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But I thought I'd post 2 photos I took recently... For some reason they appear to lack sharpness & color depth and I'm not sure why

I'm still using the kit lens and to be honest I've hardly taken any photos (still a newbie so im not helping myself I know!)

Any reasons why??

Here are the pictures in question

Kris, nice to see you back mate.

The colour depth looks fine on my monitor, the sharpness could be easily rectified by Unsharp mask in either Photoshop or Paintshop pro, but you probably already know that....... Otherwise it could be the F-stop you have used. F8 to F11 is the sweet spot for most things with the kit lens so perhaps it was that. Otherwise i'm not sure what you mean as the sharpness you have is indicative of the kit lens.

Looking at the pics again, i really see nothing wrong with them.

What specific aspect lacks sharpness and colour depth.

Kris,
I believe the second pic is the pool of a hotel in Terrigal, am I correct?

Kris,

I'm with Killa on this, I can't see any major issues with colour or sharpness. If you wanted to give both images a bit more punch (so to speak) you could up the contrast a bit. While it might blow out a couple of highlights the overall image might end up stronger.

Welcome back!

They both look like -.5 exp comp, I'd lighten them a little. The first one looks like it's been cropped or something, I agree the sharpness lacks a little. The 2nd one is allright, I think it needs a little light in curves or levels.

Hi Kris, good to hear from you again. Like the others I think they are ok, play in capture with them to get the result you want

Hmm.. I don't do PP but I will use the unsharp mask and see how they come out..

No cropping at all, just a resize to 1024 in Photoshop. I'll have to check what F stop I used. Lens definately isn't as sharp wide open thats for sure.

Birddog, you are totally correct and what a nice pool it was...

exp comp was set to 0

Might play with sharpness and contrast in Photoshop and see what results I can get..

F8 to F11 is the sweet spot, going as low as F8 is no trouble in low light with the flash on? any recommended settings for this kind of shooting? it was a very low light hall and alot came out blurry, I guess my shutter speed was too slow because the F stop was too high? I'm such a noob

Hello to everyone again!!

Unsharp mask settings...

100% - 200%
0.5 Pixel Radius