cl: no luck with sooc jpgs so far

[gteague]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

after just a few shots in various styles, i went in and maxed out the settings to try to increase contrast, sharpness, and saturation. i shot a few shots using each of the 5 styles and none were up to my standards which aren't that high as 98% of my stuff just goes on social media. worse, i couldn't much improve the jpgs in an editor either.

i went back and reset all of them and thought i'd ask the opinion as it might be camera shake or something else. here's a /std/ and a /b&w/ shot during magick hour of an object which ought to be (and is on all my other cameras) razor sharp and the highest contrast, but they look very very soft and low contrast. this forum doesn't seem to accept or display full quality images nor show exif, so i'm not sure how much you'll be able to tell from them.

/guy

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited March 12, 2020 by gteague

[lykaman]

Aloha, I suppose one must ask which Lens you are using?  you can give the EXIF info within your Post.. I'm no technician, but, Flare,  Over Exposure, ISO, EV & finally Aperture might all need some attention..   L

[gteague]

14 minutes ago, lykaman said:

Aloha, I suppose one must ask which Lens you are using?  you can give the EXIF info within your Post.. I'm no technician, but, Flare,  Over Exposure, ISO, EV & finally Aperture might all need some attention..   L

it's the tl 23/2 and looks to be in perfect shape although i didn't get it new. i've gotten some shots which were very sharp in the center wide open.

as to the other settings, i usually don't concern myself with those on my other cameras and let the /P/ mode do its work and i only diddle with the exposure compensation unless i need depth of field or the sweet spot for sharpness. it's my concern that the big difference is no stabilization on the cl and i'm old and very shaky.

and when i get a chance, i can take the cl and the 23/2 and my s1 and the 16-35 and shoot some objects, then swap lenses and shoot them again. this should eliminate the lens at least.

btw, would this be a case of the blind guiding the blind?  

/guy

Edited March 12, 2020 by gteague

[lykaman]

14 minutes ago, gteague said:

it's the tl 23/2 and looks to be in perfect shape although i didn't get it new. i've gotten some shots which were very sharp in the center wide open.

as to the other settings, i usually don't concern myself with those on my other cameras and let the /P/ mode do its work and i only diddle with the exposure compensation unless i need depth of field or the sweet spot for sharpness. it's my concern that the big difference is no stabilization on the cl and i'm old and very shaky.

and when i get a chance, i can take the cl and the 23/2 and my s1 and the 16-35 and shoot some objects, then swap lenses and shoot them again. this should eliminate the lens at least.

btw, would this be a case of the blind guiding the blind?  

/guy

Sir, I'm not to sure your comment about Blind leading the Blind is/was called For.. It's your images that are in question, my vision however poor and distorted is able to ascertain various aspects of images..  Regards,   L

[gteague]

6 minutes ago, lykaman said:

Sir, I'm not to sure your comment about Blind leading the Blind is/was called For.. It's your images that are in question, my vision however poor and distorted is able to ascertain various aspects of images..  Regards,   L

i was commiserating with your signature and noting the irony considering that my eyes have been horrible since  birth: 20/400 left 20/1200 right corrected to about 20/80 and 20/200. after cataract surgery a couple years ago my brain finally and completely divorced my right eye as it got tired of receiving faulty and warped data. i've had to give up my target shooting and astronomy and i'm only hanging onto photography  by a thread.

i apologize if i seemed flip, the intent was the opposite. if these shots had been with a manual focus lens i would never have asked the question as i always blame my eyes first.

/guy

Edited March 12, 2020 by gteague

[lykaman]

1 hour ago, gteague said:

i was commiserating with your signature and noting the irony considering that my eyes have been horrible since  birth: 20/400 left 20/1200 right corrected to about 20/80 and 20/200. after cataract surgery a couple years ago my brain finally and completely divorced my right eye as it got tired of receiving faulty and warped data. i've had to give up my target shooting and astronomy and i'm only hanging onto photography  by a thread.

i apologize if i seemed flip, the intent was the opposite. if these shots had been with a manual focus lens i would never have asked the question as i always blame my eyes first.

/guy

Hi, In a freak accident 2 years ago (pulled up the covers, hand slipped, smashed into my Left eye, Split my eye open, helicoptered to Stanford, right eye complete detachment, left eye rebuilt, 12 stitches across cornea, eye now misshapen, cornea badly scared, damaged retina, I was totally blind for about 2 weeks, awaiting a cornea transplant.. I was a pretty good shot, and drove a 500HP Dodge SRT Challenger.. Life changes so quick.. Now I ride an electric scooter.. Never Give Up..  L

[gteague]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

5 minutes ago, lykaman said:

Hi, In a freak accident 2 years ago (pulled up the covers, hand slipped, smashed into my Left eye, Split my eye open, helicoptered to Stanford, right eye complete detachment, left eye rebuilt, 12 stitches across cornea, eye now misshapen, cornea badly scared, damaged retina, I was totally blind for about 2 weeks, awaiting a cornea transplant.. I was a pretty good shot, and drove a 500HP Dodge SRT Challenger.. Life changes so quick.. Now I ride an electric scooter.. Never Give Up..  L

wow! i mean, i've had terrible eyes since birth, so i never knew what good eyesight was. that's a truly awful story and has to be pretty unique in the universe of such accidents. when i had my cataract surgery i had them do one eye at a time and they started with the 'bad' right eye so i could continue to live using my left eye. after the surgery they tested me and told me they'd improved my sight from 20/1200 down to 20/110 and i was ecstatic! but as they continued to test over the next year they finally determined the brain had shut the eye off and i was too old to do those eye muscle exercises.

but i still needed the surgery on the left eye and since the right eye was toast, i was virtually blind for two weeks. i had to crank my monitor up to where there were only like 12 characters on each screen. i live on the computer, so it was like spending time in prison and i could barely communicate.

i've severely limited my driving since i lost the right eye, but all it would take to totally ruin me is a failed drivers license eye test as i live 15 miles out of town.

Edited March 12, 2020 by gteague

[frame-it]

3 hours ago, gteague said:

after just a few shots in various styles, i went in and maxed out the settings to try to increase contrast, sharpness, and saturation. i shot a few shots using each of the 5 styles and none were up to my standards which aren't that high as 98% of my stuff just goes on social media. worse, i couldn't much improve the jpgs in an editor either.

i went back and reset all of them and thought i'd ask the opinion as it might be camera shake or something else. here's a /std/ and a /b&w/ shot during magick hour of an object which ought to be (and is on all my other cameras) razor sharp and the highest contrast, but they look very very soft and low contrast. this forum doesn't seem to accept or display full quality images nor show exif, so i'm not sure how much you'll be able to tell from them.

/guy

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

try 1/250th at iso200

[gteague]

it'll be a sad day when i have to abandon any camera without stabilization, but if i can't handhold a (equiv) 35mm lens at 1/100th that time has arrived. but of course that's one variable i'm trying to eliminate by asking if others see camera shake or something else softening the images. but it could be possible as in both these shots i had to balance on top of a furrow alongside the road.

 

tks! /guy

[wda]

Have you tried manual focusing with peaking? I find that very reassuring and simplifies focusing for me.

[jaapv]

pixel dimension 1600x1060? Did you set the camera to JPG small?

Finally, but this has nothing to do with sharpness, the colour and rendering look like nothing that I get out of my CL.
I would look at the postprocessing if I were you. Just a touch of sharpening and hitting "auto" in LR results in this -from an internet jpg.

 

 

 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[jaapv]

And now we can see that the AF focused on the grass, about 1 m behind the sign.

[jaapv]

And once again, sharpening taken from 0 to 60% and a few small tweaks to the internet jpg.

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[jaapv]

There is nothing inherently wrong with these images (except the misfocus), but the ones you posted are just half-products.

[LocalHero1953]

From Jaap's post it looks like misfocusing is one of the problems. In future, it is usually easy to tell the difference between misfocus and camera movement by zooming in on a detail - camera movement is rarely smooth and even. This is best done on the full res image.

[gteague]

i made absolutely sure i placed the focus box over one of the numbers on this flood gauge. then i checked it twice because i was testing for sharpness. i've had other unexplained focus softness as well although i assure you it's the item i take the most care with when i shoot. the point where the camera is focusing must not be where the focus box is showing on the screen is all i can conclude. or perhaps the box was slightly bigger than the object and the camera focused on one of the edges, but the algorithm should have selected the closest item in the box, one would think.

these aren't the originals--i resized these down from 6000x4000 to 1600px. both were at f2.5 @1/100th iso 100. but the originals are softer than they should be as well. i went back through the 3-4 dozen shots i've taken since i got the camera and a few are very sharp (wide open, inside in dim light, and less than 2' distance), but only a couple of my outside shots are sharp enough for me.

as i said, i need to take out both the cl and the s1, shoot a scene, then swap lenses and shoot it again. but so far it looks like the difference is that the panasonic jpg algorithm affects the image much more than the leica algorithm. i've tried tweaking the styles up to the maximums and it doesn't seem to make much difference to the final jpg.

tks to all for the tips and help! we have six days of rain in the forecast, but i'll report back after more testing.

/guy

Edited March 12, 2020 by gteague

[Le Chef]

What focus mode did you use? You can get a bit of difference between: Single point, multi-zone, spot, face detection, touch AF, touch AF + release.

[gteague]

i use the single box mode nearly all the time. i put the box over my focus point, half press, then reframe if needed. i have the touch af turned off because when using the evf with my left eye, my nose is planted in the middle of the lcd.

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, gteague said:

i made absolutely sure i placed the focus box over one of the numbers on this flood gauge. then i checked it twice because i was testing for sharpness. i've had other unexplained focus softness as well although i assure you it's the item i take the most care with when i shoot. the point where the camera is focusing must not be where the focus box is showing on the screen is all i can conclude. or perhaps the box was slightly bigger than the object and the camera focused on one of the edges, but the algorithm should have selected the closest item in the box, one would think.

these aren't the originals--i resized these down from 6000x4000 to 1600px. both were at f2.5 @1/100th iso 100. but the originals are softer than they should be as well. i went back through the 3-4 dozen shots i've taken since i got the camera and a few are very sharp (wide open, inside in dim light, and less than 2' distance), but only a couple of my outside shots are sharp enough for me.

as i said, i need to take out both the cl and the s1, shoot a scene, then swap lenses and shoot it again. but so far it looks like the difference is that the panasonic jpg algorithm affects the image much more than the leica algorithm. i've tried tweaking the styles up to the maximums and it doesn't seem to make much difference to the final jpg.

tks to all for the tips and help! we have six days of rain in the forecast, but i'll report back after more testing.

/guy

Forum resolution is 2480 pixels.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[gteague]

they're putting a new roof on and i've been stepping out to take some photos for my facebook page using my iphone xsmax. every single one has been well exposed and crisp despite the low overcast and lack of contrast and shadows. as you can see, they're racing the rains which are forecast to last a week starting tonight, so the new roof is getting the ultimate stress test immediately.

it's hard to believe i can't get the same results from the cl. i'll step out again and shoot some with the cl so i can compare.

/guy

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited March 12, 2020 by gteague