Here’s a classic situation I find myself in. I have taken what seems to me to be a sharp bird image. But when I view it at home there is a softness/lack of clarity and some weird blue fringes after cropping. The shutter speed is high, light is also adequate, yet some detail/data seems to be lost. Please see the attached file.
Two questions:
Is there something lacking in my camera (Panasonic Lumix FZ80/82) or my technique?
How do I get a nice presentable image (preferably for printing) from this capture using post processing?
I teach photography classes and in my experience cameras that have such extreme zoom ratios as this camera which has a x60 zoom tend to perform badly. I have zoomed into a 100% crop of the bird and it is unsharp and nothing I can do is going to fix it. The camera has a relatively small image sensor and even at 400 ISO which this image is shot at there is a lot of noise. Sorry I can’t give a happy answer to your question.
I am not sure what I could have done better. There is no motion blur, so a tripod would have not made a difference. Can you point out something specific?
If that is the problem, you can either have the camera fixed, replace it, or if those are not an option, use 4K photo focus series/stacking in-camera.
4K Photo
In addition to 4K video modes, the Panasonic FZ80 also offers a wide array of 4K Photo modes. There are standard 4K Photo burst modes, which allow you to capture 8-megapixel JPEG images at up to 30 frames per second, but there are also modes for post-focus and focus stacking. With post-focus, the camera captures images at different focal distances, allowing you to either select a single frame with a particular focus point or have the camera automatically stack all of the images together (or a user-selected range of images) and have an enhanced depth of field. The modes work well for what they are.
The only advice I can offer is to close the aperture down more, but then that means higher ISO or slower shutter speed. The 35mm focal length equivalent for the lens you are using is 1200mm and that is a huge lens. Getting closer to the subject and using less zoom would help a lot. There is little forgiveness to focus problems at the aperture you are using and the zoom you are using.
Read up on the focus options for your camera. I believe it has focus stacking which suggests it should have focus bracketing and this may solve your problems in the future.
As others have already said, the optical system of these high zoom small sensor systems have severe limitations. I own an older Lumix FZ1000 (or so) and never was happy with detail in zoomed pictures
So, there is only so much you can do. I tried some things, but I couldn’t improve the picture significantly.
I tried a bit of denoising and selective deblurring plus a little bit of local contrast. Also I checked different demosaicer, but that didn’t change much. The largest impact probably had the resizing + output sharpening (with image magick).
Here is an DT edit (assuming you are Ok with that). If you like, you can check the .xmp file.
I’d first check on a tripod: your exposure time isn’t all that fast compared to the effective focal lenght (reported as 1200mm, exposure 1/1000 s).
Then, such a long focal length also means you weren’t very close to the bird, which may cause problems with atmospheric conditions.
And sorry, not sure you can get a presentable image from this capture.
The longest I use is 900mm effective, and there I do need some support (monopod at least). Even then, depth of field is so limited that focussing errors are common. So I tend to take several (many) photos of one subject (and then delete most of them later). Also, I use only 1 focusing point (too much risk of the camera preferring other focus points, and this kind of images only have one point of interest)
FWIW-- Some fringing can also come from less-than-optional glass and/ or coatings with the lens. I saw this with a Canon EF 70-300 zoom. I think the glass was ok but the coatings allowed some flaring.
I got a sense that it picked up the grass detail maybe there is a different selection for focusing that you can try to set it on the eye of the bird to get it right in focus or manually place it there… hard I know if they are moving
Ya I really dont trust this too much either i guess unless you zoom in and pan around . So zoomed out there are no focus points on the bird essentially and the grass shows a lot…zooming in to 100% changes the impression of that as much less color is seen in the focus mask of the grass… its a good indication again of the strong scaling impact on the display preview
You may possibly be right in that a tripod may not have made a difference - for few tripods are that rigid that they don’t allow slight vibrations with a really long tele lens. This is of course more pronounced with ordinary tele lenses for DSLR that are longer and with more mass (if at first there has been enough force to get the mass moving - like a wind gust).
There are so many people who experiences unsharp images with long tele lenses, and blame the quality of the lens. But reality is that with very long telezooms at their longest end, in this case effectively 1200 mm, which is quite extreme, just the tiniest movement of the lens may cause unsharpness.
When hand holding with high degree of zoom, try to avoid just holding the camera in your hands. Gripping with your left hand on your right shoulder, and tucking the camera into the elbow of the left arm, may help. WIth long tele shots I put my camera on the left shoulder and look in the camera with my left eye. This reduces lens movement substantially for me.
While what you say is correct, I am a bit concerned that the bird’s feet look out of focus. I fear that I have either not focused correctly or that the DOF is so shallow that I can’t expect much.
BTW, when I shoot with a 300mm zoom on my Canon R7 I find I also have very short depth of field and if the focus is not perfect the shot is not 100% sharp. I find that closing the aperture down a little from wide open also helps with sharpness and depth of field.
Single point focus may help if you ensure the focus point is directly on the subject. Multi-point focus can give some poor focus results by selecting the wrong part of the image to focus on.
There’s definitely some kind of non-uniform blurring happening.
See the blue circled part of the image is as sharp as I’d expect given the limitations of the camera, while the rest of the image especially the part marked in red is noticeably blurry, and it’s a ‘directional’ looking blur too, not a normal out-of-focus blur.
I think atmospheric distortion (as in heat ripple) would be the culprit, but it’s hard to be 100%. If it is, you could shoot a burst or series, and the blur should be different each time. You might get one that’s sharp where you want it.
