Stoshowicz
Senior Member
New version Lightroom , old version PS elements . ( they both cover, most of the same processing tasks )
Last edited:
Sharper Focus
- Thread starter Robin W
- Start date
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
They're great lenses, but I don't care if it's Tamron or Sigma, Contemporary or Sport or whatever, they're all gonna be soft at 600mm and wide open. Stop down to f8 or f9 and it'll be noticeably crisper.
Chris@sabor
Senior Member
I used to think the same thing when I had the Sigma 150-600 C on my D7200. After getting the D500, things changed.
I put the lens on my new D500 and was hoping to be impressed with the new autofocus system. My initial photos were worse than with the D7200. I was very disappointed. I was looking at my soft and out of focus images and noticed that many seemed to be front focusing. I didn't bother with the in camera lens correction, instead I made manual corrections for the front focusing issue. After two corrections I had it bang on. I also ordered the dock and updated the firmware. This made a HUGE difference in focus speed, acquiring focus much faster and more accurately.
Bottom line, my relatively cheap long zoom is sharp at 600 @F6.3. I shoot almost exclusively between 500-600mm and F6.3-F7.1 with pretty impressive results and very minimal sharpening in post. Maybe I have a "good" copy but, the stiff, chattering zoom-in and the wobbly front barrel remind me that it isn't perfect. I'd show you some proof but it seems I can't upload images anymore unless I change browsers and I'm not doing that so you'll have to take my word for it.
I'm with Jake on his opinion. It has long been known that zooms tend to be weakest when zoomed all the way out and shot wide open. That concept has been around since long before the digital era. You might be better to shoot at 580mm instead of 600mm. See if that makes any difference with your particular lens.
As for the noise, you can clean that up with noise reduction software. Just be sure to reduce color noise as well as noise overall. It will make a big difference.
As for the noise, you can clean that up with noise reduction software. Just be sure to reduce color noise as well as noise overall. It will make a big difference.
Fred Kingston
Senior Member
Even though this was a JPG file, they can be sharpened a bit in post processing/editing software...
captain birdseye
Senior Member
Tamwrong lenses often give poor images.
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
A 600mm lens on a full frame camera at f6.3 has an effective DoF of less than 1 inch for anything inside of 30 feet. On a D500 it's anything inside of 45 feet. Suffice it to say if you're not focus tuning your long zoom lens on your cameras then I don't want to hear about soft focus.
With that said, "soft" is all relative. The great thing about the Sigmas is that with the dock you can fine tune at 16 different points (4 distances at 4 focal lengths), so yes, you can get a nice, sharp photo at f6.3, particularly if your subject is dead center, and you don't have to compromise by tuning at a specific focal length. But stop it down to f8 and it's going to be sharper - the test data is out there to show it. The data does not say that you cannot get sharp at 6.3, only that sharpness will improve as you stop down.
And we must consider that "sharpness" is the byproduct of many factors, most of which have more to do with the photographer/technique than with the lens.