What Happened To My Picture Quality?

Stella was heading out for her 3rd walk of the day on Saturday. I am not sure she is a real fan of the three walks in one day as she seems to walk in her "slower than slow" mode. To the point of dragging the front edges of her paws with each step.


Sadie is always ready for a walk, sometimes even minutes after we return.

My post tonight is going to be about picture quality. I am either losing my mind or I have lost the deep colors of my pictures. I have thought the picture quality of my photos has decreased a lot in recent months. At first I thought it was the time of year with dull drab surroundings. I rechecked all of my camera settings, made sure the lens was clean as well as the mirrors inside the camera.

I even took a day of photos with my iPhone 6s so I could compare them. Still, they all looked 'off'. The colors were not as deep and rich as I remember them being when I bought the camera in September 2014 and even as recently as September 2016.

Since I shoot all my pictures in the 'auto' mode, there are only so many ways I can change the settings. By the camera default settings I would assume that all of them are set for optimal results.

None of these pictures on the blog today were edited in any way.

I have searched google for info, I've watched YouTube videos from camera professionals, read Nikon D3200 forums, and read my owners manual from cover to cover ... I didn't find what I was looking for. Although I did find one answer to one of my questions.

By default, the D3200 pictures shot at jpg, are in a 'soft' mode. They need to have their 'sharpness' adjusted, thus the reason I was finding they were looking much better when I did that and it really wasn't my old eyes that were the problem. Sharpness isn't my complaint though. Depth of color is, vibrant natural colors are not there most of the time.

To me a lot of my pictures have a dull quality when it comes to color. I am not a professional photographer and probably not a high amateur but I do know the time of day makes a difference in the light, which makes a difference in picture quality.

All of these pictures were taken after 5pm where most of my blog pictures are taken between 9:30am - 11:30am. Still I can see a difference in the pictures I take in the afternoons, where they might not show up on the blog.

I know that sunshine will make my pictures look better than those with overcast skies ... just like my moods.

Luckily I have saved every picture taken with the Nikon D3200, ~10,000 of them. I also have folders for different topics and each hound has their own folder of pictures, most recent on top. Just like spreadsheets I might be a little obsessive when it comes to making file folders because I have a folder labeled "house roof" ... where there is a daily picture of the back of my house where I can see the older roof in all kinds of weather and note if there is any damage taking place. Too curious I guess.

For a while I had talked myself into thinking the change of picture quality took place when I replaced the stock Nikon lens with a new Tamron lens. So I went back and looked at pictures of the same things, side by side, shot close to the same time of day ... I did not see any differences in the lens used.

Just to make sure I went out Saturday morning on the first walk of the day with the Nikon 55mm - 200mm lens attached. I was instantly reminded why I bought a new Tamron lens ... the Nikon lens would not auto focus on the first picture. Later on during the walk, it would not auto focus on any length greater than 70mm zoom. For reference I posted all of those pictures on my private blog where I could look at them on the Blogger platform and compare.

I saw no difference in picture quality nor depth of color.

So about the time I downloaded these pictures for tonight's blog post, I had just watched a video on a basic set up for the Nikon D3200 ... and it came to me ... the possible answer. One, that I will check out on the Sunday morning hound walk.

When I first bought the camera and started shooting pictures, I was shooting on a setting of 'RAW-JPEG". After reading a few forum answers that I found searching on google, that may not be the solution either.

I do remember the reasons I changed from Raw to Jpg Fine ... file size. I also had to do extra steps to reduce the size of the picture so I could upload it into Blogger or Wordpress. I was told that the quality would not be that much different, if seen at all, between Raw and Fine settings. Basically the raw file was like a negative of the picture, while the jpg was the picture itself.

Here is a picture of Sadie taken on September 29, 2014 with the Nikon lens. You can see the different in sharpness, clarity, and color. It is also funny/surprising that I was still putting her on the tether anytime she was outside.

Or this one taken July 9, 2016 at 4:45pm ... not edited

Those above were taken with the Nikon 55mm-200mm lens.

September 6, 2016 my new Tamron 18mm-200mm lens arrived and I saw no difference in color or quality. The picture below was taken the morning after the lens arrived. In my eyes, this picture looks much better than any picture I have taken in the last 6 months.

Maybe it's my eyes ... but recent photos don't look as good as the ones I took last fall.

I think I'll take a night off from google searches, baseball games, picture files and start a new book. I have a few on my shelf that were bought but never read. With tall glasses of caffeinated ice tea that should keep me occupied for the rest of the night into the early morning hours.

The beautiful weather is back in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Hounds Love This Weather

It may not be their favorite weather, who's to know, but they seem energized when it's near 32° and sunny. The key word there is ... sunny.

The warm temps yesterday were a nice change of pace but really today is nice, just a little cooler but nothing major.

Before my last drink of coffee, Sadie had talked me into taking the first of two daily walks. It was perfect timing really because I needed to do some errands before the week starts and they could get a walk in before I left. That also seems to help Stella's anxiety when I leave.

Speaking of energized, Stella moved out to lead the walk from the start. That didn't last too long, at least in the beginning. As I turned to see where she was ... she was nowhere to be seen. Did she go down into the steep gully? I couldn't see her as I scanned the wooded area.

Then, just barely I caught her tan coat hidden among the dormant bushes. Maybe it's just my eyes but you can see how hard it is to see her in this next picture.

She scrambled out of there when I called her name and took off getting back into the lead. The light frost on the grass made each step 'crunchy' but with the sunshine out, it didn't feel that cold.

I am not sure what they were tracking but they didn't stop today anywhere they normally do. They veered around that first corner and took off with tails curled into the air and noses to the ground.

It was quite surprising to me that Stella was out in front and not spending a lot of time investigation different places she normally stops. I was beginning to wonder if she was going to run off as Sadie and I hung back.

They decided today that two noses are better than one. A lot of places on this walk today they were either next to each other or within a few feet of each other.

The path you see that the hounds are on, is a path of deer traffic. A lot of the grass is mashed down year round and it's one the hounds take every time they move to the far right corner of the field.

They didn't stay long, following the edge where the field had been mowed. Before I could even catch up they were trotting down the back edge of the field. I had a gut feeling they had locked on to something and might not stop ... so I was aware they might do what they did on Saturday, take off sprinting PAST the 'no-fly zone'.

Stella moved out to the left and quickly moved back with Sadie. I could tell she was really on a strong scent.

It was at this point in time I had to yell for them to stop. They had both stopped right before this picture, had raised their heads sniffing the air while facing the area they were not allowed to go.

I could tell they were wanting to go in that direct and started to go in that direction again past the power tower and along the edge of the field you see. They finally agreed to head my direction back to the house.

About halfway home, they both stopped and looked in the direction of the neighbors house where they had chased the strange dog the other day. It was visiting for Christmas, so it will not be around much longer. I did not see the dog anywhere on the horizon but the hounds could still smell him.

It was like they didn't want to come inside this morning as they veered back to the edge of the field with their noses on the ground and rechecking the path that starts the walk.

Stella never looks happy when the walk is finished.

It is quite a change to see I have plenty of gas left in the Mini Cooper tank after driving my usual errands the past two weeks. The inboard computer tells me I am getting 34.5 mpg since I left the dealership just a couple of weeks ago. Plenty of room in back for groceries, with a hidden storage under the cargo area floor that is 8" deep.

There wasn't much planned for this afternoon since I am down to just one room to clean and that isn't more than mopping a small bathroom floor.

I am still going through photographs although I have not scanned anymore of them since xmas day. Cleaning out a closet yesterday I found about a box that had 10 more packages of pictures in it. There were a few old Polaroid pictures of when Harry was a puppy in the summer of 1987. Even at that age of 3 months he would wander off if left unsupervised or like Stella, if you let him roam.

Looking through those new stacks of pictures many were duplicates of what I had put in albums, a few were new and will be sorted once I decide if I am going to sort by dog or by date sequence.

With the large size pictures I can only fit 3 at a time on my scanner for the 'overview' the can capture each individually and scan it. It's a slow process and I am beginning to think if I am serious about this scanning pictures, it might be best to have Office Depot or Costco do the scanning for me with a small fee.

Well it's that time of day where Stella comes over to me and nudges my arm with her nose to let me know it's time for her lunch. With the sunshine out today I can see us doing possibly three walks today. After lunch I am going to let them roam the field on their own while I spend some time outside but I'll be keeping my eyes out for them.

Great weather to end the year here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

All Missing Pictures Have Been Fixed

Something I wasn't expecting to do but it's complete as of now.  Last night I saw a recent post that had a big icon symbol on a white box where a picture use to be. It was missing. I instantly thought of my recent change of deleting my Google+ account, which I'm glad I did by the way.

So I assumed it would be just recent pictures due to those being posted while having my Google+ account. I spot checked a prior year before my Google+ account and there was another one. Why I don't know, until I thought back to all of my changes since this blog started.

1.  Changed from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5s and transferred pictures.
2.  Started a 2nd new blog with a different Google+ profile ... then deleted that blog and profile.
3.  Started a new Google+ account and then deleted that one after I found out I couldn't have 2.
4.  Merged the new blog back into the old blog ... the deleted the new blog.
5.  Made a new Google+ account recently ... then deleted it a month later because I didn't like it.

During all of those changes I was making new blogs posts, and some of those had pictures.

So once I found some older blog posts, even in 2011 missing pictures I then went back and looked at every blog post I have since this blog started. I was lucking that in the first two years of the blog I did not post a lot of pictures. Still, in 2011 and 2012 I had a few missing pictures that I have uploaded the original picture.

All pictures are fixed.