Improving Quality

[Jetl3on]

I like the shot, but I keep getting told the quality is not great, which I am aware of, but struggling to improve it, I appreciate light burn is a challenge, what am I doing wrong? D90, 12-24mm, from memory it was ISO200, F22, Tripod, remote release and fingers crossed.

[paul911]

At f22 you’re getting diffraction


Also what area of the scene did you focus on?

Edited by paul911 on Monday 25th June 13:32

[RobbieKB]

paul911 said:

At f22 you’re getting diffraction


Also what area of the scene did you focus on?

Edited by paul911 on Monday 25th June 13:32

That's an interesting read actually. I though diffraction only started kicking in at f/18+, clearly I'm wrong. Paul, you're far my landscape senior, do you shoot at f/11 and then stack in PP for foreground?

[Jetl3on]

Good question, im not sure tbh, I was paying too much attention to the dissappearing light and trying different settings inbetween shots. I try to steer clear of the light source generally, so possibly the end of the curve? I also may have set my AE incorrectly. Just reading up on diffraction, scary.

What do suggest? Diffraction implies using F8/F11 with higher ISO, what should my focussing point be?

Edited by Jetl3on on Monday 25th June 13:54

[paul911]

The further you get away from the lens sweet spot (usually around f8) the more chance of diffraction affecting the image. I hardly ever blend two images Rob, focus one third into the image is usually enough. I usually focus on the foreground object and the rest of the scene remain in focus. No real need to go beyond f11 on a wide angle lens. Have a read up on hyperfocal distance too.

Edited by paul911 on Monday 25th June 14:10

[...Mole...]

I find Unsharp Mask in Photoshop can help a bit when it comes to Diffraction.
Just got to be careful with the settings so you don't get any Halo's or weird artifacts.

[RobbieKB]

paul911 said:

The further you get away from the lens sweet spot (usually around f8) the more chance of diffraction affecting the image. I hardly ever blend two images Rob, focus one third into the image is usually enough. I usually focus on the foreground object and the rest of the scene remain in focus. No real need to go beyond f11 on a wide angle lens. Have a read up on hyperfocal distance too.

Edited by paul911 on Monday 25th June 14:10

I've always had a sort of in built gauge of where I'd need to focus to capture foreground and infinity but I think I might have got it wrong more than once and had too narrow an aperture which explains my occasionally soft landscapes.

3 years I've been doing photography and I read articles every day and I'm still getting such major things wrong, even if only marginally.