Fuji XT-30 XC15-45mm & Viltrox 56mm Noise & Focus Issues

[Bea]

I'm new to photography (been practicing actively for 7 months or so ) and have a Fuji xt-30 with the kit XC15-45mm lens and a Viltrox 56mm 1.4 lens. At first, I didn't notice any issues with the camera because I was brand new and didn't have a good bar for understanding my camera and how it works in general. But now that I've used it for portrait/people photography, general outdoor photography and interior photography to test out, I've noticed how much noise and lack of sharpness is impacting the overall quality of my photos.

First, I noticed the issues with the autofocus. I struggle a lot with portraits to get a sharp shot - and even now after attempting to change how I use autofocus (switching to manual, and trying different autofocus modes) I have never managed a clear crisp shot. For portraits, I've tried using the screen touch focus and selecting the eye or location I want to focus on when I get frustrated with auto but I find myself fiddling with the camera constantly on location to just get my photos to be clear. Afterwards when I review my photos I have noticed issues with clarity and noise. At first I thought it was just the viltrox but sadly, it wasn't. The viltrox has a weird swirly texture/noise to the photos and the xc15-45mm has a finer/grainer noise pattern - but they both are there. If you are entirely zoomed out of the photo, it's clear enough if you don't look that hard and isn't that apparent if it's a busy photo. But it lacks a depth and sharpness, and the noise especially is bad for portraits with face close ups and many smooth textures.

Overall, I am open to the possibility that it is user error (and I really hope it is). I also understand this is not necessary the best mirrorless camera out there and fairly "entry level" vs Fuji's other cameras. But I haven't been able to find an example of others with this issue yet with the xt-30 so I am wondering if it's an issue with mine only.

For some general info/questions I have:

- I shoot RAW only.

- It seems to be the case under both artificial light (with softboxes) and natural light conditions. The noise exists on a low ISO and high ISO's, so I don't believe it is that. I do find it is worse under less than ideal light conditions but even in beautiful light I find it giving me the same thing.

- Grain effect is always OFF on my camera

- I use lightroom to import my raw files and edit them. Could it be how lightroom imports the photos that gives them the grain/swirly effect? (I understand this doesn't have to do with the lack of focus ).

- I've studied several photos from photographers I know, online, etc and there just seems to be a clarity/sharpness that my photos lack. I had actually tested a canon Rebel (t7 I believe) for a while before I bought my Fuji and while I didn't end up liking the camera, the photos I took had no clarity issues at all. I remember them being very crisp! So with that comparison, I am even more stumped. Could it be that this camera sensor is just not that great?

Here are several photo examples edited and undedited I have taken (cropped to show the issues and respect people's privacy) with both lenses in both natural light and artificial light conditions. https://imgur.com/a/QTW1asO

I am still very new to photography and have so much to learn. Any help, advice, etc is greatly appreciated!

[jerryy]

There are several things to note, but it will be tricky to say much about severely cropped processed jpegs. Without knowing focus points, ss and f-stop settings, the ISO information is not very useful.

The XC 15-45mm is essentially an entry level kit lens, you can get good images with it as long as you find out its eccentricities and work within those, but even its ardent fans will tell you it is sharpest between 15-30mm with 31-45mm being usable but not as sharp. For portrait work, there are far better lenses in the Fujifilm lineup or in the third party offerings. Put the camera on a tripod, connect a remote release and work through several focal lengths and f-stops to find out where it shines.

The Viltrox lens is similarly an entry type of lens, it is very good for its low price, but it is not the best for close-up portraits, but better suited for outdoor environmental portrait shots.

As far as Lightroom goes, it sometimes has troubles if you do not apply lens profiles correctly.

[Bea]

1 hour ago, jerryy said:

There are several things to note, but it will be tricky to say much about severely cropped processed jpegs. Without knowing focus points, ss and f-stop settings, the ISO information is not very useful.

The XC 15-45mm is essentially an entry level kit lens, you can get good images with it as long as you find out its eccentricities and work within those, but even its ardent fans will tell you it is sharpest between 15-30mm with 31-45mm being usable but not as sharp. For portrait work, there are far better lenses in the Fujifilm lineup or in the third party offerings. Put the camera on a tripod, connect a remote release and work through several focal lengths and f-stops to find out where it shines.

The Viltrox lens is similarly an entry type of lens, it is very good for its low price, but it is not the best for close-up portraits, but better suited for outdoor environmental portrait shots.

As far as Lightroom goes, it sometimes has troubles if you do not apply lens profiles correctly.

I see, unfortunately im not sure how to share the photos and also protect the models privacy. The noise you see is what the images look like raw in lightroom for me. Im happy to provide the ss info, fstop and other Metadata info. Ill update into the description of each image shortly. 

 

I have tried it under several conditions now with a tripod and different focal points and settings, as well as with the remote app. Good to know about the lens limitations - I will continue to work at finding the sweet spot. Have definitely yet to do that. I am open to other lens recommendations you may have. 

 

I did have someone mention the lightroom settings in a different forum, so im looking into those as well as trying captureone for fuji as it was recommended it works best with fuji raw images. 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Bea

[Bea]

2 hours ago, cpX said:

The photo examples are unfortunately not helpful. If I want to help, you would have to make some original RAW photos available for download. To me, this looks like a simple editing error or wrong RAW converter/settings at the moment. Another alternative would be, for example, to participate in a portrait photo course including image editing.

Sorry, i didn't realize they would be unhelpful. As i mentioned to Jerryy, i am not sure I want to make the raw images available for the models privacy, but i can ask a few of them to make sure theyre ok with it. They may be cropped but i do feel they do show the noise and focus issue I am having despite the less than ideal examples. Even raw, this is how they look in terms of noise and grain, so there isn't any editing issue i have. I often compare it with before and afters, as I've spent many months now trying to work on this issue before posting on a forum. 

 

I did have someone on a different forum mention raw conversion settings. I am trying captureone as well for fuji. But either way, I am open to trying anything. 

[jerryy]

2 hours ago, Bea said:

…

I have tried it under several conditions now with a tripod and different focal points and settings, as well as with the remote app. Good to know about the lens limitations - I will continue to work at finding the sweet spot. Have definitely yet to do that. I am open to other lens recommendations you may have. 

…

You may be better suited finding a lens set that gives you a particular feel you like color, contrast, warmth, etc. instead of just being sharp enough to cut. Not very many folks care to have portrait images that show every skin blemish, not to mention if you have to spend a lot of time editing away those blemishes you are not spending the time photographing, nor do a lot of folks want plasticy images that come from too much skin smoothing. For instance, for a long time, Canon sold a soft-focus lens just for portrait and fashion use that gave the same look as when photographers would smear a little petroleum jelly across the glass to soften the image for those very reasons I mentioned.

Try renting some lenses from your local camera shop and see if you like them, then get a fresh copy to keep. Fujifilm has a 90mm that is well liked for portraits. Rokinon sells a 85mm manual focus, lower cost, that is good. There are a lot of other companies out there selling very good lenses.

Some other thoughts:

Get a kids’ small teddy bear — raggedy kind, and put it on a swing or couch. You will not need to worry about privacy issues and it will let you easily find focusing issues.

Raw Therapee, Dark Table and Silky Pix are also great at converting Fujifilm raw files, lots of others as well.

Edited July 25, 2022 by jerryy

[Bea]

18 hours ago, jerryy said:

You may be better suited finding a lens set that gives you a particular feel you like color, contrast, warmth, etc. instead of just being sharp enough to cut. Not very many folks care to have portrait images that show every skin blemish, not to mention if you have to spend a lot of time editing away those blemishes you are not spending the time photographing, nor do a lot of folks want plasticy images that come from too much skin smoothing. For instance, for a long time, Canon sold a soft-focus lens just for portrait and fashion use that gave the same look as when photographers would smear a little petroleum jelly across the glass to soften the image for those very reasons I mentioned.

Try renting some lenses from your local camera shop and see if you like them, then get a fresh copy to keep. Fujifilm has a 90mm that is well liked for portraits. Rokinon sells a 85mm manual focus, lower cost, that is good. There are a lot of other companies out there selling very good lenses.

Some other thoughts:

Get a kids’ small teddy bear — raggedy kind, and put it on a swing or couch. You will not need to worry about privacy issues and it will let you easily find focusing issues.

Raw Therapee, Dark Table and Silky Pix are also great at converting Fujifilm raw files, lots of others as well.

This is a really fair point - and I have had some portraits where the retouching per image was never ending. Thanks for this perspective and on the suggestion to rent out lenses - definitely something I will do. I mentioned on another forum after considering everyone's comments that I think the other issue may be that I am very interested in portraits and editorial oriented photography - a lot of close-up shots are part of that to show the details such as skin, hair, makeup, jewelry. Sometimes beauty shots as well. It's possible I'm seeking more clarity and detail than these lens are set up to do. I want to learn to achieve the shots you see in magazine quality and fashion oriented publications - so I think your suggestion of trying out different lenses would assist me with seeing if that gets me closer to what I want to achieve and/or if I am setting expectations that are too high for what I currently have and just being unreasonable.

As far as the teddy bear, it's funny how sometimes the simplest solutions don't come to your brain first - I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. Will shoot a few of these and see what my results are and have no problem sharing those - I've now had a lot of input on things to try from many people so I can better assess the image quality. The suggestions for software for raw images should help too. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Bea

[Bea]

13 hours ago, cpX said:

You could take RAW photos of other people who have agreed to have your photos published for this purpose. If necessary, you can photograph a cat with different apertures (F/1.2, 2, 2.8, 4, etc.) at low ISO setting and enough light. There is simply too much information missing to really help you. It's like giving you a crash course to drive a car. With a few RAW photos this would make more sense for me to help you because there are some information to find there that can help further. You say that you have too much noise and blur in the photos. This can have several causes. If I now name a cause, then it does not necessarily have to be that cause. There are several possible causes that could lead to this. For example, an ISO value set too high, a shutter speed that is too long with shake for the lens used. As 1. you need a "driver's license" for your digital camera because there are too many parameters that you know and need to know. Without this knowledge, you will hardly get the desired results. For example, there are photo courses where you are personally supervised. You can take advantage of them. On Youtube there are numerous tips for photography. Then you need a suitable lens that can meet your criteria such as sharpness, etc. If you have someone near you with photography experience, then you should ask that person for help and bring a lot of patience.

I understand and I apologize if it is frustrating to try and help when I am lacking a lot of info to share - I actually have wanted to do photography courses and have been looking into doing some. I've been to several photography meetups now. Some don't really go into the detail I want unfortunately so it's a matter of finding the right one. I have started reaching out to people to ask about being a mentor to help me do exactly what you said - but I do continue to do as much research as I can on and off youtube, forums, websites, etc. Value your input and appreciate the suggestions