Where am I going wrong?

[Fingers]

I am struggling to get a "sharp" picture
Maybe I am going the wrong way about things or maybe "sharp" is only obtainable under certain conditions/lenses?
Any how
My new 10-22mm ef-s came yesterday and here are my first attempts. Though not happy with the exposure I am posting these as a demonstration of "sharp"
Photo 1 is unsharped with a little curve editing.
Photo 2 is the same but has been sharpend.
I would really like to get the sharpness RAW on the sensor! This has been my experiance with much of my photos with all 4 of my lenses (I have only been DSLR for 5 month) I have yet been able to use my camera in bright light natural or not, so have been using either slow shutters or big f stops. Maybe its the light, maybe its the lens, maybe its the camera, I think it must be me. But how do you get pin point sharpness?
Photo info
Using tripod with shutter up mode and timer
File name
IMG_3455.CR2
Camera Model Name
Canon EOS 20D
Firmware
Firmware 2.0.3
Shooting Date/Time
12-04-2008 09:53:29
Tv(Shutter Speed)
1/15Sec.
Av(Aperture Value)
F22
Metering Modes
Evaluative metering
Exposure Compensation
0
ISO Speed
100
Lens
10-22mm
Focal Length
10.0 mm
Image size
3504 x 2336
Image Quality
RAW
Flash
Off
White Balance
Auto
AF mode
One-Shot AF
Picture Style
-
Parameters
Tone Curve : -
Sharpness level : -
Pattern Sharpness : -
Contrast : 0
Sharpness : 0
Color saturation : 0
Color tone : 0
Highlight tone priority : -
Color matrix
-
Color Space
sRGB
File Size
7568 KB
Photo 1

Photo 2

 

[DeadEye]

Looks to me like its a combination of camera shake and focus. Its hard to get razor sharp with longish shutter speeds as the tineyest camera movement will blur the image. It looks to me like the focus in above image was close to camera therefore the far stuff soft. Were you trying for lots of DOF? , F22 may not be a sharp place for that lens ( I dont Know).

 

[Fingers]

Yes I was looking for max DOF, and my tripod is a cheep £25 light wieght one. Which looks and feels steady enough but who knows?

I also used the mirrow up with timer so there was no shake form the shutter action.

I guess what must be needed is light light light and fast shutter speeds. 15 is quite low, but with a tripod? Maybe a more solid tripod would make a difference?

 

[Ajay]

Was it windy at all? Like DeadEye said even the slightest movement can make your shots blurry - especially at 1/15 shutter speed.

 

[McQueen278]

At F22 and ISO 100 on that lens you will not get sharp images while hand holding. You'd need a tripod. Try backing it off to F8. The 10-22 likes F5.6 and F8 a lot. 10mm should be fine for sharpness, but once again the lens LOVES 15mm. Check out the graphs on sharpness and distortion from Luminous Landscape.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/Canon-10-22mm-test.shtml
Great resource. I hope this helps, you will love this lens until the end of time once you can make it do what you want! I won't go anywhere without mine.

Cheers

 

[Fingers]

Very Interesting reading McQueen, Thanks. I was tring to get the best DOF possible but I guess I can let the lens do its job at the bigger f stops.

PS I was using a tripod, all be it a cheep one, also using mirrow up function with timer.

I hope tomorrow will bring some sunshine and with my new found knowlage about my lens will improve my shots.

 

[Garbz]

Hand holding may not be the only issue here. f/22 will not get you a tac sharp image on any lens mounted on an APS sized camera. Diffraction limits the final sharpness quite severely on all my lenses when I use them on my digital camera, and I try never to go above f/16