Sharpness in A95

[gsrs04]

Got the A95 a week ago. Here's the issue: All the photos I take seem to be very "sharp" (ie) they need to be softened in the photo editing software to make them look good. This has been consistent with every photo I have taken thus far. All the photos I have taken have either been at night - both indoors (standard room lighting) and outdoors (Christmas lights in the street etc.). Can anyone help? I have taken most of the photos in "Auto" mode; some in Portrait mode too. Again, all the photos have appeared consistently (and wretchedly) sharper than they should.

We are leaving on a week-long vacation in about 3 days and I am shuddering at the thought of having to "soften" up what I expect to be about 500 shots..... :eek:

And, oh, am new to digital photography, but consider myself (!) :o reasonably handy with regular SLR photos. I have read the A95 manual end-to-end, took some shots, downloaded to the PC etc....all no problem.

[FAUguy]

I bought the A95 about 2 weeks ago and took it on a 6 day trip up to Orlando last week. I took 465 5-MP pictures on a 1GB card.
All of them look OK as far as the sharpness goes when viewing them on my PC or when Printing on my Epson R200 Photo Printer.

I hate the Auto mode.
I am using "P" mode. Go in the menu and set the focus from AiAF to "Center" . Also, when taking pictures outside when there's plenty of light, set the ISO to 50.
Indoor shots you can use Auto ISO, or 100-200.
Outdoor christmas light shots at night use Tv mode with
ISO 200 and 1/15sec shutter speed. (I used that for taking firework pics.)

[ReF]

Got the A95 a week ago. Here's the issue: All the photos I take seem to be very "sharp" (ie) they need to be softened in the photo editing software to make them look good. This has been consistent with every photo I have taken thus far. All the photos I have taken have either been at night - both indoors (standard room lighting) and outdoors (Christmas lights in the street etc.). Can anyone help? I have taken most of the photos in "Auto" mode; some in Portrait mode too. Again, all the photos have appeared consistently (and wretchedly) sharper than they should.

We are leaving on a week-long vacation in about 3 days and I am shuddering at the thought of having to "soften" up what I expect to be about 500 shots..... :eek:

And, oh, am new to digital photography, but consider myself (!) :o reasonably handy with regular SLR photos. I have read the A95 manual end-to-end, took some shots, downloaded to the PC etc....all no problem.


your complaint about sharpness...is not very clearly worded. are you having a problem with DOF? i've never heard of anyone complaining about a picture being "too sharp" unless it has something to do with DOF. with digital cameras that have small sensor, (pretty much all of them except for the DSLR's) it is typically very difficult to get a nice shallow DOF. there is a thread further down about the A75 and shallow DOF with more discussion on the subject.

[gsrs04]

"Sharpness": the best I can describe this the fact that the outlines / edges of faces of the subjects are very sharp.
See sample photos at http://groups.msn.com/FotoExperiments/shoebox.msnw

Doll1.jpg was the original "sharp" one from the camera. Doll_edited.jpg is the "softened" version - I used the PhotoImpression software.

Sorry, I should have been clearer in my first post - and not sure if I still am.
Again, I am new to digital photography and so may be asking the very obvious - or do I just need to get used the quality and resolution of 5MP digital photos?

[Alnath]

I think the softend one look pants sorry. The original one is much better.

[NYC Jim]

just passing thru - i agree with the previous responder - the sharper original looks better to me.

[gsrs04]

I took a hard second (and third) look at the scans and the original DOES look better. I guess I just need to get used to the sharpness and quality of 5MP digital photos...
Thanks all, for the feedback.

[LSDnSideBurns]

I agree, the sharper photo looks better.

However, there is a low sharpening option in the effects menu, if you don't want to do it in software, and still want a 'smooth' image. Things usually turn out better when done with the hardware.