Sharpness Settings … Hard Vs Soft
Full sized images can now be seen here.
I’ve seen some talk from time to time at Dpreview and other forums about the in camera sharpness settings, and what people seem to prefer, especially for the PP work.
I have always shot all my Fuji cams with the Sharpness setting on hard. I prefer the image from the camera in this format as it generally means less Post Processing sharpening is required. This then leads us to the conclusion that the image should no suffer unduly from noise.
So I set up a little test, one that anyone with a tripod can do, to see what if any difference there is in the image. I used HR mode to 800ISO. SN mode to 1600ISO and P mode 1600 and 3200 ISO.
These are the modes that allow you to change ISO to these levels as does manual and the PASM modes.
A couple of things to note. HR mode wont allow higher than ISO 800 to be set manually and to be honest I never shoot at anything over ISO800 if it can be avoided. SN mode allows a manual ISO setting up to 1600 and for a comparison I have added a shot at 1600ISO set to soft.
All the following images are straight from the camera other than the two that have been edited, but the original of them is also listed for comparison. The size has been changed due to the file size limit at Picasa. Anyone wanting a full sized version need only drop me a note here and I will add them to one of the galleries.
HR Mode ISO 800 Sharpness = Hard |
To start this off I have a ISO 800 HR image, shot in Hard mode. Its a pretty good image in that there isn’t stupendous amounts of noise and detail is pretty good. All the images were shot using spot metering under a incandescent light bulb. WB was set to auto. Exposure compensation was set to 0.0. However Exif data shows the camera compensated to +0.33 Ev on two images. Something I wasn’t aware it could do and at this point I’m not sure it did or whether ExifGui didn’t report the data correctly. However this wont and didn’t make for a huge difference to the images, but rather just lifted the light levels slightly. Remember we are testing for noise and sharpness.
In the above image we are concentrating on resolution/detail in areas 1 & 2. In areas 3 & 4 we are looking at noise levels. This is especially tricky in area three. The banana bowl is a very light red wine color and the color is apparent in the shadow it casts, making the difference between actual shadow color and chroma noise hard to distinguish.
Next up for comparison is our SN mode ISO 1600 image shot in soft setting. Its not bad but you may already see where the results may be heading.
SN mode ISO 1600 Sharpness = Soft |
Next up we have P mode at ISO 1600 followed by the same settings with sharpness changed to hardness. Are you seeing a trend yet?
P Mode ISO 1600 Sharpness = soft |
P mode ISO 1600 Sharpness = Hard |
Now we come to the ISO 3200 images and this is where things go change markedly.
P Mode ISO 3200 Sharpness = Soft |
P Mode ISO 3200 Sharpness = Hard |
This final set is of the ISO 3200 images both having been processed to exactly the same amount withPhotoscape.
P Mode ISO 3200 Sharpness = Soft Edit version. |
P Mode ISO 3200 Sharpness = Hard Edit version |
Original image |
Post Processed Image. |
As can be seen above noise is not really a factor in these images as it remains constant no matter what mode you use.
As with all things photographic, its all a matter of taste and what suits your method best. But for those of use who value crisp, highly detailed images, then I suggest you give the settings for sharpness another look.