A few thoughts about the EXIF ......

ISSUE 1: The exposure is recorded as aperture priority (Av), so the lens was wide open, irrespective of the aperture ring setting. Was this intentional?

ISSUE 2: You have the metering mode set to Spot. The camera could have metered on the dark flower head right in the centre of the photo - and tried to reproduce that as a mid-tone. This probably accounts for the over exposure. Probably better set to centre weighted metering.

ISSUE 3: The focal length is recorded as 35mm, not 135mm. The shake reduction system wouldn't work so well like that.

Your second photo has the same settings (apart from shutter speed) but isn't over exposed - probably because the camera spot metering metered on the lighter flower in the middle of the photo.

Try again, making sure firstly that use of the aperture ring is enabled in the camera menu system; using centre weighted metering not spot and set the exposure to 'M'. Set the aperture on the lens to whatever you want and press the green button so the camera will use stop down metering. Check the shutter speed is OK - if it's too low, increase the ISO setting and press the green button again. Make sure the lens is focussed correctly and take the shot.

I've no idea what the magenta band on the extreme RHS of the photo is.

Best of luck
Andrew

Yep, my SMC M 135mm works for me (with a short extension tube and a K30) .......




Andrew

Nah, not if you think about petrol prices in litres. Old is when you think in gallons.

Andrew

I really must get to grips with RawTherapee and start to use it more - or maybe it's time I laid out a few shekels and took a look at Lightroom.

Andrew

The easy way to avoid over-compensation is to switch it off. If you only use shake reduction when you need to, setting the lens focal length accurately isn't a very onerous task.

Andrew

Although I do remember petrol being four gallons for a quid, it was my father who bought it at that. The cheapest I remember paying myself was 33p per gallon in the early 1970s. It was for my (pretty pathetic) Lambretta 125cc scooter, which I used to get to Harris College in Preston (now known as UCLan) - wouldn't do even close to 60mph, maxed out at maybe 55mph on the flat.

Andrew

I discovered the Open Source SmartDeblur v2.0 a while back. It is the newer v2.1 that is commercial. It (v2.0) works well on the supplied sample images, just like in the ExtremeTech article - but seemingly not so well on real images. I've just discovered that I still have it installed, but as I do not find it useful, I will probably uninstall it. As an aside, RawTherapee (which is Open Source) includes RL Deconvolution as a sharpening option - but for most images, I find it rarely works better than Unsharp Mask.

Rawtherapee (RT) itself is an oustandingly powerful RAW converter, but the interface is a bit klunky still; it has a huge learning curve and it doesn't have any of the file management functionality of LightRoom. I generally process RAWs using ACR6.2 in PSE8 - but for large prints, use RT simply as a utility to convert the output profile from sRGB to one of DSCLs printer profiles, which PSE will not do.

Andrew

Me too ...... I can remember four gallons for a quid!!

Andrew

The first program I ever wrote at college, in Fortran, ran on an ICL 1901A which, I guess, precedes the 1904. Showing my age ..........

Andrew

Sorry, yes, I forgot to mention the 5 1/4" floppy drive.