Soft Images from Canon 5d

kaushal · May 18, 2007

Hi, I am new to this forum...actually this is the first time i have entered a forum although I have been an avid reader of this forum and have received valuable info from all participants over the years.

I recently purchased a new Canon 5d and 17-40 lens after hearing of the crisp images possible with this camera (in addition to the wonderful FF). Anyway when i downloaded my images I found them to be slightly soft. So i exchanged the lens but the results were still not as sharp as i expected.

I shot in single focus point, single shot and at a high enough shutter speed so as to cause no camera shake. The photographs were of historic buildings about 50 metres away.

Was wondering if it could be my camera that is the problem. Is there any fool proof way to confirm this? Because I may be able to convince the seller to change the camera this time but Im sure beyond that he is gonna start getting a little annoyed and i will then have to send my stuff to canon which is time consuming and results in lost shooting time:-(

Would love to upload an image but am not sure how to...

Big Mike · May 18, 2007

Welcome to the forum.

Read THIS link to find out how to post your images.

Seeing the images should help to diagnose the problem. Are all your images soft? Or just these ones of buildings 50m away?

What format are you shooting in, JPEG or RAW? Are you applying any sharpening? (most digital images do require a bit of sharpening to reach their full potential). How close are you zooming in to the images when you inspect them?

GreenSlime89 · May 18, 2007

I'm not sure how to see what the fault is, but I can tell you how to upload it. First, go to http://www.imageshack.us and upload the image, by clicking "Browse" and find the image you want to upload, select it, and click "Open" Then click "Host it!" When the next page loads, highlight the code with the text "Thumbnail for forums (1)" beside it. Then paste the code into the post and that should be you.

I'm surprised that a 5D should have soft photos, I've got an old 20D from my friend who sold me it after he upgraded, he's had no trouble like this...

EDIT: It seems I was slow with my typing... Disregard this post, I'm terrible at explaining.

Alex_B · May 18, 2007

kaushal said:
Hi, I am new to this forum...actually this is the first time i have entered a forum although I have been an avid reader of this forum and have received valuable info from all participants over the years.

I recently purchased a new Canon 5d and 17-40 lens after hearing of the crisp images possible with this camera (in addition to the wonderful FF). Anyway when i downloaded my images I found them to be slightly soft. So i exchanged the lens but the results were still not as sharp as i expected.

I shot in single focus point, single shot and at a high enough shutter speed so as to cause no camera shake. The photographs were of historic buildings about 50 metres away.

Was wondering if it could be my camera that is the problem. Is there any fool proof way to confirm this? Because I may be able to convince the seller to change the camera this time but Im sure beyond that he is gonna start getting a little annoyed and i will then have to send my stuff to canon which is time consuming and results in lost shooting time:-(

Would love to upload an image but am not sure how to...

generally speaking: the more expensive the camera, the softer the images you get straight out of it

If you had a 1Ds Mark II you would probably also think it produces soft images. Why is this ? well, images generated from bayer pattern sensors are soft by definition since each pixel only sees one colour and then an interpolation scheme is applied. sharp images you only get after sharpening. point and shoot cameras usually do alot of sharpening in-camera, whereas higher end dSLRs do less by default. RAW iamges most of the time are even not sharpened at all. By doing less in-camera sharpening, the photographer gets more control over the final image, but also needs to do more postprocessing of course.

You can change the degree of in camera sharpening, by either changeing the mode you shoot it, what is your 5D set to? also you can adjust it manually and customise modes.

do you shoot raw or jpg?

Also, if you shoot with the aperture wide open, you will get softer images, in particular towards the edges of the frame, and in particular in wide angle on full frame cameras.

best if you send some examples, and try varying apertures and focal lengths.

ericande · May 18, 2007

What aperture are you shooting at?

if you shoot at f/22 any lens will be a little bit soft and if you shoot wide open most will be somewhat soft or at least softer then they could be. I'm guessing that lens is sharpest somewhere around f/8.

But as others said, when you post up your photo it will help a lot.

Alex_B · May 18, 2007

oh, and I forgot, in the worst case it could also be that either your camera or the lens AF is not adjusted well.

kaushal · May 18, 2007

Wow guys. This is amazing. I already got so much information...thanks!

I have tried to upload an image which was taken from less than 50m away and at night. I used a steady tripod and mirror lock (with self timer) and an aperture of f11. I thought the pic would be tack sharp but was disappointed. Here is the url:

hope my image is there.

kaushal · May 18, 2007

Oh and i shot it in RAW and sharpened the image in unsharp mask (about 140, 1.2, 0)

Alex_B · May 18, 2007

kaushal said:
Wow guys. This is amazing. I already got so much information...thanks!

I have tried to upload an image which was taken from less than 50m away and at night. I used a steady tripod and mirror lock (with self timer) and an aperture of f11. I thought the pic would be tack sharp but was disappointed. Here is the url:

this is not too sharp indeed. but then again it is downscaled in size.

it is also certainly grainy (high iso?)

maybe we should start with daylight shots at ISO 100

are you sure the tripod was very steady? or maybe the ground was shaking (cars, ...)

kaushal · May 18, 2007

Hi Alex
You are right...the pic was shot at ISO 640 so it is grainy. It was a 5 sec exposure so could have neen vibration from the cars/buses (although i believe my tripod is pretty stable).

Here is another test pic i took at 1/160, f4 at ISO 100...this is from a much closer distance:

I am also gonna borrow a friends 100mm macro lens tomorrow and take some pics with that. If those images are not clear then i suppose i can assume that my camera is at fault...

I guess I am just hoping that my camera is ok since it will be much easier for me to exchange my lens.

kaushal · May 18, 2007

Saw your website Alex. Wonderful images! That was exactly the quality I hoped to acheive when I upgraded from my Nikon D80 to the Canon 5d.

Alex_B · May 18, 2007

kaushal said:
Saw your website Alex. Wonderful images! That was exactly the quality I hoped to acheive when I upgraded from my Nikon D80 to the Canon 5d.

THanks

Well, most on that site is scanned slide film

The rest is shot with a Canon 5D though.

Sw1tchFX · May 18, 2007

What's you're aperture set to? set it to f/8 put your camera on a tripod and take a picture. That should be the sharpest image possible with that lens.

It's impossible to gauge what's sharp and what isn't from resized images, the only way to see if they're sharp or not is at 100% size.

kaushal · May 21, 2007

Thanks guys for all the responses. I have come to the conclusion that either my camera or lens is off. The seller has agreed to let me test the lens on a 30D to assess if the lens is faulty. If not then I guess I will try to exchange the 5D camera body (will probably charge me a small amount more but will be worth it if my image softness issue is resolved!)

Hope testing on a 30D cropped sensor will prove an accurate test when comparing with the 5D.

The_Traveler · May 21, 2007

I would suggest also that you take some of the other riables out.
Shoot on a tripod. in daylight and not when the sun is directly overhead, shoot so that the object is in the plane of focus throughout a good deal of its height (like straight on at a building), and make certain a sharply defined edge is in the focal spot.

Shoot another with manual focus.