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Sharpness on Light/Medium/Heavy Tripods
Nikon D2X + Nikon 200-400/f4 VR + TC14= 550mm
This test is a followup to Shooting Technique, but this time we evaluate the effect of varying the tripod.
The carbon fiber Gitzo 1228, Gitzo 1325 and Gitzo 1548 tripods were compared by framing the same shot on each tripod. Because there was a switch in tripods, the image sizes might be slightly different and contrast could have been slightly affected by shooting angle to the target, but evidence of blur is not affected by these factors.
Three shooting techniques were evaluated: Normal, Vibration Reduction and hand on lens hood.
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Diglloyd Making Sharp Images articulates years of best practices and how-to, painstakingly learned over a decade of camera and lens evaluation.
Save yourself those years of trial and error by jump-starting your photographic technical execution when making the image. The best lens or camera is handicapped if the photographer fails to master perfect shot discipline. High-resolution digital cameras are unforgiving of errors, at least if one wants the best possible results.
- Eases into photographic challenges with an introductory section.
- Covers aspects of digital sensor technology that relate to getting the best image quality.
- Technique section discusses every aspect of making a sharp image handheld or on a tripod.
- Depth of field and how to bypass depth of field limitations via focus stacking.
- Optical aberrations: what they are, what they look like, and what to do about them.
- MTF, field curvature, focus shift: insight into the limitations of lab tests and why imaging performance is far more complex than it appears.
- Optical aberrations: what they are, what they look like, and what to do about them.
- How to test a lens for a “bad sample”.
Intrigued? See Focusing Zeiss DSLR Lenses For Peak Performance, PART ONE: The Challenges, or (one topic of many) field curvature.
