Canon EOS 350 Image quality problems?

[S.Bingham]

Hi there,

I have been dipping into photography for a few years now and started with a Canon powershot G5 about a year ago. The camera is obviously a compact and most if not all shots that i took were sharp clean images. The main thing i have been concentrating on is landscape photogrophy.

I have recently purchased a Canon EOS 350D to get more creative with my photography but my images look worse than they do on the G5. I have tryed all the different exposures, aperatures. I have used the auto modes, i have played with the depth of field and still my images seem to be fussy and blurred like they are unfocessed. I have been reading lots of mags about what exposures to use with landscape and even with a low aperature of 22-29f it still comes out blurred. Whats going on? I never had this problem with my G5? There must be something i have missed? Am i really that much of a fool? I have gone over and over the manual and cant find whats the problem.

I also recently took some photos in RAW format and the quality when opened in the Canon software was much better, i thought i had solved the problem and converted them to JPEG with a huge resolution and in 350dpi but straight away the image become blurred and looked nothing like the RAW shot.

Sorry for the long rant but i could really do with someones advise or help on this.
Any comments or help is most appreciated.
Thanks for your time
Regards

[robertwgross]

I also recently took some photos in RAW format and the quality when opened in the Canon software was much better, i thought i had solved the problem and converted them to JPEG with a huge resolution and in 350dpi but straight away the image become blurred and looked nothing like the RAW shot.

First of all, you might have a problem with settings in the camera at the time of the shot. It's also possible that you are getting it right in the RAW file, but then you've got something wrong in the RAW conversion to TIF or JPEG that is going wrong. However, we have no details to work by, so we are only guessing.

Based on the above paragraph that you wrote, go through it in detail. Which Canon software? If some image looks bad, exactly how does it look bad? Is it a color shift, or simply blurriness, or a rough grainy appearance? The final JPEG image had what kinds of numbers, like file size?

---Bob Gross---

[RAitch]

Try taking some pictures with the timer function leaving your camera on a table or tripod. Maybe it's camera shake.
Changing the aperture is great, but what's your shutter speed on these images? Maybe it's too low. I've seen some people not have any problems with full auto PAS cameras but have blurry pictures with SLRs. They're either really shaky and never noticed it on low res PAS images or they were moving the camera right after they pressed the shutter.

My wife always did that. I had to change the image display time to 4s and tell her to press the shutter and wait before checking the image. She was so worried about seeing how the picture turned out, she was moving the camera before the shutter closed.

You mentioned you converted a RAW image into a 350DPI huge JPEG? That sounds like you really overhauled the image. What about leaving it at 72dpi and converting it to the same resolution... does that give you the same problem? If you're cranking the DPI up to 350 and making the image even bigger than the RAW, you're interpolating more data then is in the image. If that's the case, no wonder it looks like crap.

Another thought... what focus point are you using? On the green box mode (full auto) it'll use the one that covers the closest object. Often that'll create images that are not focussed properly. Pay attention to which focal points light up red when you take the picture. Make sure you half depress the shutter to get focus lock first, then complete the press when you're happy.

Also, make sure the lens switch is on AF (obviously) unless you're trying to manually focus.
If you're trying to manually focus, make sure there's a lot of light. Also, make sure you're trying on objects farther than 5 feet away at first. That should make sure it gets a good focus lock. If things are too close, your DOF get really tight and can cause problems at wide apertures (especially with the 50-1.8).

If you're taking shots (landscape) at a 22-29 aperture, I sure hope that camera's on a tripod and not in your hands. Use a remote shutter release or the timer function to avoid shaking the tripod when pressing the button... although that's won't lead to terrible pictures... just a bit below the standards of picky photographers.

Also, try boosting your ISO to 800 or 1600. That'll make the sensor more sensitive and allow faster shutter speeds in low light. If the blur disappears then, I'd guess camera shake.

Are you using the kit lens or something special?

[V6GTO]

Perhaps if you posted a link to a RAW file we could check it out?

Martin.

[Sindri Skulason]

Hi

Since you didn’t post any images it’s hard to tell what is wrong. Are the images just a little soft compared to the images you got from your G5? Images from a DSLR often look a little bit soft (at 100% magnification) compared to P&S cameras. In-camera sharpening is set much higher in P&S cameras (as well as color saturation and contrast). You can turn up the sharpness level of your 350D so the images look more like the ones you get from a P&S camera if that is what you want. Post-processing is a big part of using DSLR. I recommend for example Adobe Photoshop and USM to obtain the desired sharpness rather than applying more in-camera sharpening. That way you have more control over the final outcome.

[S.Bingham]

Thanks for the replies.

To answer a few things i did not cover... I have been using a tripod when i do my landscape photos, and have also been using a counter so the camera doesnt wobble.

To answer the first post the image is simply turning out blurred. The colour is fine, there is no grainy effects, it simply looks out of focus and my landscape shots seem to just lack that crisp look.

I have also tryed many different resolutions and dpi sizes from 72dpi up to 600dpi and there doesnt seem to be any difference. Same with resolution.



Any help is appreciated.
Thanks and regards

[S.Bingham]

Hi Sindri, yes it does seem to just be to 'Soft'.
I have gone into the settings and changed them, i also turned up the sharpness and tryed this in Photoshop also. Doesnt seem to make much difference.

Here is a link to a photo i took. As you can see its soft and lacks contrast. The mountain looks very fusy and is the worst part.

http://img245.echo.cx/my.php?image=picture0096it.jpg

Thanks again

[Saudidave]

Hi

I've just bought a 350D too and many of my images look soft. I was initially very dissapointed, but having bought and tried several lenses via ebay, I have concluded that it's a combination of lens and settings.

My Olympus 765 was much sharper but then it did a lot of in camera work to the image. You need to set a custom colour/sharpness parameter with the 350 to emulate that, so that they are sharp "out of the can"

Also the lens that comes with the 350D is OK but not the best. I took some shots this morning with a 75-300 f4.5 - 6.0 and they are good - pin sharp!

Persevere and try a few different lenses. You can buy and sell on ebay and lose almost nothing. Sometimes you can even turn a profit!

Don't give up yet!

Dave

[Kinger]

Ok from my first look at the shot you posted this what I got from it.
I think it is a bit underexposed, hence the lack of color and lack of contrast, always check your histogram to make sure that it isn't too much to the left. Next for the softness, it looks as if your depth of field is shallow and focused on the long grass in front of you and not the mountains in the distance.

[Sindri Skulason]

Hi

Have you tried using manual focus? If so was the outcome the same?

[S.Bingham]

Thanks for the replies guys.
Dave its good to hear you got the same problem, i would love to buy some new lenses but its the cost. Are the lenses you brought Canon ones? If you could reccomend a good wide angle lens that is crisp and sharp then i think i will save and get one asap.

Sindri, yah i tryed manual focus but i got the same problem. Plus i am new to SLR and dont really know how to focus properly yet. I suppose with time it would be better to use the manual focus for everything so that you get the exact focus distance you want?

Well i will keep trying different things and see how it goes.
Thanks again

[puttick]

Hi S Bingham. Where is your shot taken? It looks a bit like Snowdonia? The right sort of weather for 7th April! There is a learning curve to using an SLR, even if you have been a film SLR user in the past, a dSLR can take some getting used to. Don't despair, it is all correctable, and having the interest and determination is the best first step. Joining a photographic club would be a good idea, and this forum is also an excellent resource.

From the EXIF information embedded in the file I see you were using 100 ISO, shutter 1/100 and f 7.1. The focal length was 38mm - but the focus distance is not recorded - is that the kit lens? It's actually quite a good lens, I have that lens and a 17-40 L and to be honest in many situations the kit lens is indistinguishable. I would say stick with it until you know what else you may really want, don't write it off. the EXIF also shows you were apparently using the self timer with a 65 sec delay, so presumably on a tripod?

Firstly, it is clearly a windy day, and it looks to me as if there is some (albeit not a lot) camera shake. 1/100 sec is not always fast enough in such conditions. I wonder if you have a rather flimsy tripod, that is being buffeted by the wind (even a heavy one can be blown around in a big wind).

Secondly, as kinger says, your focusing point appears to be on the grass in the near foreground - this can result from allowing the camera to choose a focus point from the seven (and it has chosen badly!) - a good thing to try in order to avoid this is to set the camera to only use the centre focus point (press the AF point selection button - that's the top right one on the back - see diagram on p13 in the manual) and then the SET button, which will switch the AF to centre focus. That means that the AF will focus on whatever is in the centre when you half press the shutter release, so will know what you have focused on (in this case it could be the mountain face for example) - you can always recompose having focused, just re-frame while keeping the shutter release half depressed. Because your camera has focused on the grass and f7.1 is not a particularly small aperture, the depth of field is not great enough to have both the foreground (4 feet away) and background (at infinity) sharp. You would not have had so much problem with the G5 as with its smaller sensor, and hence smaller focal length lens, the d.o.f. is inherently greater. My suggestion would be to use a smaller f-stop in these conditions, say f11 or f16.

Thirdly, the image histogram shows it is a little underexposed (towards the left) by about 1 stop and of course the gloomy, flat lighting does not help as the contrast range is reduced. That can be fixed (to a point) in Photoshop (etc) but best to get it right in the first place. I would suggest that to get a faster shutter speed, a smaller aperture, and not to underexpose in those poor lighting conditions you would probably need to use 400 ISO. I notice you used Landscape mode - personally I always shoot in Aperture priority for Landscapes, and control the aperture to give me the required depth of field - I dislike the "basic" evaluative modes as you cannot dial in any exposure compensation. The trick in this sort of situation is to look at the histogram after taking the shot, and then make any adjustments to the exposure settings to correct it and shoot again (e.g. change aperture, speed, or ISO).

It is also quite a small image, 904x1356, not a standard size for the 350d, so I'll have to assume you downsized it for the web. What file size are you actually using? Best to use Large/Fine, and I would sugest stick to jpg until you have mastered the camera - RAW conversion is well worth learning but something of an arcane art and only really of benefit when you are getting consistently excellent results.

Now I have redone this image in Photoshop - adjusted the upper and lower points on the histogram to use all the brightness range, applied a gentle S curve to bring out the contrast a bit, and increased the colour saturation 5%. I've tried to brighten it but not lose the sombre lighting I know so well from British hills! As it's not very sharp I applied quite a strong unsharp mask (300%, 0.5 pixels, 1 level), and cropped it a little. It looks a lot better to me and shows that all is not lost! I will try to attach it (I haven't done so on this forum before, so I am learning something here myself!). Unfortunately the file size limit is 100k, so I cannot upload it at the highest quality, but you'll get the general idea.

Good luck, keep at it
Nigel

[RAitch]

Would it have anything to do with the metering mode?
Perhaps you're losing colour depth and contrast due to the sky and foreground. Sometimes for landscapes you have to take 2 images and blend them together. (one for the sky, one for the foreground)

Cameras have a hard time capturing the entire range. I'm not sure this is the problem with your image.... as it just seems dull, not dull in certain areas.

About the sharpness.... it looks REALLY windy and rightfully so, the grass is blurry.
The background also appears blurry.... but that could be a DOF issue (although you were using landscape mode).

There appears to be a lot of detail in the foreground... so I doubt that's an issue. The image does appear to be a little underexposed though. It looks like it was pretty overcast that day.

Was your focal point on the rocks in the foreground?

[S.Bingham]

Hi Puttick.

Thanks for your in depth reply, it's much appreciated.
You would be correct in saying it is Snowdon, Y Lliwedd to be exact. It is a bit of a bad example as you have pointed out that it was taken with the auto landscape mode. Usualy i try to work in the creative modes and had forgotton this shot was taken in auto mode. I normally shoot with low aperatures such as 19-29 and try to take all shots on a tripod. As you have said the tripod was proberly shaken by the strong mountain winds.

I will certainly try the things you have pointed out like changing the focus points.
The image was reduced in size for the internet but i normally shoot in the highest possible.
I think i will also stick to Jpeg for now as you mentioned aswell.

Your shot has certainly got more depth and i think the composition has improved by much.
I will keep at it and see whats happens.
Thanks again for your kind and detailed reply.

Take care
Stefan

[robertwgross]

I agree with the previous guesses. The shot is a little underexposed, and the depth of field is enough for the yellow grass, and that is all. There might be some camera shake going on, even on a tripod, if there is wind rocking it. You might be shooting through some heavy atmosphere at the mountain.

---Bob Gross---

[S.Bingham]

RAitch, i dont really know much about the metering...
It certainly was windy and it was also a dull day. Maybe i will try your technique of blending two images together next time.

I think the focal point was on the rocks and over the mountains aswell. But obviously it did not focus on the mountains very well.

So with my shot being underexposed should i have used a longer exposure like say 1/25?

Also how would i go about manualy changing the depth of field on my 350?
I know that the higher the aperature the more DOF there is but how else can i change this?

Thanks

[robertwgross]

I think the focal point was on the rocks and over the mountains aswell. But obviously it did not focus on the mountains very well.

If the mountains don't have much contrast, then it will get an inaccurate focus from there. If the focus point slipped over onto the yellow grass and rocks, then that explains a few things.

So with my shot being underexposed should i have used a longer exposure like say 1/25?

The easiest thing to do is to use exposure compensation.

Also how would i go about manualy changing the depth of field on my 350?
I know that the higher the aperature the more DOF there is but how else can i change this?

You don't exactly or directly change the depth of field, but by choosing a different aperture, you will change it. That's one reason why I like P mode. It will present me with different combinations of shutter and aperture, and I can crank up the aperture to a small number to tighten the depth of field, or I can crank it to a big number to try to get everything in. Also, keep in mind that there is a depth of field preview button.

---Bob Gross---

[RAitch]

If it's REALLY windy, you might want to avoid the long exposures. You might have to tap into the ISO settings to help yourself get the tight apertures with fast shutter speeds.

DOF is affected by aperture, zoom, and distance from object. It can be a challenge to get several kilometers in focus at the same time... but it's not impossible.

[schmoelzel]

ok.....lot's of great advice here. I'll throw this into the fray......get a TS-E 45 (tilt/shift lense) and you can focus both the foreground (grass) and the background (mountains)!! Seriously, the kit lens is probably fine. It seems to be operator error which is common for those of us that graduated from G-series cameras to an SLR. The first shots I took with my DRebel were very bad and misfocused.........keep practicing and reading and I guarantee that you will grow with your camera and in short time you will have STUNNING shots!!

[Bob_A]

In PSE if you use Auto Levels and add USM at 150%, 0.3 pixels, o threshold (for the jpeg you posted) the image looks much better. It's a tad underexposed, and it looks like you may have focused on the grass or rocks instead of the mountains. Also, as other have mentioned, a shutterspeed of 1/100s on a windy day may not be enough unless you had a really rock solid tripod. I noticed you are using Iso 100 ... so if you wanted to keep the aperature at 7.1, you could have moved the ISO up to 400 and used a much higher shutterspeed with no major increase in noise.

Also, maybe someone that has a lot of experience shooting mountain scenes can comment, but I think you may want to try some shots where you focus a bit in front of the mountain (not as close as the grass in front of you though :) ) to get as much of the scene in focus as possible. I would think if you focused at the grass at the base of the mountain on the far side of the lake it would be about right. I just don't think it would necessarily be correct to focus at the peak of the mountain or to set your camera in manual and set focus to infinity.

Bob

[Bob_A]

You might want to play around with this handy web-based depth of field calculator to get an idea where you should focus to maximize the amount of your scene that is in focus:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

For a 20D (just pick this one since the 350 isn't in the list ... the circle of confusion is the same) at f7.1 and 100mm, if you focused about 243 feet out, everything would be in focus from 121 feet to infinity.

Bob

[puttick]

There's a lot of information here, but don't lose track of the basics. You have a fine camera and lens and good subject matter!

Depth of field is something that those of us who started out on rangefinder 35mm cameras developed a knowledge and a feel for - then found we could check it on our film SLR with the d.o.f. preview button, which made things easier. Ironically, the newer film and dSLRs do not seem so good at showing the in & out of focus appearances on the (newer, brighter) focusing screen compared to a ground glass/fresnel lens combination. But the key rule of thumb is this - to get two things in focus the optimum point to focus on is not half way between them but one third of the way "into" the scene, then use a sufficiently small aperture to get them both in focus. Older lenses used to have d.o.f. scales on them to help with this! With (usually quite good) autofocus we have become lazy and a new generation has never learned these skills. The inherent d.o.f. with an SLR is less than with a smaller sensor camera, which are much more tolerant of poor focusing. Setting the focus point to the centre alows you to pick where you want the focus point to be, not the camera, and gives you back some control. Manual focus is an alternative, but as I said above the focusing does not snap in & out on the newer screens the way it used to (to my eyes anyway).

To increase d.o.f., use a wider angle lens, or a smaller aperture. The smaller aperture will necessarily require a slower shutter speed or a higher ISO.

To reduce camera shake, even on a tripod, is possible. On a windy day, wait for the gusts to drop (you can't do that if use the self timer!), and press down on the tripod with some of your body weight. Use a release cable (RS60-E3) to avoid nudging the camera at the point of exposure, rather than the delay.

Try ISO 200 or 400, set your aperture at f11 and let the camera pick the shutter speed. When learning, try to only change one variable at a time.

Again,
Good luck
Nigel