Refurbished camera received - all three lenses take soft pix

Received my camera today and could not wait to try it out. Now, I am a newbie with this body (coming from a D40) and have been reading and setting camera functions all day. I took multiple pictures with all three of my current lens and none of them are sharp to me. I am shooting raw, AF-S, Single point. All shots were outside with bright Colorado sun using aperture priority mode, auto ISO. I ran through all f-stops for the lenses and none of the shots were crisp to me.
So, should I try fine tuning the focus or contact Adorama for an exchange?

I would attached a photo but they are all in raw format.

Thanks

rick.osgood said:

Received my camera today and could not wait to try it out. Now, I am a newbie with this body (coming from a D40) and have been reading and setting camera functions all day. I took multiple pictures with all three of my current lens and none of them are sharp to me. I am shooting raw, AF-S, Single point. All shots were outside with bright Colorado sun using aperture priority mode, auto ISO. I ran through all f-stops for the lenses and none of the shots were crisp to me.
So, should I try fine tuning the focus or contact Adorama for an exchange?

I would attached a photo but they are all in raw format.

Thanks

Click to expand...

All lenses need fine tuning and RAW photos will need sharpened in post.


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Don Kuykendall said:

All lenses need fine tuning and RAW photos will need sharpened in post.


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Click to expand...

Good feedback... I have watched but not tried the fine tuning method yet. Maybe I should try some jpeg's to see the difference until I figure out how to sharpen the raw files in post. Do you use PS or Lightroom?

rick.osgood said:

I would attached a photo but they are all in raw format.

Thanks

Click to expand...

What program are you using to view the RAW file? Wondering if it might have an option to convert to jpg. The other option is to upload a couple of RAW files to Dropbox or Google Drive or some such file sharing service and post a link to download.

Looking at a couple of photos and the EXIF info will really help us with the elimination process to rule out other possible sources of soft photos.

Cheers!

gustafson said:

What program are you using to view the RAW file? Wondering if it might have an option to convert to jpg. The other option is to upload a couple of RAW files to Dropbox or Google Drive or some such file sharing service and post a link to download.

Looking at a couple of photos and the EXIF info will really help us with the elimination process to rule out other possible sources of soft photos.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

I am using PhotoShop. I saved one of the pix as a jpg in medium size an attached it. How do I see the EXIF meta data.

rick.osgood said:

Good feedback... I have watched but not tried the fine tuning method yet. Maybe I should try some jpeg's to see the difference until I figure out how to sharpen the raw files in post. Do you use PS or Lightroom?

Click to expand...

I use Lightroom only for probably 74% of my photos. For the other 26% i carry them over to Photoshop an do a little extra work and then back to Lightroom to export

Try some in jpg right from the camera. Some people even tweak up the sharpness a bit in the camera picture control settings.
If you are new to raw this might just be a lack of processing.
Or try Nikon's free software on your raw. The Nikon stuff applies your camera jpg settings to the raw file right from the start so it will look good. In adobe, your raw will look blah until you do something to it.

gustafson said:

What program are you using to view the RAW file? Wondering if it might have an option to convert to jpg. The other option is to upload a couple of RAW files to Dropbox or Google Drive or some such file sharing service and post a link to download.

Looking at a couple of photos and the EXIF info will really help us with the elimination process to rule out other possible sources of soft photos.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Here is the EXIF info from lightroom. Any feedback is appreciated.

OK, 2 things that come to mind:

1- You are using your lens at it's largest aperture opening. It's been noted that some 70-300 zooms get a bit soft when used at their largest aperture.

2- Have a look at your camera settings, camera icon<picture control<(depending on which, set the sharpness to around +7-8) and have a look at your jpegs from the camera. You should see a bit of improvement (depending on your lens aperture setting)

So, to resume, try closing your aperture to around f8 and adjust your camera picture controls to increase sharpness a tad.

Let us know if this improves your situation.

rick.osgood said:

I am using PhotoShop. I saved one of the pix as a jpg in medium size an attached it.

Click to expand...

I think the shot is fine considering it was taken with the lens wide open at 300mm... It does need processing for sure, though.

I worked on it for a minute or two and it cleaned up really well.

Ah, one thing I forgot to mention is that it takes a second or two for the VR to be stable and if you just depress the shutter without delay, sometimes the VR might actually blur the shot.

And, a soft light will always produce a soft image. Light has some qualities and it takes post processing skills to be able to cheat it to get better results.

rick.osgood said:

Here is the EXIF info from lightroom. Any feedback is appreciated.

View attachment 224132View attachment 224133

Click to expand...

Thanks for the EXIF, really helps. In addition to what Marcel and Horoscope Fish have pointed out, you might want to try bumping up the shutter speed a bit (with and without VR) to see if you get slightly sharper results handheld. You might also want to take test shots with the built-in or an external flash at faster speeds to see if you can get the sharpness that you're expecting.

All that said, I agree with the previous observations that you might have to go down an aperture stop or two wide open to sharpen the image. This may make your shutter speed too low, in which case you may have to raise it by increasing your max ISO, enabling VR, or using flash.

Good luck! Look forward to hearing how it goes.

Marcel said:

OK, 2 things that come to mind:

1- You are using your lens at it's largest aperture opening. It's been noted that some 70-300 zooms get a bit soft when used at their largest aperture.

2- Have a look at your camera settings, camera icon<picture control<(depending on which, set the sharpness to around +7-8) and have a look at your jpegs from the camera. You should see a bit of improvement (depending on your lens aperture setting)

So, to resume, try closing your aperture to around f8 and adjust your camera picture controls to increase sharpness a tad.

Let us know if this improves your situation.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I cannot find the sharpness setting you mentioned under the camera icon.

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

Horoscope Fish said:

I think the shot is fine considering it was taken with the lens wide open at 300mm... It does need processing for sure, though.

I worked on it for a minute or two and it cleaned up really well.

Click to expand...

Would like to see how it looks after your tweaks. Thanks for doing that

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

Marcel said:

Ah, one thing I forgot to mention is that it takes a second or two for the VR to be stable and if you just depress the shutter without delay, sometimes the VR might actually blur the shot.

And, a soft light will always produce a soft image. Light has some qualities and it takes post processing skills to be able to cheat it to get better results.

Click to expand...

So much to learn

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

From my experience I have found that once I get the shutter speed above 2x the focal length, I get much sharper images with the VR off. There are varying opinions on that, but for me VR is off at higher shutter speeds.

nickt said:

Try some in jpg right from the camera. Some people even tweak up the sharpness a bit in the camera picture control settings.
If you are new to raw this might just be a lack of processing.
Or try Nikon's free software on your raw. The Nikon stuff applies your camera jpg settings to the raw file right from the start so it will look good. In adobe, your raw will look blah until you do something to it.

Click to expand...

If you are shooting JPG I would suggest that you use the Fine>>Large setting and also set your camera for better sharpness.



Go into your Menus and highlight the "Shooting" menu (the camera icon)

Drop down to "Picture Controls" and click right one time.

From here, highlight "Standard" and then click right one time.

From this settings menu, increase the "Sharpness" setting to "7".

Drop down and increase the "Saturation" setting +1 notch on the slider.

Press "OK" to exit the menus and you're done.

Don Kuykendall said:

If you are shooting JPG I would suggest that you use the Fine>>Large setting and also set your camera for better sharpness.



Go into your Menus and highlight the "Shooting" menu (the camera icon)

Drop down to "Picture Controls" and click right one time.

From here, highlight "Standard" and then click right one time.

From this settings menu, increase the "Sharpness" setting to "7".

Drop down and increase the "Saturation" setting +1 notch on the slider.

Press "OK" to exit the menus and you're done.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I have made the changes you suggested and will test with these new settings. I am shooting a crosshatch print out and using lightroom to review the shots.

This group and you guys are the best. Thank you again for being patient and all your help. I will let you know my progress.

rick.osgood said:

Would like to see how it looks after your tweaks. Thanks for doing that.

Click to expand...

This is nothing fancy, mind you; just some basic adjustments...
.....

Don Kuykendall said:

If you are shooting JPG I would suggest that you use the Fine>>Large setting and also set your camera for better sharpness.



Go into your Menus and highlight the "Shooting" menu (the camera icon)

Drop down to "Picture Controls" and click right one time.

From here, highlight "Standard" and then click right one time.

From this settings menu, increase the "Sharpness" setting to "7".

Drop down and increase the "Saturation" setting +1 notch on the slider.

Press "OK" to exit the menus and you're done.

Click to expand...

Thanks Don, this is exactly what I was trying to explain. Your details explanations are way better than mine.