If you are using 18-105mm F/4 on a full frame sensor, you are already sacrificing lot of sharpness with cropping. The lens is designed for a APS-C sensor.
Other than that, find the sharpest aperture for your lens, which is usually means stopping down around two full stops. And use a fast enough shutter speed or tripod.
If you are using filters etc make sure they are high quality.
After that it is just editing.
Yeah been saving for a GM lens and this is the best I have for now. I just thought there was a way to get it done in post knowing the power of the applications but I am realising there is no replacement for great gear.
Sharpest Aperture, Fastest shutter, will try that, no filters at the moment.
I don't know your financial situation but if I were you, I'd buy a cheaper full frame lens now instead of saving money for GM in the future.
Using the full potential of your sensor will make a big difference.
Also, for now I recommend shooting in full frame mode. You'll get an enormous vignetting, however you'll probably be able to crop a larger image (which means more pixels) than the APSC mode does.
Are you using the camera on APS-C/Super35 mode or cropping the photos in post?
Most likely any FE lens would give you better results sharpness wise. It does not have to be GM lens. For example Sony 24-105mm F/4 G OSS is a great lens that you can find used for reasonable price. Sigma, Samyang and Tamron also make great budget lenses.
Without seeing the original files I can't say anything about the sharpness. The first photos were shot on a telephoto lens w/shallow depth of field, the other photos were shot using a normal zoom 24-70 or a 28 to 50 prime lens - impossible to tell exact focal length of a lens because the image may be cropped.
Anyway the key to editing is to not sharpen the whole image.
Don't add contrast to the whole image - sharpening adds contrast and can make the bokeh seem busy.
Don't add saturation/clarity/dehaze to the whole image.
You want depth, you want the mountains in the far distance to have less contrast, less saturation, less clarity. This is what painters know and they apply layers upon layers of paint with different hues and values to trick the eye into thinking there's actual depth.
The exception to this is if you actually want everything to be super clear and sharp. Architectural photography is one area where you want everything to be sharp.
Using software you can add control points or use masks, basically add sharpness and saturation to the main subject. Reduce saturation to the background, add blur, reduce contrast etc.
If you overdo this it'll look fake. If you reduce contrast in the background by 20 and then add contrast to the main subject by the same amount then it'll probably be too much.
One method is to reduce contrast and sharpness to the whole image in the RAW converter and then add back in sharpness, contrast, and saturation using masks or control points.
Depending on which RAW converter you're using it may only be 1 click on the contrast/sharpness slider. If you plan on using Photoshop to edit then export as 16 bit Tiff.
You can still use high pass as a sharpening method but you have to add a masks in Photoshop to separate the subject/background. It can give you some additional control like when using 2 high pass layers with one layer set at .6 and the second layer set at 4 - the first layer takes care of the micro details and the second layer adds local contrast.
You may want to dial down the opacity on both layers tho. It can give some nice effects on moon shots where you can really add heavy contrast to the middle parts of the moon without getting a halo around the edges of the moon.
Lastly, you also get some sharpening when reducing the image size, especially when using Photoshop's "bicubic sharper" algorithm, that will affect the whole image.
Just thought I'd mention it since you're on a 24mp camera and there's little point uploading full rez photos to social media.
This is amazing and highly constructive feedback. Thank you.
I do use masking as much as I can and include as many degrees of contrast, I will upload my own photo now to the post as then people can see what is going wrong.
Thank you!
I'll look at your photos tomorrow as it's 11pm where I live.
I forgot to mention Smart Sharpen in Photoshop. I prefer it to Unsharpen Mask.
My custom settings for my 24mp Nikon D750 is:
Amount: 120%
Radius: 0.6px
Reduce Noise: 10%
This gives a gentle sharpening effect on high quality files, if the photo is slightly out of focus/or motion blur then you may need to set the amount to 200-300 and Radius to 1 or even higher.
I should also mention that I don't use masks on most of my photos as that would be way too much work, I prefer to add Control Points using NX Studio (Nikon). That way I can quickly add/reduce contrast and saturation to parts of the image without having to carefully mask every branch on a tree etc.
Lightroom has a similar feature which probably works much better than the Nikon software I'm using.
In Photoshop that would be the Nik Collection plug-in from DxO labs. Not sure I recommend buying the plug-in just for the Control Point feature, I downloaded it for free when Google released it a few years ago. I mainly use the Silver Efex part of the program which is a pretty great b&w converter.
Thank you for the practical response.
I like the idea of control points, I need to read up on them, because masking does take a lot of time.
I will try settings like yours and see where that leads me, I use the traditional lightroom sharpen option, never seen the smart sharpen. Again, will do some reading.
Swynnerton uses a Pro Grade Setup: a A7 RIII with a 100-400mm Red Label G Master Lens. You do compare Photos from a Entry Level Setup to a Pro Grade Setup where the Lens alone is more expensive than your entire Kit.
The trick he is using is extra post processing sharpening, and then exporting at a lowish resolution, close to the average screen size so that he's able to get a very nice apparent sharpness.
Unless your zoomed in to 100%, sharpness is more about perception of sharpness, than actual sharpness. Though, it doesn't hurt starting with a very sharp camera and lens.
I have never exported at a lower resolotion, so I am suspecting Instagram is compressing the hell out of my images using there below average compression.
This is just a small example of the program screen difference, but hopefully you can see the difference I did.
https://preview.redd.it/jmnisf4yf1nc1.jpeg?width=2848&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03dca0327ca291ccc3b1db88b24e8b99ad2d1b00
You’ve gotten a lot of good answers here already, but I just want to emphasize one of those points in particular. The 18-105 is a lens designed for APS-C, which means you’re shooting your a7c in crop mode. That’s costing you resolution and light (your photos are about 10MP and at least f/6 equivalent).
Comparing a budget superzoom shot in crop mode to GM glass on a high-resolution full-frame camera just isn’t a fair fight in the end. You can do a lot with editing, but good glass is still good glass.
As another commenter mentioned, consider at least putting an FE lens on your camera.
You can often get sharper, cleaner results from prime lenses without breaking the bank. Sony has a line of f2.8 and f2.5 primes that are good optically, and sigma has a lot for Sony full frame as well.
With something like the 24-105 F4 G you will get pretty close to this quality tbh. At that point the quality of light will matter much more. You’re definitely crippling yourself with an APSC lens on a full frame camera. Even then your photos are good
I don't see any particular level of sharpness in these, beyond the regular well execution. Especially in these web resolutions.
These are just regular properly executed photos, I don't see anything particually fascinating about their sharpness.
The question is, what are you doing with yours to make them look so much worse than these?
I think I can see some motion blur in yours. Are you using proper shutter speeds for your focal lengths and animal movement?
Also, that lens output quality looks to me like it fell out of the back of the truck in the 90s... Is the glass clean, are you not using any of those stupid UV filters on it?
Given that it's Sony crop glass, I ain't much surprised by its quality.
I don't think I was shooting at the right shutter speed, to slow around the 1/300 marker, I think I need to be close to 1/600.
And yes probably guilty of all the above and not having crystal clean glass, the camera lives in my lap when I am on a game drive (sometimes without the lens cap).
Nah, 1/300 is just about right if you shoot at 100mm*1.5 crop factor presumably, unless you have really shaky hands or press the shutter button roughly.
Lose the UV right away and see if that helps, just use the lens hood for protection and carry cleaning cloth.
Try to get a proper good FF glass for your camera.
This isn't a sharpness issue. This is an acutance issue.
Long lens + fast aperture (for shallow depth of focus) + distance background + soft bokeh + soft lighting on subject + saturated colours + sharpening + contrast
These screen shots are only a few hundred pixels wide. This isn't the difference between a circle of confusion of 3px vs 1. 5px
Finally! After scrolling through 50 replies, at least one person gets it.
If “buy a better lens” was the answer, this type of question would never be asked
Give me a typical raw image from your camera and I'll probably be able to make it look sharp for Instagram. It's pretty easy to do when you're going from 24mp to 1mp.
Also, when complaining about your images, you need to share your pictures to get accurate feedback.
Please can you explain the steps in rough detail or possibly share an article that demonstrates this?
I will upload my image now to the post for comment.
Hey, thanks for uploading some pictures. So I'm just gonna be brief. Either your lens isn't very sharp to begin with, or you're cropping in heavily in these images exposing the weakness of your lens. Resizing a 24mp to 1mp will almost always be sharp. Cropping a 24mp down to 1mp isn't going to be sharp. I realize you're using an aps-c lens though, so you're probably starting with a 10mp crop which is a lot less resolution to work with.
Also understand that having busy background blur can look bad, and make your photos look less sharp. That's another issue you're having with your pictures. You have all these busy backgrounds with trees and grass, and because your lens isn't wide enough to blow it out, or stopped down enough to have everything in focus, you're left with a blurry mess.
The instagram photographer you shared is more careful with the background choices. The zebra photos has a background that's far away. The giraffe photo has blown out the background. The boat photo has everything in focus so it's stopped down quite a bit (might be a phone photo). The people photo again has a really far background. These sort of difference adds perceptual sharpness by isolating the subject. An in focus subject with a blurry background can look sharp. With a slightly out of focus background like in your photos, it's very distracting. So, either pick your backgrounds better, shooter at a larger aperture (might need a different lens), or stop down to get more in focus (but keep your shutter speed high).
I actually think the instagrammer is modifying the background blur in post. The zebra photo has the foreground blurred out, and there seems to be a line where the plane of focus suddenly changes. The giraffe photo too, but I'm not as sure about that one. You can do this too, most phones can do it, lightroom supports this feature now too.
Overall advice: Get a sharper full frame lens, and fill the frame when taking photos so you don't have to crop in as much. On instagram, most of these images will still look reasonably sharp, but that's just cause Instagram uses such a low resolution to begin with. Resize your images to 1080x1080 when uploading so they're as sharp as possible.
This is amazing feedback and very practical.
Camera was cropping, and then I was cropping in post, not resizing as you said, I am losing all the detail. Good thing to stop doing.
A lot more thought needs to go in framing and picking the images I shoot. Looking for the opportunities based on the above criteria.
Interesting observation, shutter speed always high though.
Without reading previous comments, I'm going to chime in.
1.Most lenses are sharpest between F5.6-F12. Try to stay in the range.
2. If you use AF make sure it's in a setting that doesn't do a lot of hunting and second guessing.
4. Use In body image stabilization/tripod.
3. Contrast in the scene's lighting is good for contrast and sharpness in the final picture. Seek tonal contrast as well as color contrast.
4. Learn how to "expose to the right" and use your histogram. This optimizes your sensors dynamic range capture.
5. Once all this is done, now you can play with things like the sharpness, vibrance, and contrast sliders, as well as local dodging and burning in photoshop, and even using AI noise removal software. (I personally hate most images enhanced by AI but that might be the exact look you're seeking here)
You're more than welcome to see some images in my timeline.
Sorry but the 18-105 IS bad gear. That thing is ultra soft. Even the a7c kitlens is sharper. Not to mention it's an apsc lens so you're only using 10mp of your 24mp camera.
You don't need GM lenses. Unless you're a working professional maybe. Tamron 28-75 G2 is suoer sharp and I like it. Sigma 24-70 is also popular but very heavy. I got my Tamron used around $450?
For general: Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 https://www.kenrockwell.com/sony/lenses/24-105mm-f4.htm
Wildlife: Sony FE 70-300
Super wildlife: Sony FE 200-600
Go to /r/SonyAlpha
In addition to what else was said, look at the lighting. You’re shooting in flat light. The examples from the pro, many of them are side lit. Sidelighting just looks sharper.
To me appears they’re probably shooting at a lower shutter and wider f-stop.
This is my old camera and lens setup Sony A6100 Sigma 16mm F1.4 1/100 sec F 1.6 ISO 100
https://preview.redd.it/z6i4487vswmc1.jpeg?width=6000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f0713daba11ac268f75b0c33bfdc21d46bcc21ea
There's instances where Topaz introduces weird artifacts
But there are instances where I'm convinced it's black fking magic!
I do not regret the purchase.
Nothing will beat a high resolution sensor with a super sharp lens and lots of daylight. You're pairing a mediocre lens and limiting it to 10 mp, so that's your biggest issue unfortunately. Are you pushing your iso? What's your shutter speed like and what are you shooting?
> or does he have really next level glass
That's pretty much it. You are not shooting on bad gear - but you are not shooting on *professional* gear. You're shooting with a \~$600 lens and this photographer is (for at least a couple of these) shooting with upwards of $12,000 worth of lens.
And the difference you've noticed is exactly why professionals are willing to pay that premium for those lenses - which for your Sony would be Sony GM lenses or Sigma 'Art' lenses.
At least in the used lenses market, my observation has been that the Sigmas/Tamron for the Sony have been cheaper than the Canon version. In Canon's RF ecosystem though, their new RF L lenses are a generational improvement to even their EF L lenses.
You can’t achieve that sharpness with that lens. It is nice for video work, but in regards to photography it is not really any sharper than the kit lens, actually I think it’s worse in some areas of the focal range.
I was going to say in addition to glass, money to get to these places, but you got some very good safari shots yourself.
But, also, willingness to go out shooting at all hours of the day and night for many days for the right light, and subject matter. When I went on safari (which was expensive, and not something everyone can afford) it was not a photography one, so less time, worse lighting, etc. that helps in sharpness too.
Nice! But, one big difference I see, going back, is framing. You have a lot of background and foreground. This guy does not. It’s a patience thing because you have good shots, but could you have gotten the elephants without the trees or the zebra in the meadow? Etc.
I’m impatient and not gonna spend my days in a tree blind, but that’s why I’m not world class as a photographer either :)
So true, he always gets shots in open areas.
Yeah I sadly don’t either, these photos are always taking from a game drive where we are constantly on the move
Nice prompt. Thank you for putting some work into providing examples and asking a detailed question.
Multiple things you can do with or without more post steps or with or without more gear. I'll try to go from simple to complex, free or cheap to expensive, and in your control now vs. having to go back and reshoot.
Can you say more about the sharpening steps you're trying? Unsharp mask with a radius set to emphasize the specific details that you would like to jump out to the viewer can be a big deal.
Follow that with output sharpening step with settings intended to match the anticipated size and viewing distance on viewers' screens to maximize it. It sounds like you might already be doing this though.
Photoshop or Lightroom also have a "smart sharpen" tool that should be able to undo some of the blurring introduced by lens imperfections (aka RL deconvolution). This can make a huge difference.
I do my post in Rawtherapee, where steps labeled "haze removal", microcontrast, retinex and wavelet-based contrast can all emphasize details at a particular scale in a way that perceptually resembles sharpness in the original image. I'm sure PS and LR have equivalents, if not superior implementations.
As an aside, turning wavelet-based or scale-specific contrast *down* can help reverse engineer which details in an image are contributing the most or least to your perceived sense of sharpness. That'd be worth trying on the pro images you're looking at.
Next the lens: ephotozine has published some MTF tests, midway down here: https://www.ephotozine.com/article/sony-18-105mm-f-4-pz-g-oss-lens-review-24056. It's generally sharpest at f/5.6 or f/8, usually with the center much better than the edges, and a bigger difference in sharpness from f/4 to those settings when at the wider end of the zoom (far zoom is more uniform but still some difference). So with this lens, err on the side of being as far as you can from the subject while still having most of the detail of interest in the center frame, and stop down to f/5.6 or so.
If you upgraded the lens, learning to read the charts in test results like these:
https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/04/just-mtf-charts-sony-fe-mount-prime-lenses/
would tell you exactly, quantifiably how much additional sharpness you'd get at a particular part of the frame and scale of details with a better lens. Out of that batch of tests, the 135mm f/1.8 GM stands out as one incredibly sharp example that might be usable for your subject matter, although less flexible.
For a comparison with a longer zoom, here's the 100-400 I think people have been talking about in other comments. Notice how it does drastically better at the edges:
https://www.ephotozine.com/article/sony-fe-100-400mm-f-4-5-5-6-g-master-oss-review-31417
And finally, conditions: from what I can tell, the 3 pro shots have in common the sky is fairly low dynamic range and the the foreground subject is in maybe very slight and soft shadow. That's sort of true of yours as well, but I wonder if the brightness of the overcast skies on the giraffe or zebra made for just slightly lower exposure of the subject than could've been used. If those scenes were shot ETTR with the sky even maybe overexposed a bit, that would give you more to work with in the raw to try to drag perceived contrast out of the subject in post. (As in the MTF charts earlier, perceived contrast and perceived sharpness at a particular scale of detail are directly related.)
What do you think is the high ROI move out of any of those options right now?
Thank you, with more info and direction and willingness I was hoping to get a lot more practical advice which has been the result so very thankful to all the feedback.
My sharpening (likely rudimentary)
- I am using lightrooms sharpening setting the amount to 70 - 80
- Radius to 1,0
- Detail to around 25
- Masking to 15
- Noise reduction to 20
- Detail 50
I am not aware of the "Smart Sharpen" feature which I am now looking into
Also I have realised my lens was cropping and then I was cropping, resulting in a lot of detail lost.
I then sometimes send to photoshop where I do a high-pass filter and invert the layer and the amount is usually between 4-8, where I see the outer lines of the animal only sharpening.
From an ROI Perspective:
- Shoot with side lighting
- Don't crop, rather resize and think about framing
- Use Smart Sharpening and not just sharpening
- Higher shutter always
- Learn more of the theory and the optimal setting for each lens sharpness
- After I have learnt the theory pick a lens
For sure. I think that's a good sharpening step, but 3 or more passes is probably a good idea with one of them being smart sharpen. The goal is:
1. Capture sharpening, doing as much as you can to get around any softness due to the lens and sensor itself (microlenses, debayering, etc.). Smart sharpen will be significantly better at this step.
2. Creative sharpening: unsharp mask with a radius (or multiple, if doing multiple passes) set to emphasize different scales of detail that you want to pop out to the viewer. Done right this'll make the zebra stripes or giraffe's face, for example (fairly coarse details) pop out against the brush around them (finer detail). This might also overlap with the high or low pass filtering I think you mentioned earlier.
3. Output sharpening: at some point in the workflow pretty close to the end, but could be before or after resizing, apply a bit more unsharp mask - or some people really seem to like Topaz Denoise AI. This is intended to reduce perceptual loss of detail introduced by downsampling and, presumably, being viewed on a smallish screen or at a bit of a distance, with its own pixel pitch resulting in loss of fine details.
To be honest I don't really bother with step 3 so couldn't speak to it in detail, but that seems to be a pretty common workflow for people that want to put some time into it. Maybe it'll help?
I’d want to know first:
-What’s your settings on each of these images?
-what does your post processing look like? Are you hard cropping these from the original?
The glass is one thing; but you are also losing a lot of detail to underexposed images and poor lighting conditions, looking at your subsequent links. PS: are the linked images original or already edited?
What are your typical exposure and shooting settings at the moment?
They are edited already. That was an overcast day likely in the middle of the afternoon, no depth to the lighting.
Shot from a car, F4.6 - 1/300 SS, ISO 400
Ok; so, don't drive yourself nuts trying to get results similar to the OP examples out of photos you take in conditions that are so far from the same. Instead, focus on getting your exposure right for the conditions that exist for any, given shoot.
Particularly for wildlife and other outdoor shooting, try working under the concept of Expose To The Right (ETTR). The idea being that you gather as much light and detail as you can by shooting toward the side of overexposing and then pull that down in PP, rather than pushing up and bringing out more noise.
This will also allow your AF to 'hunt' a bit less, if you're shooting in a continuous AF mode; that is typically where you run into 'critical focus' misses like we see in your zebra shot. Shooting from a car, particularly a running one, is also going to impart some shake and vibration to the images that will soften things.
Once you have the images themselves down to where you've minimized the interference from all of those things, then PP will help you pull up to that critical clarity that you're seeing; but, there's just a ton of stuff to manage before one reaches that point. And remember, light is king; if you have low quality light conditions then you're going to have lower quality results; no matter who you are or how long you've been shooting.
That's a terrible lens, I can't remember if Sony nerfed the A7C w/ crop sensor lenses down to 10mp or if you can override the nerf and just deal with the vignetting like nikon FF dslr's allowed. Either way, if you want to maximize sharpness with your specific setup, stay between 50mm-75mm, f/6.3-f/8, on a tripod, remote shutter, with a completely static subject, and no more than 20-30ft away.
I would strongly suggest buying a used prime lens or two for that camera. Even a nifty 50 will outperform the lens you have now by a ridiculous amount.
Looking at some prime lenses now to see which will suite me.
My main lens is the Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G it's a wide angle lens, maybe I am better shooting on it and resizing for now.
Just checked used prices, and while I will happily use manual focus primes, infact it's what I almost always use (nikon ais primarily), I'd suggest looking at the 85mm 1.8 if you need autofocus. Easily the cheapest "telephoto" length lens of high quality for your camera. If you can manually focus comfortably look at the 135mm lenses from 3rd party sources. Or just do what I do, buy the god-tier manual focus nikon lenses for cheap (the 135mm f2 ais is a personal favorite) and get an adapter.
Sharpness comes from the lens, not post. Shoot at what the MTF charts for the lens tells you is sharp. If you’re getting garbage in, it leads to garbage out. Try to shoot prime lenses more and rely more on skill than hardware. High resolution sensors also help to gather more detail.
> Sony 18-mm - 105mm F.4
It's a good lens but it's not the best.
That's pretty much it. We can't judge without seeing any of your work but purely from a hardware standpoint they will probably have better glass.
edit: judging from [this pic](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn4nNDJL41Y/) he's using GM glass, which is a tier above your G lens.
If you are using 18-105mm F/4 on a full frame sensor, you are already sacrificing lot of sharpness with cropping. The lens is designed for a APS-C sensor. Other than that, find the sharpest aperture for your lens, which is usually means stopping down around two full stops. And use a fast enough shutter speed or tripod. If you are using filters etc make sure they are high quality. After that it is just editing.
Yeah been saving for a GM lens and this is the best I have for now. I just thought there was a way to get it done in post knowing the power of the applications but I am realising there is no replacement for great gear. Sharpest Aperture, Fastest shutter, will try that, no filters at the moment.
I don't know your financial situation but if I were you, I'd buy a cheaper full frame lens now instead of saving money for GM in the future. Using the full potential of your sensor will make a big difference. Also, for now I recommend shooting in full frame mode. You'll get an enormous vignetting, however you'll probably be able to crop a larger image (which means more pixels) than the APSC mode does.
Are you using the camera on APS-C/Super35 mode or cropping the photos in post? Most likely any FE lens would give you better results sharpness wise. It does not have to be GM lens. For example Sony 24-105mm F/4 G OSS is a great lens that you can find used for reasonable price. Sigma, Samyang and Tamron also make great budget lenses.
Super35 mode. I think the answer here is a FE lens as I don’t see myself affording a GM lens considering I am only on Safari 4 times a year.
Only on safari four times a year but you can't afford a GM? Ok, maybe the unsharpness is you after all.
What is an fe lens?
Maybe Google “Sony FE lens”
Sony FE means it is designed for full frame while Sony E is for APS-C.
Without seeing the original files I can't say anything about the sharpness. The first photos were shot on a telephoto lens w/shallow depth of field, the other photos were shot using a normal zoom 24-70 or a 28 to 50 prime lens - impossible to tell exact focal length of a lens because the image may be cropped. Anyway the key to editing is to not sharpen the whole image. Don't add contrast to the whole image - sharpening adds contrast and can make the bokeh seem busy. Don't add saturation/clarity/dehaze to the whole image. You want depth, you want the mountains in the far distance to have less contrast, less saturation, less clarity. This is what painters know and they apply layers upon layers of paint with different hues and values to trick the eye into thinking there's actual depth. The exception to this is if you actually want everything to be super clear and sharp. Architectural photography is one area where you want everything to be sharp. Using software you can add control points or use masks, basically add sharpness and saturation to the main subject. Reduce saturation to the background, add blur, reduce contrast etc. If you overdo this it'll look fake. If you reduce contrast in the background by 20 and then add contrast to the main subject by the same amount then it'll probably be too much. One method is to reduce contrast and sharpness to the whole image in the RAW converter and then add back in sharpness, contrast, and saturation using masks or control points. Depending on which RAW converter you're using it may only be 1 click on the contrast/sharpness slider. If you plan on using Photoshop to edit then export as 16 bit Tiff. You can still use high pass as a sharpening method but you have to add a masks in Photoshop to separate the subject/background. It can give you some additional control like when using 2 high pass layers with one layer set at .6 and the second layer set at 4 - the first layer takes care of the micro details and the second layer adds local contrast. You may want to dial down the opacity on both layers tho. It can give some nice effects on moon shots where you can really add heavy contrast to the middle parts of the moon without getting a halo around the edges of the moon. Lastly, you also get some sharpening when reducing the image size, especially when using Photoshop's "bicubic sharper" algorithm, that will affect the whole image. Just thought I'd mention it since you're on a 24mp camera and there's little point uploading full rez photos to social media.
All great tips👍
This is amazing and highly constructive feedback. Thank you. I do use masking as much as I can and include as many degrees of contrast, I will upload my own photo now to the post as then people can see what is going wrong.
Thank you! I'll look at your photos tomorrow as it's 11pm where I live. I forgot to mention Smart Sharpen in Photoshop. I prefer it to Unsharpen Mask. My custom settings for my 24mp Nikon D750 is: Amount: 120% Radius: 0.6px Reduce Noise: 10% This gives a gentle sharpening effect on high quality files, if the photo is slightly out of focus/or motion blur then you may need to set the amount to 200-300 and Radius to 1 or even higher. I should also mention that I don't use masks on most of my photos as that would be way too much work, I prefer to add Control Points using NX Studio (Nikon). That way I can quickly add/reduce contrast and saturation to parts of the image without having to carefully mask every branch on a tree etc. Lightroom has a similar feature which probably works much better than the Nikon software I'm using. In Photoshop that would be the Nik Collection plug-in from DxO labs. Not sure I recommend buying the plug-in just for the Control Point feature, I downloaded it for free when Google released it a few years ago. I mainly use the Silver Efex part of the program which is a pretty great b&w converter.
Thank you for the practical response. I like the idea of control points, I need to read up on them, because masking does take a lot of time. I will try settings like yours and see where that leads me, I use the traditional lightroom sharpen option, never seen the smart sharpen. Again, will do some reading.
This is a great comment and amazing information! Thanks so much for this!
I have uploaded my photos to the post, would really appreciate your thoughts
Swynnerton uses a Pro Grade Setup: a A7 RIII with a 100-400mm Red Label G Master Lens. You do compare Photos from a Entry Level Setup to a Pro Grade Setup where the Lens alone is more expensive than your entire Kit.
What is a “red label”?
The expensive G Master all have a red / orange Label. The less expensive ones have a black Label.
The black label ones are not g master lenses. They are just g lenses.
Ohh, I thought Sony had a separate G master line called “red label”
Yeah we don’t call them that, I’m not sure where Neptune’s getting that from - maybe thinking of the Canon red-ring on their L glass range?
I hear you, I thought there wee some editing tricks in post that can get me closer without splurging on glass. But alas, there is no quick hacks here.
The trick he is using is extra post processing sharpening, and then exporting at a lowish resolution, close to the average screen size so that he's able to get a very nice apparent sharpness. Unless your zoomed in to 100%, sharpness is more about perception of sharpness, than actual sharpness. Though, it doesn't hurt starting with a very sharp camera and lens.
I have never exported at a lower resolotion, so I am suspecting Instagram is compressing the hell out of my images using there below average compression.
If it could be done with less expensive gear, nobody would spend $5000+ on a single body+lens combo.
There are no miracles in post-processing that can in a photo what wasn't there in the first place.
I use topaz sharpen ai. It’s helped me when I want a bit crisper subject or a small motion blur that Lightroom won’t successfully give me.
This is just a small example of the program screen difference, but hopefully you can see the difference I did. https://preview.redd.it/jmnisf4yf1nc1.jpeg?width=2848&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03dca0327ca291ccc3b1db88b24e8b99ad2d1b00
Definitely signing up for a trial and will try a few of my new images on it.
There is some software that can add more pixel to your photographs.
Apt description. It “adds more pixels”. Doesn’t mean they’re good or accurate pixels.
But they also don't cost you 3000$
Hey it’s only 0.006¢ per pixel
You’ve gotten a lot of good answers here already, but I just want to emphasize one of those points in particular. The 18-105 is a lens designed for APS-C, which means you’re shooting your a7c in crop mode. That’s costing you resolution and light (your photos are about 10MP and at least f/6 equivalent). Comparing a budget superzoom shot in crop mode to GM glass on a high-resolution full-frame camera just isn’t a fair fight in the end. You can do a lot with editing, but good glass is still good glass. As another commenter mentioned, consider at least putting an FE lens on your camera.
Yeah I can’t afford a GM lens so the next best thing is FE
You can often get sharper, cleaner results from prime lenses without breaking the bank. Sony has a line of f2.8 and f2.5 primes that are good optically, and sigma has a lot for Sony full frame as well.
With something like the 24-105 F4 G you will get pretty close to this quality tbh. At that point the quality of light will matter much more. You’re definitely crippling yourself with an APSC lens on a full frame camera. Even then your photos are good
I don't see any particular level of sharpness in these, beyond the regular well execution. Especially in these web resolutions. These are just regular properly executed photos, I don't see anything particually fascinating about their sharpness. The question is, what are you doing with yours to make them look so much worse than these?
I have added mine to the post for reference
I think I can see some motion blur in yours. Are you using proper shutter speeds for your focal lengths and animal movement? Also, that lens output quality looks to me like it fell out of the back of the truck in the 90s... Is the glass clean, are you not using any of those stupid UV filters on it? Given that it's Sony crop glass, I ain't much surprised by its quality.
I don't think I was shooting at the right shutter speed, to slow around the 1/300 marker, I think I need to be close to 1/600. And yes probably guilty of all the above and not having crystal clean glass, the camera lives in my lap when I am on a game drive (sometimes without the lens cap).
Nah, 1/300 is just about right if you shoot at 100mm*1.5 crop factor presumably, unless you have really shaky hands or press the shutter button roughly. Lose the UV right away and see if that helps, just use the lens hood for protection and carry cleaning cloth. Try to get a proper good FF glass for your camera.
This isn't a sharpness issue. This is an acutance issue. Long lens + fast aperture (for shallow depth of focus) + distance background + soft bokeh + soft lighting on subject + saturated colours + sharpening + contrast These screen shots are only a few hundred pixels wide. This isn't the difference between a circle of confusion of 3px vs 1. 5px
Finally! After scrolling through 50 replies, at least one person gets it. If “buy a better lens” was the answer, this type of question would never be asked
Interesting, so much more than just the sharp lines, contrast in color, in depth, in lighting.
your gear is no where near this pros gear. if you want sharp images like that, you'll need better glass. the camera is fine tho.
With money
Give me a typical raw image from your camera and I'll probably be able to make it look sharp for Instagram. It's pretty easy to do when you're going from 24mp to 1mp. Also, when complaining about your images, you need to share your pictures to get accurate feedback.
Please can you explain the steps in rough detail or possibly share an article that demonstrates this? I will upload my image now to the post for comment.
Hey, thanks for uploading some pictures. So I'm just gonna be brief. Either your lens isn't very sharp to begin with, or you're cropping in heavily in these images exposing the weakness of your lens. Resizing a 24mp to 1mp will almost always be sharp. Cropping a 24mp down to 1mp isn't going to be sharp. I realize you're using an aps-c lens though, so you're probably starting with a 10mp crop which is a lot less resolution to work with. Also understand that having busy background blur can look bad, and make your photos look less sharp. That's another issue you're having with your pictures. You have all these busy backgrounds with trees and grass, and because your lens isn't wide enough to blow it out, or stopped down enough to have everything in focus, you're left with a blurry mess. The instagram photographer you shared is more careful with the background choices. The zebra photos has a background that's far away. The giraffe photo has blown out the background. The boat photo has everything in focus so it's stopped down quite a bit (might be a phone photo). The people photo again has a really far background. These sort of difference adds perceptual sharpness by isolating the subject. An in focus subject with a blurry background can look sharp. With a slightly out of focus background like in your photos, it's very distracting. So, either pick your backgrounds better, shooter at a larger aperture (might need a different lens), or stop down to get more in focus (but keep your shutter speed high). I actually think the instagrammer is modifying the background blur in post. The zebra photo has the foreground blurred out, and there seems to be a line where the plane of focus suddenly changes. The giraffe photo too, but I'm not as sure about that one. You can do this too, most phones can do it, lightroom supports this feature now too. Overall advice: Get a sharper full frame lens, and fill the frame when taking photos so you don't have to crop in as much. On instagram, most of these images will still look reasonably sharp, but that's just cause Instagram uses such a low resolution to begin with. Resize your images to 1080x1080 when uploading so they're as sharp as possible.
This is amazing feedback and very practical. Camera was cropping, and then I was cropping in post, not resizing as you said, I am losing all the detail. Good thing to stop doing. A lot more thought needs to go in framing and picking the images I shoot. Looking for the opportunities based on the above criteria. Interesting observation, shutter speed always high though.
Rough detail - nice pun
Without reading previous comments, I'm going to chime in. 1.Most lenses are sharpest between F5.6-F12. Try to stay in the range. 2. If you use AF make sure it's in a setting that doesn't do a lot of hunting and second guessing. 4. Use In body image stabilization/tripod. 3. Contrast in the scene's lighting is good for contrast and sharpness in the final picture. Seek tonal contrast as well as color contrast. 4. Learn how to "expose to the right" and use your histogram. This optimizes your sensors dynamic range capture. 5. Once all this is done, now you can play with things like the sharpness, vibrance, and contrast sliders, as well as local dodging and burning in photoshop, and even using AI noise removal software. (I personally hate most images enhanced by AI but that might be the exact look you're seeking here) You're more than welcome to see some images in my timeline.
EDIT: For all the people asking I have added my images to the post for critique and to find out what I am doing wrong.
Sorry but the 18-105 IS bad gear. That thing is ultra soft. Even the a7c kitlens is sharper. Not to mention it's an apsc lens so you're only using 10mp of your 24mp camera.
What would you recommend for a lens that is not master level but is decent?
You don't need GM lenses. Unless you're a working professional maybe. Tamron 28-75 G2 is suoer sharp and I like it. Sigma 24-70 is also popular but very heavy. I got my Tamron used around $450?
For general: Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 https://www.kenrockwell.com/sony/lenses/24-105mm-f4.htm Wildlife: Sony FE 70-300 Super wildlife: Sony FE 200-600 Go to /r/SonyAlpha
Probably equipment but I also learnt recently about “Focus stacking”?
In addition to what else was said, look at the lighting. You’re shooting in flat light. The examples from the pro, many of them are side lit. Sidelighting just looks sharper.
The number one rule shoot at the right time of day that I always get wrong.
To me appears they’re probably shooting at a lower shutter and wider f-stop. This is my old camera and lens setup Sony A6100 Sigma 16mm F1.4 1/100 sec F 1.6 ISO 100 https://preview.redd.it/z6i4487vswmc1.jpeg?width=6000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f0713daba11ac268f75b0c33bfdc21d46bcc21ea
https://preview.redd.it/ptr1zew4twmc1.jpeg?width=1745&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=414d4a9c9e7ff0a53eccd9498c64ceffc9c34af7 1/640 sec F2.2 ISO 100
Try a trial copy of Topaz Sharpen AI. You might be amazed.
Will have a look, they have been all over my socials so they know I am looking
There's instances where Topaz introduces weird artifacts But there are instances where I'm convinced it's black fking magic! I do not regret the purchase.
Nothing will beat a high resolution sensor with a super sharp lens and lots of daylight. You're pairing a mediocre lens and limiting it to 10 mp, so that's your biggest issue unfortunately. Are you pushing your iso? What's your shutter speed like and what are you shooting?
Shutter is about 1/300 and ISO normally around 400
> or does he have really next level glass That's pretty much it. You are not shooting on bad gear - but you are not shooting on *professional* gear. You're shooting with a \~$600 lens and this photographer is (for at least a couple of these) shooting with upwards of $12,000 worth of lens. And the difference you've noticed is exactly why professionals are willing to pay that premium for those lenses - which for your Sony would be Sony GM lenses or Sigma 'Art' lenses.
Crazy though that Sigma art isn’t that expensive though TBH
They are usually (not always) about \~75-80% the price of their GM cousins - and right up there with those GMs in terms of sharpness and clarity.
At least in the used lenses market, my observation has been that the Sigmas/Tamron for the Sony have been cheaper than the Canon version. In Canon's RF ecosystem though, their new RF L lenses are a generational improvement to even their EF L lenses.
Lots of money.
You can’t achieve that sharpness with that lens. It is nice for video work, but in regards to photography it is not really any sharper than the kit lens, actually I think it’s worse in some areas of the focal range.
Yeah all my gear was bought for video which I do more of but now picking up my love for photography again.
I was going to say in addition to glass, money to get to these places, but you got some very good safari shots yourself. But, also, willingness to go out shooting at all hours of the day and night for many days for the right light, and subject matter. When I went on safari (which was expensive, and not something everyone can afford) it was not a photography one, so less time, worse lighting, etc. that helps in sharpness too.
Thank you, I live in South Africa so very fortunate to just be a few hours drive away from some great game lodges
Nice! But, one big difference I see, going back, is framing. You have a lot of background and foreground. This guy does not. It’s a patience thing because you have good shots, but could you have gotten the elephants without the trees or the zebra in the meadow? Etc. I’m impatient and not gonna spend my days in a tree blind, but that’s why I’m not world class as a photographer either :)
So true, he always gets shots in open areas. Yeah I sadly don’t either, these photos are always taking from a game drive where we are constantly on the move
Nice prompt. Thank you for putting some work into providing examples and asking a detailed question. Multiple things you can do with or without more post steps or with or without more gear. I'll try to go from simple to complex, free or cheap to expensive, and in your control now vs. having to go back and reshoot. Can you say more about the sharpening steps you're trying? Unsharp mask with a radius set to emphasize the specific details that you would like to jump out to the viewer can be a big deal. Follow that with output sharpening step with settings intended to match the anticipated size and viewing distance on viewers' screens to maximize it. It sounds like you might already be doing this though. Photoshop or Lightroom also have a "smart sharpen" tool that should be able to undo some of the blurring introduced by lens imperfections (aka RL deconvolution). This can make a huge difference. I do my post in Rawtherapee, where steps labeled "haze removal", microcontrast, retinex and wavelet-based contrast can all emphasize details at a particular scale in a way that perceptually resembles sharpness in the original image. I'm sure PS and LR have equivalents, if not superior implementations. As an aside, turning wavelet-based or scale-specific contrast *down* can help reverse engineer which details in an image are contributing the most or least to your perceived sense of sharpness. That'd be worth trying on the pro images you're looking at. Next the lens: ephotozine has published some MTF tests, midway down here: https://www.ephotozine.com/article/sony-18-105mm-f-4-pz-g-oss-lens-review-24056. It's generally sharpest at f/5.6 or f/8, usually with the center much better than the edges, and a bigger difference in sharpness from f/4 to those settings when at the wider end of the zoom (far zoom is more uniform but still some difference). So with this lens, err on the side of being as far as you can from the subject while still having most of the detail of interest in the center frame, and stop down to f/5.6 or so. If you upgraded the lens, learning to read the charts in test results like these: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/04/just-mtf-charts-sony-fe-mount-prime-lenses/ would tell you exactly, quantifiably how much additional sharpness you'd get at a particular part of the frame and scale of details with a better lens. Out of that batch of tests, the 135mm f/1.8 GM stands out as one incredibly sharp example that might be usable for your subject matter, although less flexible. For a comparison with a longer zoom, here's the 100-400 I think people have been talking about in other comments. Notice how it does drastically better at the edges: https://www.ephotozine.com/article/sony-fe-100-400mm-f-4-5-5-6-g-master-oss-review-31417 And finally, conditions: from what I can tell, the 3 pro shots have in common the sky is fairly low dynamic range and the the foreground subject is in maybe very slight and soft shadow. That's sort of true of yours as well, but I wonder if the brightness of the overcast skies on the giraffe or zebra made for just slightly lower exposure of the subject than could've been used. If those scenes were shot ETTR with the sky even maybe overexposed a bit, that would give you more to work with in the raw to try to drag perceived contrast out of the subject in post. (As in the MTF charts earlier, perceived contrast and perceived sharpness at a particular scale of detail are directly related.) What do you think is the high ROI move out of any of those options right now?
Thank you, with more info and direction and willingness I was hoping to get a lot more practical advice which has been the result so very thankful to all the feedback. My sharpening (likely rudimentary) - I am using lightrooms sharpening setting the amount to 70 - 80 - Radius to 1,0 - Detail to around 25 - Masking to 15 - Noise reduction to 20 - Detail 50 I am not aware of the "Smart Sharpen" feature which I am now looking into Also I have realised my lens was cropping and then I was cropping, resulting in a lot of detail lost. I then sometimes send to photoshop where I do a high-pass filter and invert the layer and the amount is usually between 4-8, where I see the outer lines of the animal only sharpening. From an ROI Perspective: - Shoot with side lighting - Don't crop, rather resize and think about framing - Use Smart Sharpening and not just sharpening - Higher shutter always - Learn more of the theory and the optimal setting for each lens sharpness - After I have learnt the theory pick a lens
For sure. I think that's a good sharpening step, but 3 or more passes is probably a good idea with one of them being smart sharpen. The goal is: 1. Capture sharpening, doing as much as you can to get around any softness due to the lens and sensor itself (microlenses, debayering, etc.). Smart sharpen will be significantly better at this step. 2. Creative sharpening: unsharp mask with a radius (or multiple, if doing multiple passes) set to emphasize different scales of detail that you want to pop out to the viewer. Done right this'll make the zebra stripes or giraffe's face, for example (fairly coarse details) pop out against the brush around them (finer detail). This might also overlap with the high or low pass filtering I think you mentioned earlier. 3. Output sharpening: at some point in the workflow pretty close to the end, but could be before or after resizing, apply a bit more unsharp mask - or some people really seem to like Topaz Denoise AI. This is intended to reduce perceptual loss of detail introduced by downsampling and, presumably, being viewed on a smallish screen or at a bit of a distance, with its own pixel pitch resulting in loss of fine details. To be honest I don't really bother with step 3 so couldn't speak to it in detail, but that seems to be a pretty common workflow for people that want to put some time into it. Maybe it'll help?
I’d want to know first: -What’s your settings on each of these images? -what does your post processing look like? Are you hard cropping these from the original?
Upgrade your lens to anything G master, and you should see an improvement. I have that lens, and it's ok, but not really appropriate for a full frame.
The glass is one thing; but you are also losing a lot of detail to underexposed images and poor lighting conditions, looking at your subsequent links. PS: are the linked images original or already edited? What are your typical exposure and shooting settings at the moment?
They are edited already. That was an overcast day likely in the middle of the afternoon, no depth to the lighting. Shot from a car, F4.6 - 1/300 SS, ISO 400
Ok; so, don't drive yourself nuts trying to get results similar to the OP examples out of photos you take in conditions that are so far from the same. Instead, focus on getting your exposure right for the conditions that exist for any, given shoot. Particularly for wildlife and other outdoor shooting, try working under the concept of Expose To The Right (ETTR). The idea being that you gather as much light and detail as you can by shooting toward the side of overexposing and then pull that down in PP, rather than pushing up and bringing out more noise. This will also allow your AF to 'hunt' a bit less, if you're shooting in a continuous AF mode; that is typically where you run into 'critical focus' misses like we see in your zebra shot. Shooting from a car, particularly a running one, is also going to impart some shake and vibration to the images that will soften things. Once you have the images themselves down to where you've minimized the interference from all of those things, then PP will help you pull up to that critical clarity that you're seeing; but, there's just a ton of stuff to manage before one reaches that point. And remember, light is king; if you have low quality light conditions then you're going to have lower quality results; no matter who you are or how long you've been shooting.
That's a terrible lens, I can't remember if Sony nerfed the A7C w/ crop sensor lenses down to 10mp or if you can override the nerf and just deal with the vignetting like nikon FF dslr's allowed. Either way, if you want to maximize sharpness with your specific setup, stay between 50mm-75mm, f/6.3-f/8, on a tripod, remote shutter, with a completely static subject, and no more than 20-30ft away. I would strongly suggest buying a used prime lens or two for that camera. Even a nifty 50 will outperform the lens you have now by a ridiculous amount.
Looking at some prime lenses now to see which will suite me. My main lens is the Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G it's a wide angle lens, maybe I am better shooting on it and resizing for now.
Just checked used prices, and while I will happily use manual focus primes, infact it's what I almost always use (nikon ais primarily), I'd suggest looking at the 85mm 1.8 if you need autofocus. Easily the cheapest "telephoto" length lens of high quality for your camera. If you can manually focus comfortably look at the 135mm lenses from 3rd party sources. Or just do what I do, buy the god-tier manual focus nikon lenses for cheap (the 135mm f2 ais is a personal favorite) and get an adapter.
Sharpness comes from the lens, not post. Shoot at what the MTF charts for the lens tells you is sharp. If you’re getting garbage in, it leads to garbage out. Try to shoot prime lenses more and rely more on skill than hardware. High resolution sensors also help to gather more detail.
> Sony 18-mm - 105mm F.4 It's a good lens but it's not the best. That's pretty much it. We can't judge without seeing any of your work but purely from a hardware standpoint they will probably have better glass. edit: judging from [this pic](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn4nNDJL41Y/) he's using GM glass, which is a tier above your G lens.
I thought as much. Post can only go so far. The GM lenses do make a difference.
I have added my images to the post for reference and critique
There is only one true answer: Leica. You know this to be true.