What am I doing wrong? A n00b question

_Whimsical_

I realise I am very much amateur hour and I feel weird asking a question here but I am at a loss as to know what I'm doing wrong so you seemed like the best people to ask.

I have Fuji Fine Pix s6500 bridge camera and while it's good I'm not finding it anywhere near as good or as other people seem to find it judging from their pics online. I find my pics always seem to look pixelated or muddy in terms of detail when I use my zoom. Today's example is an effort at taking moon pics,they are under exposed I know,but they also have that muddy blockly look. I was using f11,iso 100 and shutter speed 125-160 mostly.Optical zoom x10 with digital zoon also. Here it is :

[IMG][/img] Uploaded with ImageShack.us


If anyone could give me an idea as to what might be causing this I'd be extremely grateful.

pixbyjohn

Don't use the digital zoom. It will pixelate the photo.
Try and use a tripod for those shots too.

sineadw

yup - digital zoom is just zooming in on the pixels. Don't use at all!

_Whimsical_

Ah digital zoom! Ok I'll cut that out. I'm finding similar results with the normal 10x optical zoom though. Is there anything else I might be doing wrong?
Thank you for the answers.

This is one is from yesterday before I discovered digital zoom! It's better but it's still lacking detail and looks a bit like its been blurred in places.

[IMG][/img] Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Kenny Logins

It's a very small file with a limited range of colours etc., that doesn't give the jpeg compression anywhere to go...

How does the full size image look uncompressed?

_Whimsical_

Kenny Logins wrote: »

It's a very small file with a limited range of colours etc., that doesn't give the jpeg compression anywhere to go...

How does the full size image look uncompressed?

The full size image looks ok,but not great when it's not zoomed into at all. If I zoom in to see any detail, not as closely as I have in the above example, the image looks blocky and as if the detail as been smoothed over by a blur tool. Someone said to me that one pic I'd taken looked a bit like a water colour rather than a photo because of blur effect thats sometimes over my photos. I can't find that one to give the example though.

lisatiffany

If you are getting blur you really need to use a tripod because the longer the shutter is open the longer its taking to capture the image and as its capturing any movement at all will cause motion blur losing you precious sharpness.

have you tried shooting at iso 100, shutter 1/100, f8 and spot metered? also shoot in RAW so you can touch up any sharpness needed afterwards, also a self timer might be a good idea because it will lessen your chances of blur even more. the moon is quite bright so the camera might have a hard time metering it properly which is why manual would be your best bet. at first look i thought you were getting noise from a high iso but you only set it to 100, are you shooting in jpeg or RAW?. what photo software are you using with the camera?

Kenny Logins

^^ Try RAW to rule out any jpeg processing, it could be a side-effect of noise reduction, or sharpening, or something else..

_Whimsical_

lisatiffany wrote: »

If you are getting blur you really need to use a tripod because the longer the shutter is open the longer its taking to capture the image and as its capturing any movement at all will cause motion blur losing you precious sharpness.

have you tried shooting at iso 100, shutter 1/100, f8 and spot metered? also shoot in RAW so you can touch up any sharpness needed afterwards, also a self timer might be a good idea because it will lessen your chances of blur even more. the moon is quite bright so the camera might have a hard time metering it properly which is why manual would be your best bet. at first look i thought you were getting noise from a high iso but you only set it to 100, are you shooting in jpeg or RAW?. what photo software are you using with the camera?

Thanks for the reply:)
I'm shooting using jpeg but there is a RAW option on the camera so I can try that tomorrow night. I'm using manual settings and I've tried lots but it hasn't impacted the blurryness. I'll try what you mentioned though.I am using a bean bag tripod which may not be good enough perhaps although it feels study. I was using photoshop to crop those images I posted tonight. Is that what you mean by what software I'm using with the camera ?I don't have the fuji film software installed on my computer.:)

lisatiffany

Cool yep i meant photo editing software, if you shoot in RAW you will have a lot more control over the captured image especially when it comes to lighting and sharpness. it takes up a little more space on your SD card though but because the image is not compressed you get a lot more data and a better chance at fixing errors like exposure and shadows. when you are done with the image in photoshop just save it as a jpeg image of the highest quality and it should be fine. on my current nikon i think the RAW files are about 16mbs ...i'm not sure but i just bought another 2 TB drive for that specific camera so i don't mind taking 16gbs of shots a session or a shoot.

Its been years since i shot in jpeg though i know many photographers that do even fashion photographers, RAW almost gives you a second chance with some images. if you are still learning from the ground up jpeg is good in that it disciplines you into getting the best image possible by knowing your cameras settings, basically staying away from Auto mode. i definitely think the image will be a lot less noisy if you try RAW mode, any tripod at all should do as it keeps the camera still enough for the image to be shot. anywho i hope some of that is useful, and maybe get yourself a free pixie.ie or flickr.com account they are handy for getting views/feedback/posting your work and seeing other photographers work.

sineadw

When you say you're using photoshop to crop the images, are you cropping very tight and then enlarging a lot? This is the same as using digital zoom..

_Whimsical_

Thanks a million LisaTiffany some really helpful insights there.,your time is appreciated.:)I will try out RAW tonight. I hadn't realised you could save the edited image as a jpeg,that is also great to know!

SineadW : I realise I'm cropping very tightly there,I'm not enlarging though, that is the image size after I cropped it. I wouldn't intend to crop that tightly generally I just wanted to make examples for my post that were easy for people to see. Maybe I over did.:)

sineadw

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Thanks a million LisaTiffany some really helpful insights there.,your time is appreciated.:)I will try out RAW tonight. I hadn't realised you could save the edited image as a jpeg,that is also great to know!

SineadW : I realise I'm cropping very tightly there,I'm not enlarging though, that is the image size after I cropped it. I wouldn't intend to crop that tightly generally I just wanted to make examples for my post that were easy for people to see. Maybe I over did.:)

Ah no sure the crop is grand just if you were enlarging it'd cause degredation of image quality. Just checking..

PopeBuckfastXVI

Many cameras allow you to select the JPG quality, i.e. you can reduce it to save storage space.

If you had a lower quality set the JPG might be overly compressed which could introduce the artefacts you are seeing.

It would be helpful if you posted the full, uncropped image also.