New camera/software

[Bob M.]

Hi,

Just messing about with a tsuba and some newish gear to try and get some reasonable pictures - comments appreciated - comments along the lines of ' I wouldn't have started with that tsuba ' have already been made !

I realise the image is not in best focus , the camera requires more damping to stop vibration , possibly mirror up ?

 

Thanks !

[hxv]

Bob,

Nice picture! I would highly recommend a remote control to prevent vibrations and/or inadvertant minor shifting of camera position/focus. I assume you have a tripod. If not, it is a must.

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[Dr Fox]

Tripod Bob, and the heaviest you can get, or attach weights to the one you have got.

 

Out of focus??? try a thin piece of printed medium on the object to focus on. Out of focus and camera shake, are not the same thing, eliminate each for better results ok?

[b.hennick]

When trying to focus on a sword blade I often place a business card on the blade and focus on that. Timer or remote control both remove camera shake. Tripods make life easier - a must.

[rkg]

There isn't a close-up to pixel peep to see what the blurriness looks like, so YMMV on the following;

 

First, if you think the image is fuzzy you might first verify your lens is actually sharp at that f/stop (I find I have to send about every other new lens I buy back because of significant decentering errors and other resolution issues - its often like night and day after the repair depot tweaks it up and returns it or you do the same shot with a different copy of the lens) - if in doubt shoot a test target and see what you get (I now test every lens I buy immediately). You might also check your camera's sharpening parameters/ what you're doing in post (I know, dumb observation, but "always be sure"). Depending on how much you've zoomed in,how orthogonal everything is, and how much stuff is hopping around, f/5 may not yield enough "sharp" depth of field for you on this.

 

You want to be shooting tethered (wired or wirelessly), and use mirror lockup - its arguable that you may not need lockup with flash, especially if you're using a speedlight or a studio flash with a decent t .1 (or obviously w/o flash and a high shutter speed), but it is one less thing hopping around, and I always believe in removing error sources whenever possible, so...

 

Wobbly tripods/setups/something going "bump" always cause problems (rant about cheap tripods/heads/working near things that rattle the studio deleted), but w/o an image of your rig or a description of what you're doing/where you're shooting its hard to provide any helpful hints on reducing/damping vibrations (there are many possible sources/solutions).

 

The autofocus will often randomly change what it focuses on if you're doing repeated shots, so taking control of the focus (either using the control software or throwing the lens into manual mode) often works best - and when you shoot tethered or wirelessly hooked to your tablet, you can zoom in on the screen and put the focus exactly where you want it - its really handy to have a big display for this.

 

Ditto the exposure/white balance - the camera usually messes the exposure up left to its own devices (often even with a spot meter - you're shooting a reflective surfaces which causes all kinds of opportunities for problems), so I pretty much always use a gray target to set the exposure. Setting the white balance (or being prepared to do that in post) is also kind of mandatory if you want to get the colors close.

 

EDIT:

On the lighting, that's the hard part - its a matter of taste + how the piece wants to be shot for lack of a better description - it never ceases to amaze me how they are individuals. To make them look their best you pretty much have to set the lighting based on the strengths/weaknesses of each piece - and very often pieces you think could be shot under the same setup really can't (well, you can, its just some of the pieces may well not look so great...).

 

 

Best,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Robert Janssen]

Hi Bob,

 

first of all, I would definately call this pic decent

 

I think most things have been mentioned.

I would like to add something about lenses that hasn't been mentioned. You didn't specify which lens you used... When it comes to sharpness and correct focus of images, many people underestimate the part the lens plays in this. When you take a shot like this with lets say a 35mm or 50mm 1.4 or 1.8 lens and you compare it with the same shot made by a standard 18-200 mm or 70-300mm zoom lens... zoom in on the details of your pictures and the difference in sharpness will blow you away! especially when you go farther away from the image centre you will find shape and colour distortions and reduction in sharpness. So unless you have some expensive glass on your camera, don't underestimate the impact of the lens used.

Also if you don't have a remote trigger setup, just using the timer function can help to reduce vibration when pressing the trigger in a normal shot.

 

enjoy your new toys! :D

[Bob M.]

Thanks everyone for your interest and suggestions.

 

I am sorry that I did not have enough time to add an equipment list to the post . In use -

 

Canon EOS 5D II with Sigma 28-70 f/2.8 plus lens mounted ring light to augment other lighting/back lighting etc

 

Manfrotto 055 PROB tripod

 

Remote Shutter release

 

I think the main problem stems from the weight of equipment on the end of the tripod mount in cantilever mode - even with remote release there is too much vibration , so I guess my next step is to use the mirror up function.

 

I also have the Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens , but am doubtful that even with IS switched on that there would be any improvement.

 

As a third ( ! ) and less weighty possibility there is also the Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM .

 

So just keep trying all the combinations ? Also try to learn how to use Photoshop Elements.....

 

Any preferences/comments from the above list ?

 

Many Thanks

[Ken-Hawaii]

Both the Canon 5D Mk II & the Sigma lens are excellent choices, Bob, but your macro lens is designed to take the sharpest photos of things like tsuba. I also like your ring-light idea, & wish I still had mine.

 

I really don't find any problem with your photo, although you can probably make it "pop" a bit more by using an off-axis auxiliary light at about a 30-45 degree angle, maybe something like a single LED flashlight that isn't too bright.

 

Ken

[Gabriel L]

Can you post a 100% crop so we can see what you mean?

 

Lots of good tips already.

 

Learn what aperture gives the sharpest results for each lens. Usually that's at least two stops down from wide open (e.g. f/5.6 on your f/2.8 lenses). http://photozone.de is good for this. Your 100mm IS has the best MTF around f/5.6–8, for example. But your 50mm set to f/5.6 should have even better sharpness, if their tests hold for your lenses. But test them, as Ken says!

 

Mirror up is worth a try if you are getting vibration on the extended arm of the tripod. "Why not."

 

I use a focusing rail and manual focus with my macro lenses, plus zoomed-in Live View mode. Much better than relying on AF. But a good rail + bracket + plate is going to cost a pretty penny.

 

Exposure and white balance should all be full manual of course. Use a grey card. Full RAW naturally.

 

I wouldn't use Photoshop Elements. Use Lightroom (or Aperture if you're weird like me).

 

I would set ISO to 160, which on the 5DII is actually a digital "pull" from the 200 = native multiple of 100; this will minimize noise, even better than shooting at ISO 100. Tests have shown that ISO 160 is the cleanest possible image you can get from that model. This is a tiny tiny optimization though.

 

Basically just keep trying stuff… there's lots of ways to seek that bleeding-edge extra bit of resolution. But it shouldn't matter unless you intend to print using very good hardware, or to blow up details.

[rkg]

I'd use the 100 macro, as its the sharpest of the bunch/will give you the most working distance/has the fewest ca issues/is the most flare resistant of the bunch, but that might challenge your tripod setup for getting far enough away from the piece. Again, one cause of blurriness can be out of spec lenses - this kind of work (high contrast reflective item, shooting backlit, etc) is really a torture test for lenses and can make problems really stick out... On the sharpness, you can also double check to see where the lens theoretically is the sharpest - at least with the 5Dii you don't have to be trading this off vs. diffraction effects. slr gear is also not too bad a place to look for mtf graphs:

 

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/index.php

 

On the tripod rig, that is going to be a bouncy setup - yeah, you need to use the mirror lockup, and wait long enough for that system to "calm down" before tripping the shutter. you can also add some weight/damping to the system - you can try a shot bag (find one of the skinny empty sandbags and add what, 2Kg or so of lead shot) or a Matthews boa (or two) wrapped around the tripod's spider for a start.

 

+1 on the multiple of ISO. These barely have enough dynamic range for this work to begin with, especially after you dial out canon's sensor "optimization", but that's another wall you can run into after you've gone down the dark path of color management... :-)

 

Elements/the various incarnations of CS have kind of steep learning curve, since there are (usually) several different ways to do anything in them. It used to be Elements was missing a couple of things, but I haven't looked at it in years so I don't know if Adobe ever addressed that or not. Lightroom is great for capture/organizing, but there's stuff you can't do to images in it that you sometimes need to for these.

 

Good Luck,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Bob M.]

Many Thanks to everyone for their input !

 

I will keep trying to improve and will post some better results as they occur...

 

The tsuba used was chosen because of the difficult large areas of backlight together with the need to keep surface lighting under control so as not to get too many bright spots/ highlights from the inlays.

 

On a different note , any attributions on the tsuba ?

 

Regards