On 7/31/2021 7:16 AM, Wayne Shumaker wrote:
At 7/30/2021 07:38 PM, Mike wrote:
WayneS writes:
<<Nice. Looks contemplative.
<<Is it Audubon Society material or <<did you use AI sharpen on it :-)?
Thanks for looking. Good call. MR. Hawk was in shadow and a bit surprised by
the noise at base ISO.
Denoise AI first did the heavy lifting “sharpening†and a wee touch up with Topaz sharpen.
The lens is a tad soft at long end near max aperture and I’m sure atmospheric effects did not help.
Mike
Since you allow zooming in, and my experience with the AI tools, I can tell by
closer look at the lichen on the fence where it attempts to sharpen but can't
quite do it, then toward the top of the fence it gets a bit fuzzy but distinct
edge with the background. Zoomed out it is harder to tell. I think the tools
don't do quite as well with a combination of some motion blur and some focus
blur.
Speaking not to this example, but to your "don't do quite as well" generalization, It is sometimes possible to "stack"
Topaz AI applications, with some almost magical results.
This shot with E-M5 and the old Oly 75-300 Mk I, is the kind that frustrates me. Unusually close subject, great light,
etc., but not all that sharp. TAIs fix it! <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Process/Topaz%20AI/Sharpen/RedTail.htm>
As focal distance increases, atmospheric effects increase, and how much the AIs can help lessens. Or perhaps I should
say they still work wonders, but the end result is still not really sharp and artifact free.
There are so many factors that affect "sharpness" of long lens shots that it's important for a good result to closely
evaluate them. It would be nice to have simple rules about what tool and settings to use, but it's not so.
Using my current extreme example, Oly 100-400 with 1.4x teleconverter:
First, a baseline. Everyone is likely to say, long zoom, long end, teleconverter, wide open - has to be bad. Weeellll,
not so much. <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Lenses/Oly%20100-400/O100-400Yellow.htm> Topaz Denoise AI
"Standard" didn't do much, and "Clear" seemed too artificial, esp. in the vertical hairs. "Standard" plus Sharpen AI
"Motion" seem to me to have done a good job.
FL of about 20 ft., late-ish on an overcast afternoon, relatively clear air, no sun heating up the ground, and the pixel
peeper's 100% sample isn't bad at all. After some Topaz AI massage, it becomes really clear that sharpness/detail at any
point in the image depends more on the very shallow DoF than inherent lens sharpness.
Sooo. . . I have a lens combo that's pretty darn sharp. I need to know that to
evaluate shots taken at greater distances.
Earlier, a Red Tail Hawk was circling above us. The Oly EXIF FD is very suspect, as it shows almost the same distance
for images where the bird is clearly at quite different distances. In any case, over 400 ft.
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Lenses/Oly%20100-400/O100-400Hawk.htm>
It seems that the tools can make a big improvement, but not overcome atmospheric effects to render anything close to the
flower photo.
Yet other factors arise, to complicate testing/comparison, beyond Ctein's
caveats*:
1. A middle distance shot of a turtle sitting still on a log, on the same trip, shows lots of motion blur. Much more
than the other examples. What's that about?
2. I was about to add examples of processing that shot - when an update to Topaz Sharpen AI arrived. Different, and much
better results from Motion Mode!
I've dragged this reply on long enough. The turtle will have to wait.
The Good, the Bad and the Moose
AI-Nit-Picking WayneS
* Commenting on his brief testing of my PL 100-400: "Hard to say how good the lens is by any objective measure. It's
insanely hard to critically test an optic like that. Stuff that's far enough away that depth of field isn't a problem,
there are atmospheric ripples and distortions to deal with at the 400 mm lens. Stuff that's close enough that that's not
a problem, I have to compare multiple frames made with the same aperture where I shift to the camera to move the point
of focus to different parts of the field of view. It's a pain and not terribly precise"
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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