[sany]

Hi All

I am not quiet happy about the sharpness and I understand from people this lens will produce good sharpness. I know it is me that is not able to shoot properly. Please advice how I can improve to the 'tack sharpness' and in general improve my photography.
Even before I can zoom to 100% I am loosing sharpness at 25% itself. I know I am doing something wrong.

thanks

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[manishved]

Nice pics. I am amazed how they can sustain such greenery in that part of the world.

[Ash]

First of all, sany, try to avoid f/22 when shooting landscapes. You rarely need it. f/8 to f/16 would suffice for most shots. Even f/11 usually gets everything you need in focus. Anything above f/16 will significantly degrade image quality due to diffraction.

Secondly, in those high contrast situations, you are not going to be pleased with the results if you're mixing blown highlights with low-key regions in the images. Try to shoot having less of this conflict within the frame to start off with, and if unavoidable, or important to include in the image, lower your ISO to 100 or shoot as an HDR or use highlight correction.

Thirdly, do not judge sharpness by how they look on the screen in this thread - look at the originals. The forum's JPEG compression engine does cause images to appear softer and less contrasting than they should do from your originals.

[sany]

manishved: yes, you will be amazed at how they are growing greenery and colorful flowers especially during this time to balance the harshness of the sun. Thanks for your comment.
Ash: ta for ur suggestions, however i hv more questions-last week i was doing the same excercise and i noticed only the foreground or pof was sharp and the rest blurry. After a bit of post mortem i suspected since i remembered a small aperture can hv more dof and i had infact used a bigger aperture. So will f16 not hv less dof than f22?
Also in my computer i dont see a great sharpness nor can say it was on infinite focus!!

[DaveHolmes]

First of all, sany, try to avoid f/22 when shooting landscapes. You rarely need it. f/8 to f/16 would suffice for most shots. Even f/11 usually gets everything you need in focus. Anything above f/16 will significantly degrade image quality due to diffraction.

Agree wholeheartedly with Ash...
It looked pretty bright expand your ISO range so you can go down to ISO 100 (does the K-r do ISO 50?)...
If you plan on doing landscape and don't have a tripod... Get one...
Once you have a tripod... Use the 10 second timer... This turns off the SR (which is not needed on tripod and can infact cause shake) for the shot

[DaveHolmes]

So will f16 not hv less dof than f22?

DOF field has as much to do with distance as it does to do with aperture setting...
For lanscapes and vistas f11 will usually do the job...

[Pablom]

as the guy above me said, you should try to control depth of field by selecting the focusing distance. Hyperfocal distance is a good way to start.

[interested_observer]

I think that everyone else has hit pretty much on the high f stop values. f4 is the sweet spot for the lens (center) and you get a lot of falloff in resolution by f11. See the Photozone link in the resolution section. So I would keep it at f4 for maximum sharpness in the center and no greater than f8. I see you have kept the ISO at 200 which it the lowest ISO for the camera (I believe). I would maintain this in order to keep the noise low (it will elongate the shutter time). At these f stops (f4-f8) you still retain depth of field from between 50 to 25 feet out to infinity. So, for landscapes I really see no need for anything over f8 and possibly a bit less.

• Online Depth of Field Calculator
• Pentax SMC DA 35mm f/2.4 AL - Review / Lens Test - Analysis

The other item is shutter speed, and the Kr/kx has a high capability 1/4000 - I think. So, let the camera figure it out by fixing the f stop and ISO to your advantage.

The other thing you can do is to work with the light. Early morning and late afternoon or early evening, you can probably get rid of the background haze, get the sun glinting off the buildings, with some building lights, a deep blue sky (see the golden hour calculator below). Also, this will get some deep shadow angles within the landscape (and buildings) and also help give it the feeling of some depth.

• The Golden Hour Calculator / Sunrise and Sunset information for photographers

The other thing is a tripod if you are going to go into the evenings, along with an external shutter release - your only option for the Kx/Kr is the IR release (set up the camera body for the first click to open and the second click to close if you go with either a bulb setting or bracketing).

Another thought - with the harshness of the sun, a lens hood may help in terms of negating lens flare - although in some shots lens flare can add to the shot in some settings. Then again, the lens coatings on these new lenses are very good. You might just have to work at trying to get some lens flare....

[HEEGZ]

I was going to leave a long message, but interested observer said everything I had thought of:

• open your aperture to f8
• unlock ISO to 100
• use a tripod and lens hood

Only thing to add is that with a tripod use a timer and don't release the shutter by hand. I bought a cheap wireless remote that also works well for this purpose. For what it's worth, those pictures look pretty good to me at the resolution we see here.

[edit]
I bought the lens hood and lens cap for my 35mm f2.4 per this thread:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/127299-da-35mm...-solution.html