My Canon 40D isn't sharp. Not front/backfocusing. What else could it be?

I will go take some pictures.

Yes, this is from first-hand use. I own a 40D and an XSi. I used to have 2 40D's but sold one when a good opportunity came up to sell it for more than I paid. Never noticed a sharpness problem until I realized the IQ from the XSi. I have shot a few portrait sessions, where I am cleaning up lucky charms off my paper in Photoshop, and getting into the 100% crops, the XSi is sharper than the 40D. At the wedding I shot on Saturday, I chose the XSi as my weapon of choice. The 40D backed it, and the shots seemed a bit soft. I'll check the sharpening settings, and take some test shots. Both RAW. Be back in a few.

In camera sharpening isn't applied to a RAW file. All RAW's need to be sharpened either during conversion or in PS, some cameras more so than others depending on the strength of the anti-aliasing filter.

Maybe show two comparison images shot in RAW, converted with ZERO sharpening (i.e., sharpening applied to preview images only in ACR) and then sharpened in PS using USM settings of 300, 0.3, 0.

KarlosDaJackal wrote in post #6578412
I believe that the in-camera (and in dpp) sharpening on the 40D is much lower also, if I remember right with my 400d most profiles had a setting of 3 or 4. On the 40D most have a setting for 1 or 2

+1

Set the in-camera sharpening to something between 4-6 and you should be more than happy with your results.

The optimal way to figure out what you need to set your camera to...

Shoot a few RAW images. Open them in DPP. Take note of the sharpness and saturation levels and adjust them. When you find the reasonable average you like these set to, adjust your camera picture style to shoot with those settings.

JPEGs should now come out how you want them, and you won't need to make any adjustments to the RAW files as those levels will be used by whatever program you're importing them to.

Only DPP recognizes those settings. ACR etc... does not.

AJSJones wrote in post #6580095
I agree that the 40D images need a little more work in PP than those from my 20D did. However, is your assertion based on any other observations than the softness ( it seems just "the obvious thing to blame" ) or is there other info to support it? It's real hard to get good solid believable info specifically about the AA filter....

Part of the problem is Canon's Digital Photo Professional. All images from multiple bodies are now SOFTER using DPP 3.0+ compared to DPP 2.2 when editing photos not at 100%. Also, the resizing mechanism in DPP sucks. The problem is the 40D is not supported by DPP 2.2, and a lot of people are "boxed in" to the horrible DPP 3.0+, and it makes their entire RAW collection look softer at default settings. There's also a massive view bug un portrait orientation causing image loss.

They really destroyed that program. I can gaurantee you that if DPP 2.2 supported the 40D, you would see a drastic improvement in image quality in that program at non 100% levels. I've tested this with multible bodies and lenses. It's sad that Canon cannot get this right. In fact, using 20D, Xt and XTi images in 2.2, and seeing them in 3.0 +, there is a GIGANTIC difference in IQ.

What you need to do is not rely on DPP 3.0 to judge your images. Adjust the color and exposure, then save as TIFF and look at the image in Photoshop. Make your other adjustments there.

I have to say, as a big Lightroom 2 fan, I'm not happy with the preview quality there either - although it is better than DPP 3.0+ (but not as good as DPP 2.2).

Mike55 wrote in post #6581317
What you need to do is not rely on DPP 3.0 to judge your images. Adjust the color and exposure, then save as TIFF and look at the image in Photoshop. Make your other adjustments there.

Thanks Mike - that's exactly what I have been doing (still on CS2 so no 40D support until I upgrade) and they've sharpened up quite nicely - starting with USM300,0.3 then to taste with smart sharpen etc!

Still, I'm interested in finding Canon's discussion of the AA filters someone mentioned above. If anyone has a link to their "official" response I'd like to see it. Search doesn't help me find it

Ok....I disabled all of the custom functions that were enabled (highlight tone priority, long exposure NR, and high ISO NR being the main ones). I am pretty sure that one of these affected the IQ because you can see from the results below, I am being very picky and there aren't too many sharpness issues.

Setup: Alienbee shooting through a white wescott umbrella. 70-200 f/2.8L IS on a tripod so I could hook up a new camera each time. You can see the different settings below.

40D 125mm f/2.8

40D 200mm f/2.8

I didn't realize my lens was so dirty! Anyway, thanks for the help. From this thread, I learned the obvious - clear out whatever the heck settings I have to start with a good working base. That's what I did, and from the results above, the 40D looks a lot sharper than I have seen in the past few shoots. This is very good to see.

AJSJones wrote in post #6581601
Thanks Mike - that's exactly what I have been doing (still on CS2 so no 40D support until I upgrade) and they've sharpened up quite nicely - starting with USM300,0.3 then to taste with smart sharpen etc!

Still, I'm interested in finding Canon's discussion of the AA filters someone mentioned above. If anyone has a link to their "official" response I'd like to see it. Search doesn't help me find it

Also, I find FastStone Resizer to do a better job of downsizing an image(considerably so) than PS or DPP. Give it a try and tell me what you think. The Lanczos3 algorithm is quite nice. Make sure you have it set to highest quality.

http://www.faststone.o​rg/FSResizerDetail.htm

Strange that a free resizer does a better job, lol.

I'm with Mike about faststone, it's great

Keith ... I'm curious what your shutter speeds were in the last shots you posted.

Canon speaks on the need to sharpen raw files (from any camera) and also after downsizing files, whether raw or JPEG in origin....

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=589601

The topic goes on further to discuss the need for different amounts of sharpening depending on whether the output is intended for screen or print.

Shutter speed: 1/200 for all of these.

Yeah these were "Saved for web" using Photoshop CS3 on the "6/10" quality setting. I opted for that so they were only 100kb files instead of 400kb on 10/10 setting. No sharpening in-camera or out.

I don't know about anyone else, but the 40d files look better than the XSi in these examples. Based on what you have posted it is the XSi files which look soft and muddy in comparison.