Tips for sharper stills

[King Luff]

Can anyone provide some good tips on getting sharper images?I have been having a lot of fun taking photos with my P3A (@AboveSurrey on twitter) but some images just aren't in focus.

I usually take photos in manual and keep the ISO at 100, would filters help?

 

[4wd]

In theory a polariser could improve things, but on an aerial platform I suspect often it will do more harm than good as the idea is to rotate it depending on how you are orientated to the light.
Biggest improvement in overall impact comes from using RAW and a capable program to edit them such as Adobe Lightroom.
Neither that or a filter will fix out of focus, since the camera is always set at infinity I suspect in fact you are seeing blur due to slow shutter and that could be helped by putting the ISO on 200 or 400 - it isn't as disastrous as you might think especially if you have a noise reduction software.
Noise can be fixed but motion while shutter was open too long can't be.

 

[Meta4]

Can anyone provide some good tips on getting sharper images?I have been having a lot of fun taking photos with my P3A (@AboveSurrey on twitter) but some images just aren't in focus.
I usually take photos in manual and keep the ISO at 100, would filters help?

It all depends on the source of the unsharpness.
Hard to say much without seeing examples.
No filter will make photos sharper and if the problem is a slight motion blur, filters are only going to make it worse by slowing your shutter speed even more.

 

[King Luff]

Thanks for the replies. I use a very basic editor that is built into my cloud storage and it does help but it's no photoshop, think it might be time to upgrade my laptop and learn lightroom

 

[KAOS Imagery]

Without seeing your photos and exif info, it's hard to tell you what might be wrong or could be better....but here are some guidelines:

Shoot in good light - the small sensor doesn't do as well in low light / low contrast situations. Make sure your exposure is good - trying to pull detail out of shadows will result in noise. Keep shutter speed up especially when shooting subjects close by to avoid movement blur. Shoot in RAW. LR is a great way to process the files. In LR, I add contrast, clarity and sometimes use the dehaze function, it helps with apparent sharpness, but go easy on it. When applying actual sharpening, do it selectively, not globally.

You can also shoot panoramas for higher detail.

 

[BVC]

Thanks for the replies. I use a very basic editor that is built into my cloud storage and it does help but it's no photoshop, think it might be time to upgrade my laptop and learn lightroom

If you have a macbook, download Pixelmator - It was on sale for $15 when I bought it. I think its normally $30. It's awesome for the price point. I love it and use it in all my post editing. You can really do some awesome stuff. I have never used Photoshop but if memory serves right, someone said pixlemator would be equal to 1/2 of photoshop in terms of functions. No idea but it sure does have a lot of options for me!

Sometimes I like playing with the options too much. I made this shot look far more tropical than the snowy lake that it was..