Image Quality?

[Corker2]

Greetings to you, and thanks for reading my question:

I am a reader of your magazine, online for right now, until I get my Subscription in the mail. I read it quite frequently, but have a small problem I thought that maybe someone could point out what I'm doing wrong.

I shoot a Pentax K100D DSLR Camera with a few different types of Len's. Usually I use my Tamron 28-300mm Telephoto Lens or a Phoenix 28-210 Telephoto Lens. This gives me the option to Zoom in when I want too. Without going into allot of detail, it seems that when I shoot an Image of anything, the picture that comes out does not seem to be as sharp as some of the others that I see here on the Website. Since the Pentax will focus the Lens in Auto Focus for me. It's telling me that the Image that I want to take is ready. I push the Shutter release and the picture looks good on the Viewfinder, but it just is not quite as sharp. I trying to get a nice, sharp Image of what I see as well as the Camera Lens. Are the pictures of mine as good as they can get or is there something better that I can do?

I have been reading pretty much of what this great Magazine has been telling me and I do understand what has been described, but I'd just like someone who knows allot more about Photography to take a look-see at my Images that I've posted. See if you see anything that's wrong. I'm open to any comments that will help me do better.

Thanks again for reading and commenting.
Les

[Traumuh]

Post some pictures up first.

[ProPhotoInsights]

Are the images soft all over?
If so it could be camera shake but as mentioned already it would be good if you posted a couple with the exposure details so we could view.
There are cameras (Canon's) that have been known to suffer from back focussing and needed adjustment.
Also all images straight from the camera do require some post production sharpening.
Cheers,
Simon

[Traumuh]

How do you sharpen Simon? I filter>sharpen>sharpen edges, then edit>fade sharpen and adjust accordingly, usually about 20-30%.

[Farmerj]

try the unsharpen Mask as well.

[bob_r]

Les,

Welcome to the forum!!

Without seeing your images, I'd suspect your equipment. A 28-300 super-zoom will not produce the kind of images you will get with a prime or a zoom with a more modest focal length range. I once bought a 28-300 zoom for a vacation and it produced the softest images I've ever seen. I returned it as soon as I got back from vacation because the convenience of the large range was far outweighed by the poor results. No amount of sharpening could have made those images acceptable to me.

Your other lens costs less than $200. This would be a very cheap price for a decent prime lens, but is extremely cheap for a decent zoom. Unfortunately, photography is all about the glass and good glass is expensive. That doesn't mean you can't get some decent images with inferior glass, it's just that you probably won't be able to do so consistantly.

[Traumuh]

Ooo yeah, I forgot about the unsharp mask because i don't use it often.

[Corker2]

Hey! Thanks for commenting on what I'm doing wrong.

I've tried to Post some pictures of what I've taken, but I don't seem to know how to do it. What you might be able to do is see the Images that I've already Posted on "My Favorite Places". There are a number of them.

By what I read by "bob_r" I would have to get a more expensive Lens that would take a more sharper Image. The Tamron 28-300mm Lens works pretty well, and the Phoenix 28-210mm Lens works the same. I had thought, and was also told, that these Lens are very good for the price. Maybe not good enough.

Since I'm not all that "in" to Photography, I have to use Lens's that are not real expensive, but will produce a nice Image of what I shoot. I would love to have one of those real big Telephoto Lens, but the price of them is over $1000.00. I like to take Images, but not at that price. Guess that I just will have to use what I have, and try to get the best possible Image that I can.

[kernix]

I would stay away from zoom lenses with that large of a zoom range - 28mm-300mm? Lenses made that wide are not as good as a smaller range - better to have 4 zooms that range from 20mm to 300mm than only 1 or 2. Look into that.

[rogerwillson]

You can increase your Mega Pixel. It will help you out to get best quality of picture.

[gldiana]

Les,
there are way too many images in "My Favorite Places" for anyone of us to go there and be able to find yours easily. It would help if you could provide a direct link. Also, the resolution is low in "My Favorite Places" so looking at the photos there might not help at all. There's a tab "Upload Attachment" that allows you to post photos here in case you don't have them stored somewhere online.

Roger: increasing the MP will not improve the image quality. Not really sure why exactly you mean by that, I didn't read anywhere that Les was using one of the smaller resolutions on camera, in any case even if shooting jpeg it's not the number of megapixels that makes the quality higher, it's the quality setting (low, medium, high) which is directly related to the JPEG compression.

As Bob said: cheap lens = low quality image. It's the reason why a cheap leans is cheap, it cannot perform as well as an expensive piece of glass (sharpness). At $200 any lens is cheap, especially a zoom lens. $700+ will start getting you much more appreciable results.