Softness Issue

Looks like a focus problem possibly with a bit of camera shake. The rocks are almost there. The sand is getting soft, but sand will never look sharp at that distance. The trees are way out of focus.

Until you sort it out shoot jpegs or jpegs+raw and just look at the jpegs for now, don't do any processing on them. You want to keep the variables down to the minimum.

To try and check the focusing put something like a box with pictures/lettering on it in front of a background with very little detail on it, a plain wall would be fine. Use a tripod and 2 sec delay via remote. Better still use flash if you can, so that you can be sure camera shake isn't involved. Switch off shake and set to manual focus. Use about f/6.7 if the lens is f/5.6 Manually focus on the box (note if this agrees with the focus confirmation indicator)and then take some shots at different focus points before and after the focus mark on the lens. Check the jpegs to see if the manual focus is right. It seems to me that the sharpest is usually the largest file size and the reason I've said use a plain background is that when the focus moves to the background if there is a lot of detail there the file size will increase.

It might be easier doing this with Remote Assistant on a computer and watch the results live.

It's not easy with a wide angle lens. I'm having the same problem with a Sigma 10-20mm bought from SRS. I did some tests at about 3m distance that showed the Sigma much worse than the Kit 18-55mm then I noticed some items 5m away were sharper on the Sigma (don't know why)so I'm going to have to try again.

shim


shim

It probably is for most folk with less shaky hands than mine, but checking for this critical level of sharpness isn't generally possible in the field. Hence if this is a once-in-a-lifetime sort of shot it's worth having the reassurance that only a really sturdy tripod can give.

Don't get disheartened by a few early disappointments - most of the people who successfully sell stock images have spent years getting to know their equipment intimately and even then only expect a relatively low proportion of their shots to be accepted. You've made a good start, (hopefully) learnt a couple of lessons and now it's time to put your new-found knowledge to the test - keep refining and you'll get there eventually.

Good luck and if you fancy forwarding me a commission from future sales...

Shim I will try and give that a go. Thanks

Hefty
I know the trouble with digital is, everyone thinks they can sell stock images and I am as guilty as anyone. The dissapointment is more about the image quality itself and being lost as to why it is so, and not about whether it is accepted or not. Its a long way back to Spain.

Still, you live and learn.......

Re commission I once bought a budding rock star a pint and he promised to give me 10% of his earnings if he ever 'made it'
Make it he did many years later, he wasn't true to his word though and I haven't seen him since lol

you are correct this is wrong all the talk of sharpening confused the issue
IT is bicubic smoother for upping the image size or res

You can get a lens test at http://focustestchart.com free and i found my lens was front focusing...This caused the detail at infinity to be out, even at small apertures

do some tests mine needed -8 and is fine now

Note if you use SR there is a delay for it to stabilise, so I don't normally have it on unless the light is turning low

Sometimes I have left SR on accidentally and it may heave been on in this example.

Thanks for the link by the way I will give it a go. How does one adjust the lens though?

I think the focus error (if it is that) will be more than a few mm.
Also the focus chart would only test the focus at a very short distance.

shim

Correct.

With a Nikon D2X that I used to use, the focus was out which equated to 5% error. Up close it was fine, but distance caused problems as did longer focal lengths as the error gets magnified. This had to be re set by Nikon and took over two weeks.

Manual focus however still worked 100%

An error in focusing can't get magnified by long distances surely? The longer the distance the more DOF and the less critical focusing gets.

Really critical focusing is needed at close distances and especially at macro distances, where the DOF is virtually nil.

Yes I agree but if it is focusing in front you wont get infinity focusing and this is what was happening with the Nikon.
At least with the K20D you can adjust it your self
since I adjusted mine it is fine could not be happier with it works like a wide angle should do lots of DOF but before even at f22 the distant horizon was way out when it should appear sharp

That sounds way out, not 5% out. At half the histance to the horizon f22 should give you a sharp distance.