell you that the DLux3 comes no where near as sharp as the M8 does.

 

But if you think about it, if the DLux3 was a good/sharp as the M8, Leica would be in big trouble.... you can't expect a £500 all in one camera to replicate the results of a £3000 camera + £,000s of lenses needed to match all the focal lengths the DLux3 zoom can reach.

 

Now, having said all this, if you shoot RAW on the DLux3, you can often get some pretty awesome results, and printing to A3 should not be a problem.

 

Make sure you know exactly where the ISO is set though, because high ISO is noisy to say the least....

[Guest malland]

It's sharp enough for me:

 

 

...or is it?

 

 

—MItch/Bangkok

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

[Guest malland]

Another thought: if you're suffering from sharpness-itis, I would prescribe reading the folllowing thread:

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/16946-when-i-hear-iq-i-reach.html?highlight=gun

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

[lieberdavid]

Malland,

 

Your photos are excellent! First ones I've seen with the D-Lux 3 that seem sharp to me. Do you think shooting in black and white has anything to do with it?

 

By the way, I am in Chiang Mai.

 

David

[Guest magyarman]

Except bat focus ora shacking camera mostly something fotos looks sharp on the www. If was D-Lux-3 did not to have marque of Leica nobody gonna pay it some respectful above to any one other pointing shoot make for mother take fotos her kids.

[edtpm]

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David,

I would say if the picture is not sharp enough if you want to use the photo to it's maximum resolution like 3168x2376. However, it looks very sharp if you resize it to 1024x768 or smaller. That's my feeling.

 

I had posted some picture in below thread. The actual size of the flower in the photo is around 0.5~1 cm in radius. FYI

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/15795-how-much-difference-picture-quality-iso.html?highlight=D-lux+difference

[lieberdavid]

Hi Erwin,

 

Thanks for your post. I have looked at your flower photos and they do seem fine to me.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "resizing". When you make the file smaller in number of pixels you are losing information and therefore resolution, aren't you? So how could the picture be sharper?

 

Or do you mean that you are keeping the file size the same but making smaller prints? That would make more sense to me. I can see that then the pictures would appear sharper.

 

David

[ski542002]

Hello:

 

I was shooting an assignment and had a few moments in my hotel room. Shot this raw file from my LX-2 (same raw as the dLux-3), 100 asa, F8, with camera mounted on a small table-pod. Processed in ACR.

 

I attached the full-frame image, and a 100% crop of the same. You can clearly see the type on the cables, and the dust on the curve of the Apple Mouse.

 

Sharpness I think is great for a small-chip camera.

 

CD

[Guest malland]

Your photos are excellent! First ones I've seen with the D-Lux 3 that seem sharp to me. Do you think shooting in black and white has anything to do with it?

 

By the way, I am in Chiang Mai.

David

Thanks for the kind words. No the pictures are just as good in color. In any case I'm using only the RAW files which are in color, and I then convert to B&W.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

[Guest malland]

Except bat focus ora shacking camera mostly something fotos looks sharp on the www. If was D-Lux-3 did not to have marque of Leica nobody gonna pay it some respectful above to any one other pointing shoot make for mother take fotos her kids.

Neither statement is true. The first one, to the degree I can understand the English, seems to say that all photos loook sharp on the web: that's just plain silly. The second one, that the D-Lux 3 would not be appresiated if it didn't have the Leica brand, is also not true: the Panasonic LX2, the same camera, is just as well appreciated among small sensor cameras.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[edtpm]

Hi Erwin,

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "resizing". When you make the file smaller in number of pixels you are losing information and therefore resolution, aren't you? So how could the picture be sharper?

 

Or do you mean that you are keeping the file size the same but making smaller prints? That would make more sense to me. I can see that then the pictures would appear sharper.

 

David

 

David,

 

In general, I will take picture in maximum resolution. Then I will use Photoshop or Picasa to resize the picture to smaller size. Yes, keeping the file size the same but making smaller prints will show better. I think resize the pictures by computer software will be similar to this.

 

Best Regards,

[ECliffordSmith]

David,

 

I can understand the reason for your question.

 

I own a D-Lux 2 which has the same lens and am very happy with it.

 

I have found that smaller apertures with infinity focus can produce softer images but this is due to the focus rather than the lens in my opinion.

 

I have a lot of images on my pbase site taken with this camera if you would like to take a look.

[ECliffordSmith]

David,

 

You may find this of interest.

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/13956-d-lux-3-looks-soft.html#post145263