[Vicboy]

Condensation in front of the camera is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge factor. I know how that's like. Good detective skills, Sagitta.

Anyway, I'll just laugh at the ones who say motion blur. It obviously can't be motion blurred, 18mm, 1/200th, image stabilization.

Meanwhile, it's natural for that ugliness you noted in the corner shot, corners have the worst IQ of the lens.

Edit:

You didn't mention if your lens experienced sudden temperature changes tho.

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Last edited by Vicboy; 12-11-2012 at 06:24 AM.

[wombat2go]

Hi Calsan,
I agree there is something wrong.
I take lots of hand held shots at our kids outdoor parties etc and still use the ist ds and the original 18~55,
similar distances, shade and f/8 and iso 200 as yours.
I just looked at a few in comparison to yours.
While the lens is not quite as sharp as a good fixed focal, even at full screen on my monitor the18~55 shots are sharp and natural, with no sign of the problems in your shot.
I think the color fringing you show may be a clue, and I wonder if Sagitta is on the mark?

[Sagitta]

You need to figure if its not the lens, and its not the camera, the only remaining suspect is the environment.

I only guessed this because I'm dealing with it myself to a degree. When I pick up my new camera in a few months I plan to do something creative, and I was pre-scouting where I'd be doing it (out the window to get the landscape/cityscape here at the apartment) and I noticed the refraction BADLY. Shooting from a warm room out into a cold landscape with an open window (causing airflow) = horrible effects.

[wombat2go]

Not wanting to put up family shots with the kit lens, I just did a messy shot with tree branches, lots of strong light and deep shade, at f/8 and infinity,
to see how the lens is out in corners etc
camera jpgs
SMC Pentax 18~55mm at 18 mm at f/8 and infinity:
https://www.box.com/s/9pvn84j4krertf5urke8


Compared to the SMC Pentax-M 1:2.8 24mm also at f/8 and infinity:
https://www.box.com/s/j4jgpodeg4jwab6jt11v

[mrNewt]

My guesses ...

- Poor lens!?
- Smudged lenses!? Where your lens sparking clean - a slight touch of your oily hands on the lens will do the trick
- Do you have a UV filter on!? If yes try and remove it - UV filters on digital cameras makes images worse in some cases.

- Slight out-of-focus!?
- What Sagitta said

It doesn't look like motion blur to me ... is just blur. Like it never focused correctly on the subjects.

[Northern Soul]

I'm going to have to give all my gear a good clean I think - this looks about par for the course with my K-7 18-55.

I've considered that it might need a focus adjustment, and that at speeds at which I'd happily handhold an non-SR camera I should just turn SR off.

[BrianR]

Hi Na Horuk
I couldn't find any part of the image that looked better - actually that crop IS about the best part of that photo, being in the middle. Plus 10 other photos I took look just as bad.

The crop of the trees looks much worse than the dude in the hole so I'm thinking badly front focused could be the issue. Quite badly to overcome the fairly large DoF 18mm @ f/7.1 gets you.

Hows the dirt pile one the left look? Or the log front right?

[pete-tarmigan]

I was once similarly baffled. I checked the UV filter and front lens element for smudges, dirt or dust, and triggered the built-in sensor dust-removal mechanism, all to no avail. It wasn't until I was changing lenses that I happened to notice a large fingerprint on the rear element. I never thought to look there because I assumed I had been careful enough to avoid touching that element when I was changing lenses earlier.

[calsan]

I've gone through in my mind what happened and I think the suggestions about the environment effect on the camera are the cause.
Camera was sitting on the floor of the car under an AC vent, so got very cold. Then got out of the car and walked in the sun to the work site - about 300m.
I noticed at the time that the black camera had quickly become very hot to touch - the sun was pretty strong. I actually put my helmet on whilst walking to site because the top of my head was getting baked.
I guess that the difference between the outside temperature of the camera and the inside temperature might have created wavy air currents inside the mirror box of the camera - a bit like you get with moving a telescope from inside to outside.

I went to Singapore last year and used my 18-55 exclusively because of the humidity and rain - all the shots were reasonably sharp and not a horrible smudge anyway. I also was walking around outside mostly and not going in and out of air-conditioned buildings and the sun is pretty "gentle" there compared with Perth. I found a shot at f/7.1 and 18mm - everything from the foreground to the background is clear and in focus as I'd expect at that aperture and focal length, you can count the tiles on the roof at the back and the edges of the leaves don't have fringing.

So, I think I've got an explanation I can live with and will watch out for this in future. Temperature difference due to the black camera and lens in the sun. Maybe a white camera isn't just a marketing ploy, after all.