[VoiceOfReason]

I never thought of the testing different aperatures. I'll be doing that this evening when I get home from work!

[westmill]

There's a balancing act between DOF and diffraction. For landscapes, I rarely, if ever for below F16. But the sharpest results are usually at F8-F11. So the effects of diffraction do indeed hit at F16, but i feel its worth it to get the extra DOF. Of course, that's highly subjective.

BTW, Isn't that the frustration of photography? You have to weigh a million variables that are directly in competition with each other...DOF vs Diffraction, High ISO vs Noise, Price vs Performance, Portability vs Performance etc etc

haha I agree totaly
In all honnesty I think some folk get caught up too much with quality and suffer as a consequence.
Lets face it... shoot at f22 or F32 ok... the quality may be lacking but I bet it makes for a bloody good picture lol

[VoiceOfReason]

I'll post a couple of the full size ones here this evening so I can show what I mean. I think I may need to donate so I can get more space though...

[mikeSF]

not seeing the pics, i am assuming you arent stopped down near enough to capture the near and far objects in focus. People tend to get hung up on trying to use the "sweet spot" of the lens, but this does not apply to very deep scenes with foreground and background.
I agree with cali92 that you must balance the tradeoff off DOF and diffraction. who cares if you obtained best possible sharpness on the waterfall when the background mountains are all blurry because your DOF is too shallow?
again, not seeing a link to examples, i suggest stopping to f/11 and using hyperfocal distance for getting more in focus. I never flinch at using f/16 when i have a deep field.
good luck

[VoiceOfReason]

Since I don't have the space on here to upload full size pics I have them on my DA, and the first 17 pics are from yesterday. I was annoyed about the pics not being as sharp as I wanted, so am looking for advice. Anyway, here they are: Voice0fReason's deviantART Gallery

[Wheatfield]

I have a K5 and was out yesterday in the Smokey Mountains using either a Tamron 10-24 or a Tamron 17-50 the whole time, and when I got back I noticed some (well, alot) were not as sharp as I like. I mean I want pixel peeping sharpness if I can get it, as in sharp 100% crops. What is the best technique to acheive this? I kept it on ISO 80 the whole time, and generally had the aperature at between 4.5 and 8 the whole time, and the shutter speed was anywhere from 1/125 to 1/800. I generally always used manual mode, so I would like to knwo what is the best settings I can use to acheive maximum sharpness. Thanks.

Trash the zooms and get primes, figure out what the sharpest aperture is and try to use that aperture (DOF constraints many cause you to deviate). Buy a good quality tripod (as in spend money, don't be a cheapskate) and make using it a religion.
If you are going to insist on using zooms, at least take the time to figure out which aperture is the sharpest, and try to use it.

[SteveM]

I checked out your photos and they seems reasonably sharp but I can understand that you would want them sharper. There are a lot of good comments so far but here are a few from me;

- You've chosen a difficult time of day to take many of your photos (harsh direct light). You might want to try heading out early morning?

- DR is very good at ISO 80 but there is a reason it is turned off by default. Even though it's RAW, there is still some in camera processing that stretches the look of the output, and I have a hard time correcting this in post processing but sometimes I like the look. ISO 100 doesn't seem to have the same issue.

- I use a remote with the 3 second delay. Otherwise, you may get blur introduced by you pressing the shutter or the mirror going up.

- You may need to go well past the optimum f stop of the lens, especially if you have foreground that is very near your camera. Try taking one photo at f8 or 11, then another at f22. You can pick the one that works better when you can see them on a computer monitor.

- You don't need AF for a static subject, provided you are fine with manual focus and have very good eyesight. This opens up your options for finding a good lens.

- Finally, you'll probably want to sharpen the photo. If using photoshop / unsharp mask, use a very small radius (0.8 or so) so you can avoid odd looking edges.

Hope that helps
Steve

[mikeSF]

ok, i looked at them too and you just need to stop down more for these distant images with foreground, as f/5.6 (ie. Duck River) is not near sufficient. Go f/11 or 13 and raise the ISO up to 400 if necessary to recover the shutter speed a little.
in the wods, it is quite dark and you must crank to ISO or use the tripod in order to get som DOF and control motion blur.

one last thought, i am not excited about your white balance choices here - are you choosing these as you change lighting or using auto WB? your daylight shots are a little too purple/blue for my taste which robs them of the warmth of the foliage bathed in sunlight. The camera cannot guess correctly so i recommend selecting it yourself.

[VoiceOfReason]

I've been using auto WB. The new lenses are only in the last 27 shots, with some of the earlier ones of those mixing in a Sigma 18-50 f/2.8-4.5. Before that was with some lenses that weren't the sharpest such as my Sigma 28-300, Quantaray 70-300, and the 18-55 DAL kit lens with the Kx.

In lighting conditions like I had would an ND filter or a CPL help any?

[yusuf]

I personally like high pass sharpening using high pass and overlay.

[VoiceOfReason]

Any good turtorials on that? I can certainly give it a shot.

[interested_observer]

With a good tripod (stabilization) (and no wind), 2 second mirror up, SR off (with the 2 second mirror delay, SR is automatically turned off), a wired remote shutter release, knowing the sweet spot of the lens (aperture), ISO 80 on the K5 is wonderful. With good stabilization, I really do not care about what the shutter speed needs to be (30 seconds - no problem), I am locked in place. Then its just composing and shooting.

And while you are there, you can take multiple shots across a range of ISOs, apertures, shutter speeds and exposure modes - then see what you like. Another technique, is to set the ev to say 1/3 and then take a set of 5 bracketed shots (across a range of the exposure modes). Then in post processing, you can sit there looking at 5 shots per setup/exposure mode and decide what you like the best. There are lots of possibilities here. Just remember the "film" is free. Its just a function of SD card size and battery life (bring a set of spares).

[abacus07]

I think something that is overlooked in landscapes is the effect that wind can have on trees. A tripod doesn't help with this.

The biggest issue the OP has is picking large aperture for large DOF shots but that sounds like it is solved.

[philbaum]

I think something that is overlooked in landscapes is the effect that wind can have on trees. A tripod doesn't help with this.

You're right and it isn't just trees. Grasses, brush, and clouds. In some pictures, moving clouds don't bother me, in others they just look wrong to me. One can always bump up the iso/shutter to solve some of these problems.

The tripod does allow careful selection of the framed image, and taking several identical shots to allow for wind problems, perhaps.

One of the constant frustrations i had with taking multi-image hdr, was movement problems between shots, like trees. Sometimes the software fixes work, sometimes they don't.

[civiletti]

I do landscapes on a tripod, mostly at ISO 80, with SR turned off, using the 2" timer to get my hand away and the mirror up. A good zoom [Sigma 8-16 and Tamron 17-50 in my case] can match most primes at middle and small aperture. Most lenses resolve best around f5.6, but landscapes often require more depth of field, so I usually expose at f8-11. Keep optical surfaces clean. Minimize filter use. Shoot RAW and use a good editing program [I use LR4]. Here's my work: civiletti's photosets on Flickr