First of all let me say a sincere thank you to everyone who replied and attemptedd to help me resolve this problem!!
It's official,.. There isn't any doubt,.. It's the camera!!! Something in the D200 is off & causing what should be properly focused imaged to be rendered soft!!
Before I ran any of the tests that were suggested here, on a whim, I dug out my old D70 & slapped it on the 200-400 f4VR. I knew it was a waste of time, I had already determined 2 years ago that I couldn't count on gettitng sharp images from the D70.
Well, holy crud!!!! I got the sharpest images I've seen since I last shot film!! The entire ratio was turned completely around. Not only are the vast majority of images sharp, really sharp!! The very few that aren't are obvious as to the problem!! The focus would be "Obvious" that it landed on wrong part of subject, or subject movement during exposure etc., etc.. easy to see, no question about what went wrong!! I'm flabergasted,.. What gives, I knew, for certain, this camera was toast years ago??!!
Looks like I was wrong, suprise suprise!! In fact the D70/200-400 zoom combo's images are so sharp, I've had to redefine what is or isn't a sharp digital image, and those iffy 3 star onesfrom before don't even come close anymore. Now a 3 star sharp image is as good as the 4 or five stars I've been keeping in the past.
So, I call Nikon service to "Once again" describe the problem, only this time with concrete evidence that the "Photographer, the lens, focus, shutter speed, subject movement or camera support", was definately not the problem.
They walked me through some kind of complete reset proceedure which actually seemed to fix the D200!! Unfortunately, the fix was temporary! I got one day of use out of it & the next day, everything I shot is soft again (once more, many potentially great shots, garbage!!). AAARRRGGGHH!!! I re-did the reset and the camera worked fine again,.. for one use, then without changing anything but the CF card,.. the next card is full of soft images. (this time I only took test images, nothing I was counting on wanting to keep!!) Nikon actually tried to blame the CF card!!! But since I'm using brands they've "tested & approved of" for their cameras, the tech soon abandoned that tactic.
Just an FYI for all who may be unaware of this little factoid,.. as stated to me by the service tech,.. Nikon now claims that using CF cards other than those Nikon has tested & approved,.. can not only result in "unpredictable performance" as mentioned in the manuals, but can actually cause your images to be damaged, or rendered soft & unusable" like mine!. ...that last part I didn't see in any of the manuals!!
So,.. in the last 3-4 years, I have purchased 2, count 'em TWO!! brand new, high end (at that time) digital cameras from Nikon. At a total cost of about 4 grand!!. Only to receive two duds. My first D70 died 1 month after I got it, & had to be replaced. After it was replaced, I used it with a wide variety of manual focus lenses. From wide to macro & telephoto and I got the kinds of results I was complaining about in the previous post.
Since every now & then I could get a good, sharp image,.. Nikon assumed that something I was doing/not doing had to be the cause. I was older, so were my eyes, so were my lenses for that matter! So,.. as you can plainly tell from the "deasperate plea" post, I bought their argument & wasted 2-3 years trying unsucessfully to track down the problem.
Apparently, the D70's viewfinder "...just isn't good enough to count on for critical, accurate manual focusing". I guess I must have missed that info in their promotional material back when the camera was the "newest, latest greatest"!!
So I gave up on the D70, tossed it in my camera bag & waited until I could convince myself I could afford the D200. Only to run into what appeared to me anyway,.. to be "THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM!!! with the D200. OK, manual focus was still a problem (could still be me I reasoned), but now I rent the "fabulous" auto focus 200-400 and STILL!!,.. too many soft fuzzy images!!!
The only bright spot in all of this, is that this time, I purchased the extended warranty!! It doesn't completely save this shoot, but at least once Nikon admits the camera's the problem, they'll have to fix it!! I'm so fraakkin furrious I could spit!!!
Oh well,.. (d-e-e-e-p breath,..) the D70 works on this lens. I still have it for another day,.. (2 days actual usable use, out of a weeks rental, Wundnnderfull!!!) and this year, now that I FINALLY have a camera/lens combo that will render a sharp shot consistantly,.. predictably,.. It looks as if the chicks will hatch the day after my vacation is over!!
I have to wonder if the camera gods must hate me for some reason!!!
Anyways,.. I wanted to post this so you would all know It's OVER!!! Finally!!!
Thanks again to everyone here! Sorry for all the ranting, sorry to have drug,.. (dragged??) ..involved you in this mess with me!! but I was at my absolute wits end!! At least it turns out I'm not actually blind, stupid or crazy!!!! (much)!!
I'm glad you've gotten some resolution!! Just one note Craig - sounds to me like the service tech was giving you a bit of a run-around with regard to CF cards. I understand if Nikon has a problem with some brands or wants to approve some. But there's no way a CF card can cause soft images if the camera is taking sharp ones. The CF is just digital memory. The camera will write the same stream of zeroes and ones to any card - and that can't produce a soft image. It could corrupt the image in various ways, making it look blotchy, or pixelated, or have lines, or something else associated with a corrupted file. But there's no way you're softness could be caused by the card.
That really sounds like a smoke screen to me (the CF card issue of causing soft images). Like David said, it is a memory device that stores ones and zeros. Would that mean that if we used unapproved video memory and regular RAM in our computers then we could get fuzzy screens????? Think not.
It would be awesome if you were able to get that same tech to email you that data from a reliable source in Nikon and then share it with us. Since he said it, he should be forced to back up that statement with proof. If it is not true, then Nikon should want to know that this is what their people are saying. Either way, it should be made public one way or another...especially if it is true.
I use top of the line (for when I bought them for my D200) 2 Gig Lexar Professional CF w/ write acceleration 133x speed CF cards. IF there is a problem with some brands, then some "good" brands could exhibit the same problem. Like I said, I think Nikon owes you a technical description and explanation for what is going on in the card to produce fuzzy images. Or if someone here "knows" this, then PLEASE share with us!
And there is NO way the CF flash card is the source of the problem. It writes what the camera tells it to write, or corrupts it so badly that it is really obvious there is a problem. Softening the image consistently is not an option.
...sounds to me like the service tech was giving you a bit of a run-around with regard to CF cards.
Oh yeah,.. I didn't buy that for a second. I did a lot more than just suggest it was a run-around when he told me that!! I even asked why there wasn't an actual warning about that possibility in the manuals. Especially ince soft, blurry images are a WHOLE different story than "Unpredictable performance!!" or even corrupted files!
Yup, something like that occuring regularly would be ALL over all kinds of photography forums!!!
I'll be sending a L-o-o-o-o-ng letter & a CD of sample images, good & bad with the D200 when I send it in.
You say you're resetting the camera (D200) and can then get a series of good images. Which settings do you change over time after the reset? I'd have a hard look at these to determine whether they are what's causing you trouble.
Which settings do you change over time after the reset?
I'm not sure what I might have changed while shooting the first time, but in both cases I changed the image file type, from jpeg to NEF, the iso from auto to sunny, sRGB to Adobe, & color mode from I to II. I did all of that before doing any shooting and it still worked.
After it went bad again & I did a second re-set, I again set my shooting settings where I wanted them, & then the only thing I changed, aside from shutter speed & apeture while shooting, was the CF card, and they were both "Nikon approved" brand cards! So they shouldn't be the problem. Even if Nikon believes a CF card alone could cause soft images, even they said that if I'm using approved brands, it shouldn't cause a problem.
I can't for the life of me imagine what could be wrong to cause this, but I suspect the camera isseriously broken to be doing what it's doing. This ain't no minor malfunction, that's for sure.
Are you doing any sharpening in postprocessing? If you are shooting NEF, then there is absolutely no sharpening applied to the image. Digital images must get some level of sharpening, simply because of the way in which the image is recorded. The interpolation method used to interpret images, especially transitions at high contrast edges, will always yield a very gradual (comparatively speaking) transition from light to dark. The image will always appear soft directly from the sensor, as in NEF. So mild sharpening is always needed to bring out the details. An image that is contrastly also looks sharper, even though it may not record additional information.
To see if this is the problem, shoot a series of test images with both NEF and high quality jpeg selected as the image formats. You wil immediately see the difference between the in camera process image vs the NEF. If you already know this, then I apologize for the explanation.
Craig - reading your messages is always a bit confusing for me. You set the ISO from auto to sunny? Or are we talking about white balance here? If you boosted ISO up, noise reduction and loss of detail associated with it may explain the problem.
Also, I think that AdobeRGB and Color Space II are suitable for portraits, but might not deliver as much punch as some of the other color modes. Also, unprocessed NEF files are always a bit flatter than JPEGs. Just make sure you don't mix up lack of contrast and PP-sharpening with lack of sharpness per se. I don't think the card is your problem (heck, I'm 1000% sure that it is not so).
There's certainly nothing wrong with sending the camera to Nikon for a check. However, you having had the same problems with the D70, which seem to be resolved now after sitting on the shelf for a while, suggests that the problem my be elsewhere, too.
reading your messages is always a bit confusing for me. You set the ISO from auto to sunny? Or are we talking about white balance
You're confused!!,.. I'm lucky I can spell my name at this point!! I mistakenly wrote only half of what I meant to! I meant to say I changed the ISO & then the white balance from auto to sunny!
Yeah, you'll have to forgive me. Most of these posts were written EARLY in the AM (despite the time stamp accompaning the post) My regular job(s) have had me working evenings & nights for 12 of the last 15 years or so, but this week I've been up by 4am to get to the swamp at first light. The first 6 days I had trouble getting to sleep before 11 or 12. So I've got a serious sleep deficeit going on right now. That & getting ready to rush out the door, doesn't lend itself to accurate & complete thoughts, especially for a "hunt & peck" typist like myself!!
Are you doing any sharpening in postprocessing? If you are shooting NEF, then there is absolutely no sharpening applied to the image
Folks, I really do appreciate the effort, but I thought I covered this. Both resets appeared to fix the problem. Immediately after each re-set I got crisp, sharp images from a camera that couldn't seem to produce any to save it's life!! Now,.. although I cannot say for certain that I didn't change some setting other than those I listed above the first time, After the camera went bad again & I performed the second reset, the only thing I changed between a good set of images and a soft set,.. was the cf card. 15-20 seconds elapsed time tops, between shooting on one card & shooting on the other.
Also,.. I am comparing raw files that have been shot & processed by the camera under exactly the same settings. I didn't apply sharpening to one & not the other,.. same in camera sharpening or lack of it on both sets, CS & bridge settings all the same, identical,..Only one set is sharp, one isn't.
It's the camera!!
...you had the same problems with the D70, which seem to be resolved now after sitting on the shelf for a while, suggests that the problem my be elsewhere, too
True!, at least I thought it was the same problem. I could easily be wrong. At that time I only had manual focus lenses, and again, after the fact, Nikon claimed that the D70's viewfinder isn't "good enough" to count on for "critically, accurate manual focusing". That is & was their postition on the D70.
Also, when I posted a similar issue last year or so, the general consensus was that my diopter settings were probably off or at least contributing to the problem. I chased that possability for quite a while!! After all that, the only change of diopter settings that seemed to actually help, albeit only slightly at the time, was when I zeroed them out (meaning neutral). I did that after going back & re-shooting a subject with film my old F3. I have no diopter correction on that F3 & I was able to manually focus just fine, with or without my glasses. I got a lot more "sharp keepers" than with either digital camera, and at halfor less the shutter speeds I used with digital, because the film was only ISO 50.
Now, obviously since some small fraction of the images from the D200 are comming out acceptably sharp, the problem, whatever it is,.. comes & goes spontaniously on it's own, as well as after a re-set. I suppose its not out of the question that that same kind of thing is occurring with the D70 also,.. I could just be in an unusually long period where the isssue is currently, temporarilly, self corrected! Only time will tell on that. For now, its working. And comparing images taken with both cameras, Same subject, same lighting, same exposure settings, taken minutes apart & with the exact same "in camera" settings that I use on the D200, the difference in sharpness is obvious !! They're not just a little sharper, or only a few more keepers,.. That 15-20 to 2, soft to sharp ratio I complained about has completely turned around!! Now it's 15-20 or more sharp shots to a small fraction of trash. It's the same with the images compared pre & post re-set. The difference in sharpness is VERY apparent, same camera same settings!! One set good one not!!
It's the camera! Don't know "what" about the camera "it" is!!, but it's the camera!!
I understand that the issue is with the camera. I am saying that since the Nikon tech told you it could be the CF card, then I would want to make him back that statement up with written text from Nikon as in maybe a technical bulletin sent out to the Nikon techs or help desk folks. Him saying that is really a HUGE statement to make because it is so far reaching. My guess is that he made it up extrapolating data from Nikon's stand of supporting "approved" cf cards because unapproved cards could cause corruption. In his mind, soft images is due to corruption - which has been pointed out to be absurd that corruption would produce consistently good but soft images. It would appear that the "tech" is neither proficient in D200 problems or the technical aspects of memory devices - photographic or computer.
I hate help desk personnel that make things up to get you off the line. I used to be a technical help desk "expert" in another life and I have heard many of these kind of things before. I used to nail those folks and this Nikon tech needs to be nailed, too, if there is no supporting evidence.
Besides all of this, I have had images from my D200 that were soft for no apparent reason and the next image of the same subject taken within seconds was sharp. Most are sharp and I figured "I" was the problem on the soft ones...maybe not now!!
I agree with you completely! You know, It took about a half a second after he said it before it registered fully with me. I was starting another sentance when I did a verbal double take, paused & asked him exactly that,.. How on earth could a CF card possibly cause the camera to process soft images!!?? He mentioned personally seeing images with obvious defects in them from unapproved cards. He admitted that he hadn't actually witnessed what I was describing, but swore unapproved cards caused "All kinds of problems". When I told him I was using Lexar & Sandisk cards he admitted that they souldn't be the problem then.
I certainly suspect it's as you said,.. He's extrapolating cause & effect from some unrelated issue because, (like me) he couldn't think of how the camera could give an other wise uncorrupted file whose only defect is that nothing in it is sharp when something in it should be!
All these images I'm describing have some DOF to them. By that I mean, there is a forground or background area (or both) that obviously falls outside the area of DOF for the image. They display exactly what you'd expect to see from the f stop used,.. completely blurred detail or entirely mottled soft color & but inside that area where the DOF of the lens was actually focused nothing comes into anything like actual focus! No fine detail, no clean edges. You can see & recognize the subject, you can see where it should be in focus, it just isn't.
As for your comment about your D200. Honestly,.. before purchasing mine. I did a number of searches in the discussion & image forums using D200 to see what kind of quality, (or problems) the D200 had and to be frank,.. I remember seeing a fair number of softer images being posted from the D200 shooters. Images that (at least to my eye) just weren't as clean & crisp as a lot of the stuff posted from many Canon shooters. Especially in the avian forum. (please,.. Please,.. PLEASE,.. I'm not trying to start a "Canon, Nikon" debate) Lets not go there!!
Lots of nikon stuff was tack sharp or I wouldn't have bought my D200. I decided to chalk those soft images up to a probable difference in varying degrees of post processing expertise from the photographers.
BUT,.. what if that wasn't (isn't) the case? The more I think about this,.. the more it seems to beg the question,..
What if a lot,.. quite a lot of digital shooters (Nikon or Canon alike) are keeping images that are actually "Too Soft"!!?? This "softness" resulting from some as yet unidentified in camera hardware/software defect. But these images are kept & worked with because we've ALL read "RAW files all look pretty soft initially and you have to process them to get them too look right"!!???
That statement,.. "looking pretty soft initially" just never struck me as a precise enough description to count on in making my own dertminations for acceptible image sharpness in a digital capture. With a slide it was usually pretty easy. It either WAS or WASN'T sharp. Very little wiggle room for error due to differences in individual taste or perception.
In both of these recent posts of mine, as you can plainly read,.. Many folks have focused on the "Need" for me to recognize that RAW files "need to be processed". That various post processing proceedures need to be preformed on them before they look their "sharpest".
Now, I have always been aware of that "need", but it occurs to me that this,.. "How sharp is sharp?," for a RAW file question has a pretty darned subjective answer to it!! Last year I sent a couple of sample NEF files to a "Nature Pro" acquaintance of mine, and he agreed that the one I thought was "sharp", was in fact sharp but needed addititonal post process sharpening, and that the one I felt was too soft,.. Was too soft. No amount of sharpening was going to fix it. He thought it was a result of "camera shake. I didn't believe it was. I thought my shutter speed should have been sufficient at the time to eliminate that. Especially since I had other sharp images at slower speeds & vise versa.
My belabored point is that even when He & I were in agreement, we disagreed on cause. The determination of what caused that softness would seem to me to be a much less subjective standard to reach agreement on. Yet we did disagree!! How can one objectively determine from a statement like "all RAW's look a little soft" what a "little soft" is??
This year I'm getting tack sharp images from the D70/200-400 combo at 600mm equivilant shooting as slow as 1/125th of a sec and unlike my D200, the D70 doesn't have a cable release. I'm shooting "hands on" the camera. I'm on softer spongier ground in this swamp than I was last year. Camera shake SHOULD be more of a potential problem under my present shooting conditions,.. but ISN'T!! Also, as I mentioned,.. In the few images that aren't sharp, the reason is now obvious. I can now tell right away when I inspect them what the trouble is. Camera shake, subject movement, or missed focus etc.!! Those problems are much more readily apparent, and occur only in those images where the camera settings are such that you would expect to see them. Again not so with the D200 using manual or auto focus, (or in the past for that matter, using my D70 & manual focus lenses)
I don't know why the D70's working fine now except that I've only used it on auto focus with this lens. I'm not going to even try it on a manual focus lens until after I've sent the rental back,.. (Not going to take any chance of screwing it up until I'm done with the sandhill cranes.)
Again,.. My point is that most folks tried to narrow down the problem to my technique, my equipment, my eyes, (all good and reasonable things to suspect BTW) but when my answers would seem to argue that those couldn't, shouldn't be the problem, we always came back to "RAW files looking a bit soft to begin with", and as I've stated what does "a little soft" look like??
Is there any place out there where one can go to view & compare a completely Objective standard of what these "sharp" Raw files SHOULD look like? Is there some mysterious "Softness" defect lurking out there in a bunch of cameras or software??
Am I barking up the wrong tree or what??? (this whole maddening 3 year episode may have left me a bit on the paranoid side!!)
Discussion
13 repliesFirst of all let me say a sincere thank you to everyone who replied and attemptedd to help me resolve this problem!!
It's official,.. There isn't any doubt,.. It's the camera!!! Something in the D200 is off & causing what should be properly focused imaged to be rendered soft!!
Before I ran any of the tests that were suggested here, on a whim, I dug out my old D70 & slapped it on the 200-400 f4VR. I knew it was a waste of time, I had already determined 2 years ago that I couldn't count on gettitng sharp images from the D70.
Well, holy crud!!!! I got the sharpest images I've seen since I last shot film!! The entire ratio was turned completely around. Not only are the vast majority of images sharp, really sharp!! The very few that aren't are obvious as to the problem!! The focus would be "Obvious" that it landed on wrong part of subject, or subject movement during exposure etc., etc.. easy to see, no question about what went wrong!! I'm flabergasted,.. What gives, I knew, for certain, this camera was toast years ago??!!
Looks like I was wrong, suprise suprise!! In fact the D70/200-400 zoom combo's images are so sharp, I've had to redefine what is or isn't a sharp digital image, and those iffy 3 star onesfrom before don't even come close anymore. Now a 3 star sharp image is as good as the 4 or five stars I've been keeping in the past.
So, I call Nikon service to "Once again" describe the problem, only this time with concrete evidence that the "Photographer, the lens, focus, shutter speed, subject movement or camera support", was definately not the problem.
They walked me through some kind of complete reset proceedure which actually seemed to fix the D200!! Unfortunately, the fix was temporary! I got one day of use out of it & the next day, everything I shot is soft again (once more, many potentially great shots, garbage!!). AAARRRGGGHH!!! I re-did the reset and the camera worked fine again,.. for one use, then without changing anything but the CF card,.. the next card is full of soft images. (this time I only took test images, nothing I was counting on wanting to keep!!) Nikon actually tried to blame the CF card!!! But since I'm using brands they've "tested & approved of" for their cameras, the tech soon abandoned that tactic.
Just an FYI for all who may be unaware of this little factoid,.. as stated to me by the service tech,.. Nikon now claims that using CF cards other than those Nikon has tested & approved,.. can not only result in "unpredictable performance" as mentioned in the manuals, but can actually cause your images to be damaged, or rendered soft & unusable" like mine!. ...that last part I didn't see in any of the manuals!!
So,.. in the last 3-4 years, I have purchased 2, count 'em TWO!! brand new, high end (at that time) digital cameras from Nikon. At a total cost of about 4 grand!!. Only to receive two duds. My first D70 died 1 month after I got it, & had to be replaced. After it was replaced, I used it with a wide variety of manual focus lenses. From wide to macro & telephoto and I got the kinds of results I was complaining about in the previous post.
Since every now & then I could get a good, sharp image,.. Nikon assumed that something I was doing/not doing had to be the cause. I was older, so were my eyes, so were my lenses for that matter! So,.. as you can plainly tell from the "deasperate plea" post, I bought their argument & wasted 2-3 years trying unsucessfully to track down the problem.
Apparently, the D70's viewfinder "...just isn't good enough to count on for critical, accurate manual focusing". I guess I must have missed that info in their promotional material back when the camera was the "newest, latest greatest"!!
So I gave up on the D70, tossed it in my camera bag & waited until I could convince myself I could afford the D200. Only to run into what appeared to me anyway,.. to be "THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM!!! with the D200. OK, manual focus was still a problem (could still be me I reasoned), but now I rent the "fabulous" auto focus 200-400 and STILL!!,.. too many soft fuzzy images!!!
The only bright spot in all of this, is that this time, I purchased the extended warranty!! It doesn't completely save this shoot, but at least once Nikon admits the camera's the problem, they'll have to fix it!! I'm so fraakkin furrious I could spit!!!
Oh well,.. (d-e-e-e-p breath,..) the D70 works on this lens. I still have it for another day,.. (2 days actual usable use, out of a weeks rental, Wundnnderfull!!!) and this year, now that I FINALLY have a camera/lens combo that will render a sharp shot consistantly,.. predictably,.. It looks as if the chicks will hatch the day after my vacation is over!!
I have to wonder if the camera gods must hate me for some reason!!!
Anyways,.. I wanted to post this so you would all know It's OVER!!! Finally!!!
Thanks again to everyone here! Sorry for all the ranting, sorry to have drug,.. (dragged??) ..involved you in this mess with me!!
Craig
I'm glad you're sorted!
Happy shooting,
It would be awesome if you were able to get that same tech to email you that data from a reliable source in Nikon and then share it with us. Since he said it, he should be forced to back up that statement with proof. If it is not true, then Nikon should want to know that this is what their people are saying. Either way, it should be made public one way or another...especially if it is true.
I use top of the line (for when I bought them for my D200) 2 Gig Lexar Professional CF w/ write acceleration 133x speed CF cards. IF there is a problem with some brands, then some "good" brands could exhibit the same problem. Like I said, I think Nikon owes you a technical description and explanation for what is going on in the card to produce fuzzy images. Or if someone here "knows" this, then PLEASE share with us!
Troup
And there is NO way the CF flash card is the source of the problem. It writes what the camera tells it to write, or corrupts it so badly that it is really obvious there is a problem. Softening the image consistently is not an option.
Oh yeah,.. I didn't buy that for a second. I did a lot more than just suggest it was a run-around when he told me that!! I even asked why there wasn't an actual warning about that possibility in the manuals. Especially ince soft, blurry images are a WHOLE different story than "Unpredictable performance!!" or even corrupted files!
Yup, something like that occuring regularly would be ALL over all kinds of photography forums!!!
I'll be sending a L-o-o-o-o-ng letter & a CD of sample images, good & bad with the D200 when I send it in.
Thanks again everyone!!
Craig
Basil
I'm not sure what I might have changed while shooting the first time, but in both cases I changed the image file type, from jpeg to NEF, the iso from auto to sunny, sRGB to Adobe, & color mode from I to II. I did all of that before doing any shooting and it still worked.
After it went bad again & I did a second re-set, I again set my shooting settings where I wanted them, & then the only thing I changed, aside from shutter speed & apeture while shooting, was the CF card, and they were both "Nikon approved" brand cards! So they shouldn't be the problem. Even if Nikon believes a CF card alone could cause soft images, even they said that if I'm using approved brands, it shouldn't cause a problem.
I can't for the life of me imagine what could be wrong to cause this, but I suspect the camera is seriously broken to be doing what it's doing. This ain't no minor malfunction, that's for sure.
Craig
Are you doing any sharpening in postprocessing? If you are shooting NEF, then there is absolutely no sharpening applied to the image. Digital images must get some level of sharpening, simply because of the way in which the image is recorded. The interpolation method used to interpret images, especially transitions at high contrast edges, will always yield a very gradual (comparatively speaking) transition from light to dark. The image will always appear soft directly from the sensor, as in NEF. So mild sharpening is always needed to bring out the details. An image that is contrastly also looks sharper, even though it may not record additional information.
To see if this is the problem, shoot a series of test images with both NEF and high quality jpeg selected as the image formats. You wil immediately see the difference between the in camera process image vs the NEF. If you already know this, then I apologize for the explanation.
Also, I think that AdobeRGB and Color Space II are suitable for portraits, but might not deliver as much punch as some of the other color modes. Also, unprocessed NEF files are always a bit flatter than JPEGs. Just make sure you don't mix up lack of contrast and PP-sharpening with lack of sharpness per se. I don't think the card is your problem (heck, I'm 1000% sure that it is not so).
There's certainly nothing wrong with sending the camera to Nikon for a check. However, you having had the same problems with the D70, which seem to be resolved now after sitting on the shelf for a while, suggests that the problem my be elsewhere, too.
Basil
You're confused!!,..
Yeah, you'll have to forgive me. Most of these posts were written EARLY in the AM (despite the time stamp accompaning the post) My regular job(s) have had me working evenings & nights for 12 of the last 15 years or so, but this week I've been up by 4am to get to the swamp at first light. The first 6 days I had trouble getting to sleep before 11 or 12. So I've got a serious sleep deficeit going on right now. That & getting ready to rush out the door, doesn't lend itself to accurate & complete thoughts, especially for a "hunt & peck" typist like myself!!
Folks, I really do appreciate the effort, but I thought I covered this. Both resets appeared to fix the problem. Immediately after each re-set I got crisp, sharp images from a camera that couldn't seem to produce any to save it's life!! Now,.. although I cannot say for certain that I didn't change some setting other than those I listed above the first time, After the camera went bad again & I performed the second reset, the only thing I changed between a good set of images and a soft set,.. was the cf card. 15-20 seconds elapsed time tops, between shooting on one card & shooting on the other.
Also,.. I am comparing raw files that have been shot & processed by the camera under exactly the same settings. I didn't apply sharpening to one & not the other,.. same in camera sharpening or lack of it on both sets, CS & bridge settings all the same, identical,..Only one set is sharp, one isn't.
It's the camera!!
True!, at least I thought it was the same problem. I could easily be wrong. At that time I only had manual focus lenses, and again, after the fact, Nikon claimed that the D70's viewfinder isn't "good enough" to count on for "critically, accurate manual focusing". That is & was their postition on the D70.
Also, when I posted a similar issue last year or so, the general consensus was that my diopter settings were probably off or at least contributing to the problem. I chased that possability for quite a while!! After all that, the only change of diopter settings that seemed to actually help, albeit only slightly at the time, was when I zeroed them out (meaning neutral). I did that after going back & re-shooting a subject with film my old F3. I have no diopter correction on that F3 & I was able to manually focus just fine, with or without my glasses. I got a lot more "sharp keepers" than with either digital camera, and at halfor less the shutter speeds I used with digital, because the film was only ISO 50.
Now, obviously since some small fraction of the images from the D200 are comming out acceptably sharp, the problem, whatever it is,.. comes & goes spontaniously on it's own, as well as after a re-set. I suppose its not out of the question that that same kind of thing is occurring with the D70 also,.. I could just be in an unusually long period where the isssue is currently, temporarilly, self corrected! Only time will tell on that. For now, its working. And comparing images taken with both cameras, Same subject, same lighting, same exposure settings, taken minutes apart & with the exact same "in camera" settings that I use on the D200, the difference in sharpness is obvious !! They're not just a little sharper, or only a few more keepers,.. That 15-20 to 2, soft to sharp ratio I complained about has completely turned around!! Now it's 15-20 or more sharp shots to a small fraction of trash. It's the same with the images compared pre & post re-set. The difference in sharpness is VERY apparent, same camera same settings!! One set good one not!!
It's the camera! Don't know "what" about the camera "it" is!!, but it's the camera!!
Craig
I understand that the issue is with the camera. I am saying that since the Nikon tech told you it could be the CF card, then I would want to make him back that statement up with written text from Nikon as in maybe a technical bulletin sent out to the Nikon techs or help desk folks. Him saying that is really a HUGE statement to make because it is so far reaching. My guess is that he made it up extrapolating data from Nikon's stand of supporting "approved" cf cards because unapproved cards could cause corruption. In his mind, soft images is due to corruption - which has been pointed out to be absurd that corruption would produce consistently good but soft images. It would appear that the "tech" is neither proficient in D200 problems or the technical aspects of memory devices - photographic or computer.
I hate help desk personnel that make things up to get you off the line. I used to be a technical help desk "expert" in another life
Besides all of this, I have had images from my D200 that were soft for no apparent reason and the next image of the same subject taken within seconds was sharp. Most are sharp and I figured "I" was the problem on the soft ones...maybe not now!!
Troup
I agree with you completely! You know, It took about a half a second after he said it before it registered fully with me. I was starting another sentance when I did a verbal double take, paused & asked him exactly that,.. How on earth could a CF card possibly cause the camera to process soft images!!?? He mentioned personally seeing images with obvious defects in them from unapproved cards. He admitted that he hadn't actually witnessed what I was describing, but swore unapproved cards caused "All kinds of problems". When I told him I was using Lexar & Sandisk cards he admitted that they souldn't be the problem then.
I certainly suspect it's as you said,.. He's extrapolating cause & effect from some unrelated issue because, (like me) he couldn't think of how the camera could give an other wise uncorrupted file whose only defect is that nothing in it is sharp when something in it should be!
All these images I'm describing have some DOF to them. By that I mean, there is a forground or background area (or both) that obviously falls outside the area of DOF for the image. They display exactly what you'd expect to see from the f stop used,.. completely blurred detail or entirely mottled soft color & but inside that area where the DOF of the lens was actually focused nothing comes into anything like actual focus! No fine detail, no clean edges. You can see & recognize the subject, you can see where it should be in focus, it just isn't.
As for your comment about your D200. Honestly,.. before purchasing mine. I did a number of searches in the discussion & image forums using D200 to see what kind of quality, (or problems) the D200 had and to be frank,.. I remember seeing a fair number of softer images being posted from the D200 shooters. Images that (at least to my eye) just weren't as clean & crisp as a lot of the stuff posted from many Canon shooters. Especially in the avian forum. (please,.. Please,.. PLEASE,.. I'm not trying to start a "Canon, Nikon" debate) Lets not go there!!
Lots of nikon stuff was tack sharp or I wouldn't have bought my D200. I decided to chalk those soft images up to a probable difference in varying degrees of post processing expertise from the photographers.
BUT,.. what if that wasn't (isn't) the case? The more I think about this,.. the more it seems to beg the question,..
What if a lot,.. quite a lot of digital shooters (Nikon or Canon alike) are keeping images that are actually "Too Soft"!!?? This "softness" resulting from some as yet unidentified in camera hardware/software defect. But these images are kept & worked with because we've ALL read "RAW files all look pretty soft initially and you have to process them to get them too look right"!!???
That statement,.. "looking pretty soft initially" just never struck me as a precise enough description to count on in making my own dertminations for acceptible image sharpness in a digital capture. With a slide it was usually pretty easy. It either WAS or WASN'T sharp. Very little wiggle room for error due to differences in individual taste or perception.
In both of these recent posts of mine, as you can plainly read,.. Many folks have focused on the "Need" for me to recognize that RAW files "need to be processed". That various post processing proceedures need to be preformed on them before they look their "sharpest".
Now, I have always been aware of that "need", but it occurs to me that this,.. "How sharp is sharp?," for a RAW file question has a pretty darned subjective answer to it!! Last year I sent a couple of sample NEF files to a "Nature Pro" acquaintance of mine, and he agreed that the one I thought was "sharp", was in fact sharp but needed addititonal post process sharpening, and that the one I felt was too soft,.. Was too soft. No amount of sharpening was going to fix it. He thought it was a result of "camera shake. I didn't believe it was. I thought my shutter speed should have been sufficient at the time to eliminate that. Especially since I had other sharp images at slower speeds & vise versa.
My belabored point is that even when He & I were in agreement, we disagreed on cause. The determination of what caused that softness would seem to me to be a much less subjective standard to reach agreement on. Yet we did disagree!! How can one objectively determine from a statement like "all RAW's look a little soft" what a "little soft" is??
This year I'm getting tack sharp images from the D70/200-400 combo at 600mm equivilant shooting as slow as 1/125th of a sec and unlike my D200, the D70 doesn't have a cable release. I'm shooting "hands on" the camera. I'm on softer spongier ground in this swamp than I was last year. Camera shake SHOULD be more of a potential problem under my present shooting conditions,.. but ISN'T!! Also, as I mentioned,.. In the few images that aren't sharp, the reason is now obvious. I can now tell right away when I inspect them what the trouble is. Camera shake, subject movement, or missed focus etc.!! Those problems are much more readily apparent, and occur only in those images where the camera settings are such that you would expect to see them. Again not so with the D200 using manual or auto focus, (or in the past for that matter, using my D70 & manual focus lenses)
I don't know why the D70's working fine now except that I've only used it on auto focus with this lens. I'm not going to even try it on a manual focus lens until after I've sent the rental back,.. (Not going to take any chance of screwing it up until I'm done with the sandhill cranes.)
Again,.. My point is that most folks tried to narrow down the problem to my technique, my equipment, my eyes, (all good and reasonable things to suspect BTW) but when my answers would seem to argue that those couldn't, shouldn't be the problem, we always came back to "RAW files looking a bit soft to begin with", and as I've stated what does "a little soft" look like??
Is there any place out there where one can go to view & compare a completely Objective standard of what these "sharp" Raw files SHOULD look like? Is there some mysterious "Softness" defect lurking out there in a bunch of cameras or software??
Am I barking up the wrong tree or what???