macro photos through L820

agk721

Senior Member
Friends, I tried a few macro photos with L820. I have posted them- view of flowers under -flowers & bugs & other sections. Of course I cropped them by using picasa. However, I observed pictures lack sharpness after cropping. Are there any special precautions to be taken while taking macro with bridge cameras? Or is it the limitation of sensor?
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Friends, I tried a few macro photos with L820. I have posted them- view of flowers under -flowers & bugs & other sections. Of course I cropped them by using picasa. However, I observed pictures lack sharpness after cropping. Are there any special precautions to be taken while taking macro with bridge cameras? Or is it the limitation of sensor?
Are you cropping at 100% image size, or are you cropping and resizing?

...
 

agk721

Senior Member
Yes, I'm cropping it. I have uploaded a photo under "bugs & flowers close up" & another in "My images" section. Pl Look into it & advice, With regards
agk721
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
I think that you should lower your iso and open the aperture a bit. With digital sensors, going to f16 is not that great of an idea if you want sharpness.

So I'd say it's a combination of
1- Sensor size (smaller sensors don't tolerate cropping as much as larger ones)
2- ISO (try to stay under 200)
3- Cropping ( Use the camera's macro function to avoid extreme cropping)

Good luck.
 

J-see

Senior Member
How sharp are the images at 100% before cropping? Any large image that is displayed smaller looks automatically sharper. Once you crop and display at the same size, you lose some of that sharpness only because of the sizing difference.

If the image is blur free at 100%, it should display as sharp as long as you don't show above 100%. It does however require some resharpening in post even if it is JPEG format since the sharpness used was for the full shot. You'll lose some of that when cropping. If you shoot RAW, you have to sharpen anyways.

Also, some programs are not that great at resizing or enlarging. PS does the job very well but if I do it with something else, I often see the quality degrade rapidly.
 

wornish

Senior Member
Thanks for the link Mike
@agk721

If these are the pictures you are referring to

1.
hibiscus.jpg

2.

flowers_3.jpg



3.
flowers_1_283016.jpg

Looking at the EXIF data for #1 and #2 your shutter speed was only 1/30th and 1/50th of a sec which if these were taken hand held is too slow so thats probably why they are blurred.

#3. The shutter speed was faster 1/500th sec but I think it was just not in focus when you took the shot.


I am not familiar with your camera the L820 but again from the EXIF data the shots seem to have been taken in auto mode. To get better results when shooting macro I would suggest you use the Scene - Close up mode. And also increase the sharpening setting.
Ideally try and get the shutter speed up to something quicker than 1/100th Sec and also make sure the camera is either resting on something solid or on a tripod when doing macros.

Hope this helps
 

J-see

Senior Member
What Dave said.

I shoot most of my macros at 1/200s or faster and even then quite many don't make it when checking them at 100%. Some look great as a full shot but once I look at them in detail, they fall apart.

The closer you get, the more any movement is magnified. Yours, the subject, wind... you name it. Depending what lens you use, you have to find a good balance between a fast shutter and enough depth. Your aperture is also rather wide for close-up. The closer, the less DOF -the more fuzziness- you'll have and you'll again have to find what works best for what shot.

Often it is better to step back and take a sharper shot with more depth which you'll crop some more, than having a "big" shot that you can no longer crop because of quality.
 

J-see

Senior Member
I was just checking the cam and it doesn't look like you got many options to adjust. It's P&S I assume.

I suggest you shoot highest quality as possible and try what distance provides the sharpest shot. Download Capture NX-D or any other post processing program and tweak the shots there until you got the best outcome. Even if you're shooting JPEG, tweaking those can vastly improve the shot. Capture or View NX are free to download.
 

agk721

Senior Member
L820 is P & S camera. I don't think adjustments for shutter speed, ISO etc are present in it. More over snaps are stores in JPEG format only. However I shall try to make possible changes in my next macro photos.
Thanks alot for your guidance, & wishing you all a HAPPY DEEPAVALI(Festival of lights)
 
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