Using sharpness settings on D80

[herc182]

I have noticed (not surprisingly though after reading the review on this site) that the D80 (and most Dslrs) produce soft images straight out of the camera. Does anyone use the in-camera sharpening and if so how high? I have set it to the maximum (and will change it given the subject..). Ie keep it sharp for landscapes and softer for portraits.

thanks

[tcadwall]

If you are shooting jpg, those settings should be what you are looking for. The reason for that is that Nikon has chosen Moire resistance over sharpness. If you are shooting raw those settings won't affect the raw image. The sharpening needs to be done in your raw conversion in that case. In my workflow I take the raw and do noise reduction, and then sharpening. Typically those are the first steps I do - in that order. Then I work anything else that I feel needs worked before converting.

Sorry this probably doesn't help much if you are shooting jpg. If that is the case, then the camera is likely doing the same thing, NR, then sharpen, color, then convert to jpg. Of course, Thom's book would explain all of this well, also what settings to use to achieve particular results... I highly recommend that book.

[Prospero]

I always shoot in RAW, but when converting the images to JPEGs I always set the sharpening level at the highest available in the camera settings in Capture NX. I think that setting the sharpening in that way is exactly the same as setting the sharpening level at high in the camera.

[Rooz]

I always shoot in RAW, but when converting the images to JPEGs I always set the sharpening level at the highest available in the camera settings in Capture NX. I think that setting the sharpening in that way is exactly the same as setting the sharpening level at high in the camera.

ditto that.

[LR Max]

I have a D70s, and I went in and left the camera on auto sharpen and jacked up the saturation. I can't remember what the default sharpen setting was but with the auto sharpen, it makes the images look better. The saturation also helps.

Sure, you can do this all post-processing but its really nice to have a very good image out of the camera. Also with large batches of photos, you can just upload them instead of having to fiddle with them. My editor once gave me a hard time for post-processing an image. The look on her face when she learned it came outta the camera like that was priceless.

I am not sure if these settings are valid in RAW, though. I think they would. I am gonna have to start shooting in RAW this weekend . Giant pain in the rear...

[herc182]

Thats what it was on before. Might put it back. I dont really like shooting raw all the time. I do it enough for HDR and want to start taking photos "normally" with no PP. HDR has taken over my life (and photography )

[Kellie]

I have yet to shoot to RAW, so if I can keep the ISO low enough I bump the sharpness to +1 or +2 in camera. If I think I need to use a high ISO, I set it to normal or even -1 and do NR and then USM in pp.

Yes, Thom's book covers this in depth. I've learned so much from that book and also highly recommend it.