Re-Processing older Aerial Shots with DOP OptimalSharp V3

There is hardly anything that requires as much detail as aerial photos. You just want to see it all while pixel peeping. But there are also many obstcles to overcome:

• Photographing from 1000-1500 feet altitude through lots of air (potentially hot air)
• Lots of vibrations in the airplane
• 90-100 mph speed
• Lens and camera resolution limits
• Keeping shutter speed up requires higher ISO. The faintest bit of noise reduces fine detail.
• Using a zoom has advantages but may limit the image quality

Here is a sample image from the Nikon D800 with the 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom:

Santa Cruz Pier

We just re-processed it with our commercial DOP_OptimalSharp V3 script and got quite amazing detail:

100% pixel crop from a 36MP photoWe process in Lightroom with very little sharpening to avoid any latent halos. Please remember all the challenges we mentioned above. Really good for such a wide range zoom.

Best you get the free demo version of OptimalSharp V3 (works on 2000x2000 pixel images) and try yourself.

Learn more about Lightroom from our e-books: