The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Captured on a day hike in the Yosemite NP high country, July 14 2022. The hike ended on the top of North Dome, immediately opposite Tis-sa-ack (Half Dome). An absolutely spectacular vista, except there was a substantial fire and it was all very smokey there. So no charismatic mega granite to go along with the charismatic meso flora.
Specific Feedback
What do we mean by “tack sharp”? This is usually regarded as an important requirement in outdoor photography, unless one is doing ICM or a dreamy soft-focus composition. On the one hand, I can almost always spot ways in which the primary subject of the composition isn’t quite perfectly in focus. So my images never seem to be “tack sharp”? But, on the other hand, when developing my images I’m viewing them in full screen, for several minutes to an hour, occasionally zooming in to 100% to work on adjustments in small sections. No one else is ever going to look that closely at my images, and indeed they’ll see lower-resolution JPEGs. So maybe this is “tack sharp” enough?
What do you think of the focus on the lily-like flower here? “Tack sharp” or no?
Technical Details
Sony a7, Tamron E 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 A071 set to 200mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec, ISO 1000. Processed in On1 Photo Raw 2023. Edit: Handheld, single capture, no focus stacking.
I like the photo and the way you’ve got such vibrant colors and a decent composition (I love flowers against logs, trees and rocks), but the lack of sharpness (tack sharp aside) is not in keeping with the decisiveness of those aspects. It looks like a mistake; as if you weren’t paying attention. I think if you’d shot this differently; a slow shutter speed, maybe including some natural backlit bokeh if possible or some ICM, you could get away with having a blurry photo. It’s the realism and the portrait aspect of this photo that puts it at odds with the lack of sharpness. It looks like an inability rather than a choice.
Yes, most people don’t look at photos blown up to 100%, but even in the medium-sized version, it’s not sharp and it sticks out as the second thing I notice, with color being the first. A couple of suggestions that might make this seem less of a goof is to lower the saturation and the contrast and increase the softness overall. The vignette is a bit strong as well, but that’s just me. Some people like them strong. You could also play with textures and illustration techniques like watercolor or oil painting. It’s a beautiful little scene that I’m glad you noticed and took time over despite being in one of the most epic locations.
So much depends on the viewing device these days, Dan. To me, opening this up on my editing screen, it doesn’t look sharp. On a cell phone it would probably look incredible. Kris has some interesting observations on what might be done.
Looking at this image a s a composition, I find myself wishing you could have gotten a little lower to get the darker rock wall as the entire background as the lighter stuff at the bottom is a bit distracting for me.
A lovely flower but I wish it was in focus. It looks like focus fell on the piece of grass in the lower left. Modern cameras make focusing (and instantly viewing results) so easy and precise, it’s a shame to miss it.
If a lower viewpoint had been possible, more of the plant could have been against the lovely rock face and the very distracting lower area excluded. When I have to work at max focal length it is often not enough and I will need to crop significantly after the fact, so I try to be extra careful with focus and sharpness.
Thanks all for the feedback, especially on focusing. Your comments confirmed my impression that images like this aren’t as sharp as they should be. This image was shot using back-button autofocus and focus peaking, and so the lily-like flower should have been in focus.
So I’ve done a little research. I plan to print a focus chart and check the calibration, per the suggestion here. But perhaps more importantly, I found out that PhotoPills has a DoF calculator. With this camera and settings, and a distance of maybe 12 feet from the subject, DoF was just over 4 inches. That’s way too small, especially for a hand-held shot while squatting.
So very likely the photographer error here was not understanding how small DoF can be when shooting wide open, with a long lens, at a nearby subject. Thanks again, for your feedback prompting me to look into this more carefully!
I can’t comment on Sony, but my Canon R5 has focus peaking when I’m in manual focus, and it is not very precise. With any halfway recent camera, autofocus with the small square point (not the tiniest point one) or the one with a center point and 4 helper points, should have nailed the flower.
For me, the criterion of adequate sharpness is to view the image at 100%, or if it will only be a small JPEG for some use, maybe looking sharp at 50% is enough – if it is an exceptional image otherwise. Often the DOF won’t cover a subject, and then I want some significant part to look very sharp and the OOF parts to fall off naturally.
