New 610 - Soft Images

I've been trying out my new 610…but the images seem soft, perhaps out of focus. It is probably me or the settings…attached is a sample - any suggestions?

Thanks...

What is the EXIF?

this is how images look when taken by regular lenses.
change aperture to f10, it will get sharper. f10 is the best aperture for my 28-300mm zoom and 20mm nikkor. beyond that it doesnt help (for these particular lens).

Have you fine tuned your lens yet?

The shot seems to be taken at aperture wide open. The focus is on the branches in the fore ground. Higher F stop will help.

Another reason may be camera shake, especially if taken hand held at slow speed. Let us know
. Lense and focal length
. Aperture
. Speed
. ISO

So that we can diagnose the shot.

As was stated, knowing the EXIF data would help a lot - particularly lens, aperture and shutter speed settings, focus mode, etc.

Also, is this from a straight out of camera RAW file or a jpeg? RAW files require some tweaking, including adding a bit of sharpening, which is only applied in camera to JPEGs, regardless of what your sharpening setting is. I applied just a touch of unsharp mask and adjusted the lighting in PSE 9 (ctrl-L and moved the right mark to 220 and midpoint to 120 - your overall image is a little underexposed) and it immediately looks clearer. If you shoot RAW expect to have to apply minor tweaks.

Thanks to all for your replies…I thought I was attaching the EXIF data, but apparently not. Still trying to get a handle on some uploading things.

The lens was a 24-70mm f/2.8; settings ISO 320, F22, 1/320.

Looking at the settings I'm figuring the high f stop was my biggest problem.

Jake…thanks for the detailed info.

CAM

I guess I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but...I still don't see why the ISO was set so high, if this was shot outdoors in broad daylight. It's just not necessary! I have a feeling this was shot in P mode using Auto ISO.

Good point, Jack. I originally saw the 1/320 and ISO 320 and got confused over focal length, but you're spot on!! Not that ISO 320 would do much to effect the clarity on the D610, but the fastest he'd need to shoot with that lens is 1/70, so he should be able to shoot at ISO 100. I'm guessing Auto ISO as well, or it may have been set previously and not changed.

CAM, your EXIF data is going to get stripped anytime the software has to resize your image (Grrrrrrr), so if you are uploading then resize to a max of 1000px on the long side and it will preserve your EXIF data for us to view.

I shot this in Manual, with Auto Focus, at a focal length of 31mm. I'm still getting used to the camera and have only had this one outing and a few test shots.

Guess I left the ISO where it was from the previous shots.

At my age my hands are not as steady as they used to be, so I use a higher shutter speed to compensate. Perhaps it was too high?

Thanks for the help!

ok, so with my 28-300mm, beyond f10 (f11+), the images started to get soft at corners, so for 28-300 for me f10 was the sharpest. i do not know about your lens but try f10.

From all I've read the 28-70mm f/2.8 should be pretty darn sharp across the entire range. I suspect the combination of underexposure, smallest aperture and no real post-processing contributed. But given the thunderous praise for this lens I'd expect it's not one you need to shoot in a sweet spot, like the 28-300mm that I used to have. But at 36mm you can get near infinite DoF at f/11-14, so there's no need to close all the way up.

you could try a program called perfectly clear for post process , it is very good and does sharpen and enhance most photos very quickly