do these images/crops look too soft? paranoid about my 7D taking soft pictures

robtk wrote in post #12173833
damn. just did a MA to +7 and it's waaaay better. thanks for the tip, gonna do this on my tokina tomorrow.

Before you get too excited, make sure the lens/camera is still sharp at different focus distances, i.e. try the following.

1m - Sharp - Yes/No
3m - Sharp - Yes/No
5m - Sharp - Yes/No
10m - Sharp - Yes/No

I really haven't taken the time to delve into the 7D and don't have one.

I wonder if someone has actually published some research into this camera/sensor in a definitive way that lays out the proper approach to things such as "input sharpening"?

For example, by nature, some input sharpening would be required with a Raw image in a Raw processor simply to compensate for the physical softening caused by the antialiasing filter. That's always been a "fact of life" with digital images, and this is why sharpening is typically applied at various strengths when you shoot jpegs (unless you purposefully crank it way down manually in the camera.

So the above poster who called sharpening incorrect was, well, not entirely correct. But it is true that the camera should not require dramatic sharpening just to lookd acceptable, just the right amount to recover from the filter softening and bring out the proper fine detail.

So, how much is the "proper" amount for "input sharpening"? It does vary from sensor to sensor, and on the 7D I suspect that it is at a higher level than most if not all previous sensors, but how much is the "right" amount? This should not vary with the lens, although certainly the fact that if you get a soft image it will in itself require special attention, but let's say you had the sharpest lens and you got the best possible focus -- how much "input sharpening" would be called for?

I'd be curious to see if there are any published studies. This camera/sensor presents its own little challenges, and this is one of them. To know whether a shot from a particular lens is "soft" you want to have a base "starting point" and if that was clearly understood with the 7D it would help users in their evaluation.

Of course, shooting technique plays a major role in these things, and more so with the 7D than older cameras simply because the high resolution of the 7D will bring out any errors in technique "larger" if viewing an image at 100%. So really, someone asking about a "soft" image at a 100% view should first of all identify whether it was shot hand-held or not, and if so at the very least a quite high shutter speed that will ensure that camera movement will not be an issue, and in this case I'd say the shutter speed should not be defined by the "rule of thumb" of 1/flxcrop factor but significantly faster. Otherwise, the likelihood of camera shake being magnified by the 100% view is way too high. And, it goes without saying, that further testing needs to be done with a tripod, MLU and a remote release/cable release so you can get a good starting point/reference to truly evaluate things!

tonylong wrote in post #12196547
So the above poster who called sharpening incorrect was, well, not entirely correct.

Who said sharpening was incorrect?
I was simply replying to the poster who thought it was ok to rescue OOF 7D images in LR, sighting the 7D needed such sharpening in PP as if it was the norm. If it was the norm, I wouldn't touch a 7D with a barge pole!

rhys216 wrote in post #12196677
Who said sharpening was incorrect?
I was simply replying to the poster who thought it was ok to rescue OOF 7D images in LR, sighting the 7D needed such sharpening in PP as if it was the norm. If it was the norm, I wouldn't touch a 7D with a barge pole!

Ah, OK, thanks for clarifying. My question would be as to whether anyone has yet defined the norm for the 7D?

I'll chip in here and say this: I took tons of images with my old T2i and tons of images with my current 7D. And overwhelmingly the T2i images (same lenses) were sharper. I'm talking pics of birds and flowers here - stuff where you can really see softness and clarity in the individual feathers and petals. I view them at defualt size, at 100%, at 200%, and at all sizes in between, and the T2i's were just plain sharper. Crisper. The individual feather hairs were less fuzzy. No doubt.

It's been frustrating me for months now. So today I called Canon and I'm sending it in.

gordholio wrote in post #12208223
I'll chip in here and say this: I took tons of images with my old T2i and tons of images with my current 7D. And overwhelmingly the T2i images (same lenses) were sharper. I'm talking pics of birds and flowers here - stuff where you can really see softness and clarity in the individual feathers and petals. I view them at defualt size, at 100%, at 200%, and at all sizes in between, and the T2i's were just plain sharper. Crisper. The individual feather hairs were less fuzzy. No doubt.

It's been frustrating me for months now. So today I called Canon and I'm sending it in.

Yeh the 550D is exceptionally sharp, and has very consistent focus, I read a review somewhere that said also reckoned the 550D had more accurate focusing than the 7D (at least for stationary objects), and we all know the 550D is sharper strait out of camera.
Not sure is both censors have this 'anti aliasing filter', but I'd rather not need to add so much sharpening in PP.

^ That's all news to me. But in any case, one should check whether the lens needs some MA if there's a sharpness issue.

I did MA. More importantly, I used the same lenses on the T2i (and my Xsi before that), where MA doesn't even enter the equation.

BTW, this is my *second* 7D. The first was returned after a couple days for being RIDICULOUSLY soft.

rhys216 wrote in post #12208936
Yeh the 550D is exceptionally sharp, and has very consistent focus, I read a review somewhere that said also reckoned the 550D had more accurate focusing than the 7D (at least for stationary objects), and we all know the 550D is sharper strait out of camera.
Not sure is both censors have this 'anti aliasing filter', but I'd rather not need to add so much sharpening in PP.

Perhaps the combination of body and lens give better results on the 550D because the calibration of both are closer than the 7D.
You'd be surprised how sharper my files from the 40D with the 50 1.4 were compared to the 7D. A +5 MA did the trick and now the 7D is equally sharper... but with 8 more megapixels

I'm assuming you're shooting RAW right? Cuz it's basically the same sensor. IQ should be identical.

jwcdds wrote in post #12209128
I'm assuming you're shooting RAW right? Cuz it's basically the same sensor. IQ should be identical.

550D's sensor is slightly different/newer so IQ is not identical, also 7D has very different focusing.

Don't know about everyone else, but I'm definitely shooting RAW.

To be fair, I'm not personally referring to massive blurriness.The entire photo doesn't look horribly indistinct. But when I magnify at all, the difference is obvious. Dang, when you pay this much for a camera, the pics should be AT LEAST as sharp as the much less pricey alternatives.

jwcdds wrote in post #12209072
^ That's all news to me. But in any case, one should check whether the lens needs some MA if there's a sharpness issue.

Source

The 7D is capable of the following images, this is a collection of 100% crops:

https://photography-on-the.net …99284&highlight​=100%25+7d

rhys216 wrote in post #12209146
550D's sensor is slightly different/newer so IQ is not identical, also 7D has very different focusing.

I guess I'm going to have to see side-by-side direct comparisons of the RAW files to "visualize" this difference in IQ that you seem to believe is present. I can imagine differences in JPG SOOC as that's a software conversion and software can change. But I'll be a monkey's uncle if you can tell me you can pick out which photo is from the 550D, and which is from the 7D (or 60D, or 600D), if you view all of them side-by-side, given all other parameters are constant (shutter, aperture, lighting, distance, lens used).

Sure, the focusing is different because of different hardware and different AF systems. But I guess that sort of depends on whether one learns to use the 7D AF correctly, no?

Just a slight example:

resized image