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Nikon P950, Sharp Images Help


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6 replies to this topic

#1
PaulEngland

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Hi all,

 

I'm hoping someone can provide a bit of insight.

 

I've attached some pictures to give an indication of the level I'm at. I'm pretty new to cameras: owning an FZ330/FZ300 for a few months and now the P950 for around say 6 weeks, and I'm interested in bird photography.

 

I take most of my pictures either lying down with my elbows on the ground or sat down with my elbows resting against my knees, and I've made a point of striking a balance between learning the technical basics, keeping the camera steady and learning how to get close to birds.  As is stands, I've nowhere to go except back to the technical aspects of the camera in the event I want to achieve sharper images: I'm as close to birds as possible and the camera is kept steady. 

 

I've seen pictures taken with this camera and they're sharper than mine, and so my question is: what are the top two or three technical things/camera settings that generated such sharp images? 

 

There is minimal cropping with these pictures, by the way.

 

Thanks in advance for any help,

Paul.

Attached Thumbnails

  • Song Thrush.jpg
  • Goldfinch1.jpg
  • Male Stonechat.jpg
  • Long-eared Owl.jpg
  • Grey Wagtail.jpg
  • House Martin.jpg
  • Meadow Pipit.jpg
  • Spotted Flycatcher.jpg


#2
Merco_61

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What are your shooting parameters? Shutter speed, aperture and ISO will all play a part in getting a sharp result. 

What picture control do you use? 

Do you do any post-processing? What software do you use?

Have you thought about getting a monopod? Holding still at the magnification available with the P950 is not trivial.



#3
PaulEngland

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What are your shooting parameters? Shutter speed, aperture and ISO will all play a part in getting a sharp result. 

What picture control do you use? 

Do you do any post-processing? What software do you use?

Have you thought about getting a monopod? Holding still at the magnification available with the P950 is not trivial.

 

These are all in the range of 1000 to 2000 shutter speed, 200 ISO, aperture around 6.

 

Standard picture. Yes, I use Affinity photo editing but not extensively, say a minute a picture.

 

Aye, I've thought about a monopod but there's something in me that wants to do it handheld.

 

I was hoping someone has this camera and found a huge difference in sharpening and noise reduction levels or something.



#4
Merco_61

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It might be worth exploring shooting in NRW and converting to .tiff in NX Studio before you edit in Affinity as Nikon's own software usually gets more bite out of the raw files than third-party converters.

 

The Vivid picture control doesn't only boost saturation, it renders a higher contrast photo as well. Its origin is the need for a setting that emulated Velvia for the nature photographers back in the day and not lose them all to Canon.

 

These are general observations as I don't own a Nikon compact.



#5
PaulEngland

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It might be worth exploring shooting in NRW and converting to .tiff in NX Studio before you edit in Affinity as Nikon's own software usually gets more bite out of the raw files than third-party converters.

 

The Vivid picture control doesn't only boost saturation, it renders a higher contrast photo as well. Its origin is the need for a setting that emulated Velvia for the nature photographers back in the day and not lose them all to Canon.

 

These are general observations as I don't own a Nikon compact.

 

Cheers Merco. I hadn't considered other photo processing software. I do feel that at least a part of the answer lies in-camera, but I was after ideas and your post is very helpful. I will certainly give vivid picture control a go.



#6
bkmood

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Super zooms are notoriously not the sharpest tools in the shed.  That’s a lot of glass to move around. They not only magnify images but imperfections and vibrations.  Then there’s that annoying thing called heat distortion, especially at long distances.  This is when heat from the ground softens your images at long distances.  I think the sharpness you seek (and the images you posted are pretty sharp), will come with experimentation and practice.  Good luck.



#7
PaulEngland

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Super zooms are notoriously not the sharpest tools in the shed.  That’s a lot of glass to move around. They not only magnify images but imperfections and vibrations.  Then there’s that annoying thing called heat distortion, especially at long distances.  This is when heat from the ground softens your images at long distances.  I think the sharpness you seek (and the images you posted are pretty sharp), will come with experimentation and practice.  Good luck.

 

Cheers for the reply.

 

Aye, I'm under no illusions in that there's a reason why the camera is 800 quid and not a few grand. That said, I've seen sharper images with this camera posted on-line. I tried the vivid picture control and I think there is an improvement, although difficult to say because the weather isn't great here at the moment and so I haven't had a chance to compare in a like for like situation.

 

'Seems to me, from this forum, another one I post on and general reading around the internet; that nobody is going to hand me a magic solution on a plate and so, as you say, it's a case of doing my own experimenting and seeing what happens.