streetmarty Loc: Brockton, Ma

Hi all, I am a street photographer and live by all the outdoor rules of photography, never had an issue. Now I’m a grand-father and find myself indoors taking natural light photos. I spent my whole life without a flash so that is a weakness. However my lens is fast and should have no problem in natural light. Yesterday I took some photos indoors, Fuji 35mm f2 @ aperture priority, iso 800, F2 and 2.8 and I was not happy with the sharpness. Others like them but we as photographers know. When I get into post and crop to 100% I want eyes to look perfect. Is that an unrealistic expectation; am I too hard on myself? I know the “sweet spot” on this lens is f4 after doing the newspaper on the wall with a tripod test. However if I use f4 I have to double my iso and enter noise. How important is the sweet spot to you, how often do you use it as a determining factor? Thank you.

rmm0605 Loc: Atlanta GA

By f4 your "sweet spot" image should be sharp. That's two stops above open. If you encounter noticeable noise above ISO 800, then you might consider using a program like Topaz deNoise, which works very well to reduce the visible graininess.

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

I'm often shooting for bokeh, so I'm shooting wide open as a matter of course. Ultimate sharpness is not a big concern of mine in such situations. But I do always use Piccure+ in my workflow. From being a skeptic I am now totally enthusiastic about this gem of a plugin, which highly improves especially the output of my less-than-ideal lenses.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

It depends... When doing flat field macro (copy) work, it is extremely important. For portraits and candids, not as much. For those, I concentrate on getting the correct plane of focus.

If I need lots of depth of field, as in landscapes, I first worry about diffraction limiting of sharpness.

Given really good light and a need for moderate DOF, I aim for the sweet spot... because I can. But there are many other competing factors.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Marty,

Center sharpness is good on that lens, and the corners are already very good at F2.8. If your subjects were in the center, you should have pretty good results.

http://www.photozone.de/fuji_x/985-fuji35f2

Can you post an image?

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Were your shots hand held or on a tripod? If hand held, what was your shutter speed?
Like the '57 Chevy. Brings back memories!

JohnMD Loc: Colorado

Switch to manual focus and focus the camera exactly where YOU want the focus.

You may find that the auto focus isn't focusing on the same spot you want it to.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Theoretically, all lenses have their weakness when used wide open. The majority of modern optics do very well at the center wide open and the weakness is reflected at the corners.
Keep also in mind depth of field which shortens considerable as the lens is opened up. Depth of field is the main reason why when shooting portraits wide open some areas are in focus and others are soft. The area of sharpness under those conditions is usually located at where focus was achieved. Also consider that if the camera or lens do not have image stabilization slow shutter speeds will cause blur unless the camera is on a firm support. Keep all of these factors in mind.
Noise will be more evident after ISO 800 depending on camera. Many times we have to shoot beyond ISO 800 and noise will show its ugly face but as someone has already pointed out to you there are excellent softwares to control noise and my favorite, as the gentleman pointed out is Topaz Denoise. The "sweet spot" is usually about 3 stops closed from maximum lens opening but that does not mean sharpness is limited using other apertures.
I hope this helps.

streetmarty Loc: Brockton, Ma

Thanks, on the 57. The camera is hand held, no tripod for an 18 month with a cupcake in her!! lol I use aperture priority.

streetmarty Loc: Brockton, Ma

OK I'm going to try this, thank you.

streetmarty Loc: Brockton, Ma

I just checked out Piccure+ and so far I am blown away with the samples, thanks for the help!

streetmarty Loc: Brockton, Ma

Yes, it helps, thank you. I guess the next question would be between Topaz Denoise and Piccure+ which is better or are the about the same? The price is.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

YES!!! I agree on using Piccure+. It allows you to shoot wide open, and can overcome the lens softness that comes at wide open. It cannot correct for "out of focus", but it certainly overcomes lens softness. And it also tends to widen the depth of focus just a bit. And it does this through incredible deconvolution mathematics. And not with the conventional approach of sharpening.

One thing I find is that if there is noise, I like to treat the RAW with DxO Optics Pro Elite (with distortion correction turned off) and to then use Piccure+. It has its own Noise Suppression, but it is not in the same league as DxO.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

I'm trying to understand your question:
What does "crop to 100% mean?

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

I use Topaz Detail after running through Piccure. For good lenses Piccure doesn't IME offer such a great advantage, but for lenses wide open and those that have haloing and glow on details due to spherical aberration it does an amazing job that cannot be replicated by sharpening. The deconvolution algorithm they developed doesn't depend on emphasizing existing edges with haloing, but actually recreates the fuzzy edges. It really does work.

I also find their denoising very good in combination with the deconvolution to stop the noise from being increased, but it is not primarily for denoising already noisy pictures, as it can create noise patterns in them that are not pleasant.