In camera sharpening vs sharpening in post production - Saxperience

Jungle_Jim^m · 3rd April 2009, 13:42

as the title states what is the best method and what do you use. would also be good to know what parameters you guys shoot in, whether you use standard, adobe RGB or custom settings to change the level of saturation, contrast and sharpness etc in camera

ta muchly

James

don55 · 3rd April 2009, 13:50

i leave mine pretty simple, shoot sRGB and RAW.

Viper · 3rd April 2009, 16:08

i never edit any photos. lol

wouldnt have a clue where to start!

Barry123 · 3rd April 2009, 16:22

funnily enough Jim, I was having palpitations last night about my current nightclub stuff and my previous nightclub stuff - my older stuff was much sharper, and contrasty and colourful

First I thought maybe the lens was shagged, did a back-to-back test against the 10D and the 40D... fine. Then I realised I'd had the 40D sent for repair back in august, the buggers had reset all my parameters.

on the 10D... I have the following settings

Sharpness +2
Contast 0
Colour Tone +1
Saturation +1

I lower the sharpness to +1 if I'm shooting high ISO else the grain is very pronounced. If I'm shooting Jpg I much prefer the sharpening by the camera algorithms rather than by an external software. If it's RAW then you haven't got a choice other than to do it externally.

I rarely shoot RAW unless is studio or 'arty' kind of stuff where I know I'll end up PP'ing to hell and back. The nightclub or the motorsport stuff I never bother.

Simply doing a USM I'm not convinced is the way forward either (I don't), it's great if the image is fairly sharp already, but if you have a shallow DoF it really messes up the out of focus parts, looking more like one of those heavily compressed Jpegs. Similarly if it's graining it can look horrendous. So I'd suggest being selective about it. Use the magic wand or similar to select the subject or area you want sharpening then sharpen just that. leave OOF bits well alone

it's a bit like HDR though, people will think 'yeahhhhh MAX settingssssss' and it looks poop but for some reason people will love it. so just go easy it'll never save an unsharp to start with photo, but it can really enhance a good photo.

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don55 · 3rd April 2009, 21:06

cheers for the tips ads

my 30d is now 2,0,1,1

Sam^p · 3rd April 2009, 22:43

I have a 1000d and I'm looking at doing a bit of motorsport what setup would you suggest?

Barry123 · 4th April 2009, 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by don55

cheers for the tips ads

my 30d is now 2,0,1,1

no problemo! Have a play though mate, you might find you prefer your settings slightly different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sams_VTR

I have a 1000d and I'm looking at doing a bit of motorsport what setup would you suggest?

Sharpness max.
Contrast 0
colour tone 0
Saturation 1-2

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Jungle_Jim^m · 4th April 2009, 01:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by adsayer

funnily enough Jim, I was having palpitations last night about my current nightclub stuff and my previous nightclub stuff - my older stuff was much sharper, and contrasty and colourful

First I thought maybe the lens was shagged, did a back-to-back test against the 10D and the 40D... fine. Then I realised I'd had the 40D sent for repair back in august, the buggers had reset all my parameters.

on the 10D... I have the following settings

Sharpness +2
Contast 0
Colour Tone +1
Saturation +1

I lower the sharpness to +1 if I'm shooting high ISO else the grain is very pronounced. If I'm shooting Jpg I much prefer the sharpening by the camera algorithms rather than by an external software. If it's RAW then you haven't got a choice other than to do it externally.

I rarely shoot RAW unless is studio or 'arty' kind of stuff where I know I'll end up PP'ing to hell and back. The nightclub or the motorsport stuff I never bother.

Simply doing a USM I'm not convinced is the way forward either (I don't), it's great if the image is fairly sharp already, but if you have a shallow DoF it really messes up the out of focus parts, looking more like one of those heavily compressed Jpegs. Similarly if it's graining it can look horrendous. So I'd suggest being selective about it. Use the magic wand or similar to select the subject or area you want sharpening then sharpen just that. leave OOF bits well alone

it's a bit like HDR though, people will think 'yeahhhhh MAX settingssssss' and it looks poop but for some reason people will love it. so just go easy it'll never save an unsharp to start with photo, but it can really enhance a good photo.

ads

awesome, cheers buddy

i known exactly what you mean lol i hate oversharpened images where the lines of a subject start having jaggerdy (sp?) edges to them.
i think i had my parameters on something similar which is good to know.
im also very aware of the ISO settings on the 10d, the high grain at high iso's and the slightly slow start up when its first switched on are the only things which bug me with what is otherwise still a good camera so many years on. although i am seriously tempted by a 5dMK2.

on a side note as i saw your rig post on POTN. i have two possible suggestions to improve stability depending on how your rig is. a number of people put a vertical pole in the middle of the rig with guide wires making like a sail, however you could simply attach a guide wire to the camera end of the pole and then have the other end attached to a suction mount which is lower down on the car. the guide wire needs to be tight, pulling the pole down to stop it flexing up causing movement.
the other method it to weld some rectangular metal bar onto the top your tubing but have it mounted with the thin part in a verticle position ( like a mohawk lol) this way instead of the metal trying to bend along its lenght it tries to bend along its width which is much stronger as its against the the grain.

hope that is of some use
cheers
James