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Any chance we can see an original, non-resized photo? The compression and resizing has really taken a toll on the ones here on the forums… 🙁 (Maybe a dropbox link that you can remove later if you don’t want your full-res photos floating around on cyberspace…)
Heavy JPG compression tends to “smear” the photo enough that it’s hard to tell what is going on.
I agree with @dfrazer that it definitely isn’t motion blur… My first thought was back-focus. (I have some experience with that little issue :))
It’s also possible that diffraction could be setting in at f/10, although I think it unlikely that it could have such a drastic effect on the sharpness! I almost never shoot at high apertures, so I don’t have much experience with the limits of diffraction.
@dfrazer is absolutely right about shooting in RAW vs. jpg. Of course RAW can’t overcome the limitations of poor glass, focus issues, or diffraction, but jpg files are not very forgiving when it comes to editing, especially if you have to “push” the file because it is too dark. If you regularly work in situations like this, you will do yourself a favor to shoot RAW, believe me!
I would compare it to making gingerbread men. Shooting RAW is how we would normally make gingerbread men; with raw dough rolled out and cut with a cookie cutter, then baked. Shooting JPG is like baking the dough first, then trying to cut them out afterwards. You’ll have broken corners and crumbs (noise) everywhere…
I personally don’t stress out about noise much any more. Of course, getting a good camera that does very well with controlling noise helped a lot, but I realized quickly that at web-resolutions if you sharpen and resize and compress properly, the noise will not be an issue in 90% of cases. I’m definitely a pixel-peeper, so I still pay attention to it, but I don’t let it bother me like I used to. Like @dfrazer I’d take more sharpness at the expense of a little noise any day of the week.