# POLL: What picstyle sharpness for focus check?



## Marsu42 (Apr 22, 2015)

As we all know, even if shooting raw, the thumbnail inside the cr2 used for the preview is based on the picture style.

Personally, I'm using "Neutral" which includes a medium-low setting, but am wondering (esp. when shooting with the [email protected]) if I'm not too masochistic about the lack of in-camera sharpening.

Sure I'd like to get an impression of the "raw" shot, i.e. what actual data I can use later on. And on smaller apertures cranking up the picstyle sharpness extends the apparent dof too much. But for large apertures - isn't a bit of +sharpening in the picstyle easier to handle?

Edit: Changed vanilla thread into poll


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## Maximilian (Apr 22, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Personally, I'm using "Neutral"...


Same to me. 
And I normally only check sharpness of fotos when i take several of the same object. 
And as they are normally shot with the same settings it is not comparing apples with oranges but apples with apples. So I voted "Don't care, everything works".


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## Marsu42 (Apr 22, 2015)

Maximilian said:


> And I normally only check sharpness of fotos when i take several of the same object.



Yeah, well, with moving subjects and the dodgy 6d af system with a f2.8 lens I've come to shoot several frames just for safety, that's why I'm in the position to compare focus position all the time.

But even if you don't check focus a lot, I recommend trying a custom picstyle basted on "Neutral" and try several sharpening settings, you'll probably be surprised how different the dof looks.


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## RLPhoto (Apr 22, 2015)

I have my 5D3 set to adobe RGB and it flattens all my picture styles out. For sharpness, mine is set to 3.


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## Zeidora (Apr 22, 2015)

I also use neutral.
I had not thought about sharpening for RAW files. It certainly does not affect the RAW information, and I could not care less about the preview thumb re sharpening. What I care about is histogram information composition, focal plane, and depth of field. All sharpening/USM is done in PS or with Nik, and depends on output format.


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## agierke (Apr 22, 2015)

I don't concern myself with any of the in camera sharpening due to my preference of sharpening with PS or Nik. 

IMO sharpening doesn't compensate for missed focus. To me the usefulness of sharpening only gives a "crispness" to the overall scene. Applying sharpness to a slightly out of focus image only seems to make the blurryness "crunchier".

I also don't concern myself with picture styles because I never use jpgs out of camera. The only preview info I look for is in the histogram to make sure my exposure is within tolerance. All other concerns are dealt with in post.


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## Marsu42 (Apr 22, 2015)

agierke said:


> IMO sharpening doesn't compensate for missed focus.



Sure, it's all about _*recognizing*_ on the camera lcd if/how much the focus was missed. And with a very thin dof, I found that a bit +sharpening in the picstyle helps checking, while for a deeper dof picstype sharpening should be low.

Note that this is about the embedded jpeg thumbnails in the cr2 you see on the camera lcd, not about using jpeg files afterwards.


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## RLPhoto (Apr 22, 2015)

agierke said:


> I don't concern myself with any of the in camera sharpening due to my preference of sharpening with PS or Nik.
> 
> IMO sharpening doesn't compensate for missed focus. To me the usefulness of sharpening only gives a "crispness" to the overall scene. Applying sharpness to a slightly out of focus image only seems to make the blurryness "crunchier".
> 
> I also don't concern myself with picture styles because I never use jpgs out of camera. The only preview info I look for is in the histogram to make sure my exposure is within tolerance. All other concerns are dealt with in post.


The issue with not setting your picture style to flat and Adobe RGB is that your histogram in camera is based off that setting. Thus it can lie to you and you might be clipping something or you might have more latitude than you believe.


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## Marsu42 (Apr 22, 2015)

RLPhoto said:


> The issue with not setting your picture style to flat and Adobe RGB is that your histogram in camera is based off that setting. Thus it can lie to you and you might be clipping something or you might have more latitude than you believe.



Unless you use Magic Lantern's raw histogram the jpeg-based Canon histogram will lie to you anyway, so what gives for a tiny difference sRGB or aRGB or using screwed up special picstyles for a tiny bit more of dr display?


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## RLPhoto (Apr 22, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > The issue with not setting your picture style to flat and Adobe RGB is that your histogram in camera is based off that setting. Thus it can lie to you and you might be clipping something or you might have more latitude than you believe.
> ...


It's better than leaving the settings alone. The aRGB setting does make a noticeable difference in the histogram but it's still no RAW. It's a shame canon doesn't fix this little bug.


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