[sarahswyer]

Hello,

I am a beginner at best and I'm looking for advice, in general, although my specific concern is a lack of sharpness when zoomed into 100%. Any advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
Sarah

[rawr]

Hi, and welcome to the forums.

At a casual glance your scene looks pretty sharp, particularly in the foreground. Examining a scene at 100% on screen is often a recipe for frustration, however, with many images. Unless you have everything under your direct control (eg in a studio), there are too many things that may have a negative impact on what you see in outdoor shots - the light, the air, subject movement etc etc.

Aperture: F20

This kind of aperture might be contributing to the lack of sharpness you describe, due to diffraction. f8 would be fine I suspect for your current scene, delivering you plenty of depth of field without necessarily introducing any softness.

I'd also bump the shutter up a lot to remove any possible camera shake or scene movement. 1/250 would be a good baseline, particularly if the scene is windy, whilst still allowing you to keep the ISO very low in a bright scene.

A good sturdy tripod may also help improve image sharpness in landscape scenes, if you aren't using one already.

[sarahswyer]

Hi Rawr,

Thank you for your reply and advice. I'll be sure to take a tripod next time and play around with the shutter speed too.

Thanks again,
Sarah

[desertscape]

Having the horizon at the mid point of the frame is not good. Not sure how you got the slight cyan sky. That beach just does not have any "wow factor" to it.