i wasnt happy with the way my 70D was or should i say "wasnt" focusing . i had never tried anything better so i thought thats just the way it is when it hunts every now and then. sharp focus was not something that was easy to achieve either. i would take at least 10 shots of every subject and sometimes non were in focus . i figured it was user error but i have been hearing a lot of good things about the focusing system on the 7D mark II so i picked one up yesterday. what a difference ! mach faster focus with no hunting and no more taping pins on the extender. i was able to get a few shots this afternoon and i am quite happy with this camera.
im not sure i cropped this one right but i really like the background.
Stuart, nice looking of the bird, nice BG.
The focus looks like is on the wing, head appears to be a tiny bit soft. I would do select sharpening on the head.
I really like the pose and you got a lovely BG. I might leave a tad more room on the left, or crop in a bit so the tip of the branch isn't so close to the edge, but that's a small thing.
Agree with Troy on the head. You'll quickly learn to pinpoint focus.
I'm delighted with my 7D2 -- aside from the occasional operator error, it's wonderful!
thanks for pointing out the head not being in perfect focus , i actually didn't even notice . i only just learned today how to move the focus point while looking through the veiwfinder. next time i will have a focus point on the eye. as for select sharpening ,i have no idea how to do that yet lol. i really appreciate you guys taking the time to look at my pictures and offer suggestions , very helpful .
Stuart
Selective sharpening is easy. It's usually best done on the JPEG after it's exported, as you want to be very careful of sharpening a master file. But the same principle applies to both. For the JPEG, bring it back into PS, duplicate the BG layer and do the appropriate sharpening on it. Smart Sharpen with the Remove choice set to Lens Blur usually gives best results. Use a very small radius of maybe 0.1 or 0.2 pixels, due to the small image dimensions of the JPEG. More (maybe 1 pixel) if you're doing it on the full-sized master file. View at 100% to see the result.
Then create a layer mask on that layer (Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All) and take the brush tool and choose white for the FG color (bottom of the Tool Bar.) Set the brush to the appropriate size, and on the image paint over the areas where you want the sharpening to show. If you painted areas you didn't mean to, to erase them, reverse the FG/BG colors and paint again. The flatten the JPEG (because you can't have a layered JPEG) and re-save it.
thanks Diane . i cant get around in lightroom ok but photoshop is waaayyyy over my head lol. i have watched a ton of how-to videos and tried many times , but i am completely lost in PS.
This is a good way to learn a useful little piece. If you open your LR image in PS (Photo > Edit In > Edit In Adobe Photoshop) you should see the Layers panel on the right of the screen. Give it a try -- it isn't hard and you don't always need to understand the big picture to use an individual tool.
well i tried it in photoshop but i just cant get my head around it. i did however manage to use the adjustment brush in lightroom and paint the area i wanted to sharpen. does this look any better ?
I had to open both in PS and stack to see any difference. The repost is a little darker so you did something other than just the adjustment brush. But if you selected properly with the brush and sharpened, that should do the trick. People prefer to use PS because it's a little easier to control the selected area. I can't see any difference in sharpness at this size. But it's a good image of a cute bird -- probably not worth worrying about it.
just a chicadee
0V8A0124 by sedwards679, on Flickr
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