7D Soft Images

Hi TeamSpeed,

Here is the cropped version.

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General_T wrote in post #13037505
Hi FreezFrame,

I have left the shooting style in Standard for all shots so far. I believe that in while shooting in RAW they have no effect? Might be wrong though - have to check the book again.

Depends on what you are using to view and process the raw. DPP will honor all in-camera settings, if you choose to let it.

General_T wrote in post #13037516
Hi TeamSpeed,

Here is the cropped version.

Okay, at least to me on my crappy laptop, that seems spot-on for focus. If you have not done any micro-adjustments, I would say your camera is dead-on. Both of my 7Ds required MA on just about every single lens.

It seems sharp enough as well, if you haven't done any PP. To get the best out of the 7D, you will have to do either one of two things.

1) You will need to post process the images, meaning that you will need to tweak the resulting JPG

or

2) You will need to use a custom picture style, where you control the color, saturation, and sharpness, and if you use DPP, this will translate to the resulting JPG

HOWEVER, I will tell you that the best results will be with a more conservative picture style with post processing then an aggressive picture style with no post processing, at least in my experience.

I do have a custom picture style that I will use to create punchy, pretty sharp images right out of camera, but I only use those for quick and dirty photos where I don't care so much about being able to tweak them afterwards.

If you are curious about that setting this is what I have done:
- set high ISO NR to strong
- picture style (3rd slot) - set to Landscape as the base, contrast +1 above center, Saturation 0, Color +1 above center, and Sharpness +1 above center

I don't use this much however. You could try setting that up if you would like then do the battery test again. See how it compares to your previous result. As you get more accustomed though, I doubt you will use that setup very much, unless you like the "overcooked" look. Some people do, and it is a matter of personal preference.

Here is your battery test post-processed to show what I mean...

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Hi MangroveDutch,

I believe you are probably right. I am lightyears away from getting the most out of this camera, and frankly maybe I am expecting too much and don't have enough experience to even judge the pictures accurately.

I truly do like the camera and I have seen a lot of brilliant photos from other with - as you also noted. I don't want to fault the equipment as I tried to get the best lens to match to the camera (at least one that is not a L - not sure any Ls go on an EF-s mind you.

Anyway, can't thank you all enough for the patience and effort so many have put into this Forum (peolple with 20,000 + posts - thats amazing!!

TeamSpeed wrote in post #13037534
1) You will need to post process the images, meaning that you will need to tweak the resulting JPG

Hi TeamSpeed,

I'm a bit confused. I thought you do all your PP with the RAW file before saving it as a JPEG? Do you have to also play with the resulting JPEG?

Thanks

Hi TeamSpeed,

If the top pic is the one you worked on, I like it much better. Looks preetty damn sharp with nice contrast. I will definately try that setting as a stepping stone.


Thanks

General_T wrote in post #13037571
Hi TeamSpeed,

If the top pic is the one you worked on, I like it much better. Looks preetty damn sharp with nice contrast. I will definately try that setting as a stepping stone.


Thanks

Yes, I did a small amount of USM, then bumped the saturation up just a tiny bit, and added a tiny bit contrast. You can do something similar with picture styles as an interim step, but ultimately you should find time to create a photoshop action to do this for you, so all you do is take your resulting JPG from the raw, select that "My Cleanup Action" and run it.

General_T wrote in post #13037560
Hi TeamSpeed,

I'm a bit confused. I thought you do all your PP with the RAW file before saving it as a JPEG? Do you have to also play with the resulting JPEG?

Thanks

Nope, I do not do all my PP with the raw. I adjust white balance and exposure, play a little with shadows, highlights, and maybe saturation/contrast. I don't do anything with sharpness if the ISO is at 800 or higher, I prefer sharpness actually turned down.

I then take the JPG, clean up any noise if needed, and then do the sharpness there. I could actually just get away with just adjustment white balance and exposure and do all the other things as a JPG action.

If I were doing this as a career and had hundreds of photos to process, this methodology just wouldn't work though. It would indeed be too time consuming, IMO.

The shot of the girl just needs a bit of sharpening. It brings the detail out nicely:

Before:

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I had trouble with sharpness with my 7D as well. Short version

Shoot RAW (you already do)
Open with DPP (NOT ACR) allow it to develop a high resolution image (takes a while) and sharpen to 3
Export to photoshop.

This has made all the difference in the world to me. I don't know what DPP does differently with the RAW files but it is significantly better than any other RAW converter I've used (too bad becasue overall it isn't a really useful program).

You've got alot of good advice in this thread. Don't give up on the camera. There is a learning curve.

mangrovedutch wrote in post #13037449
OK, I'm following with great interest

The 7D has to be the most...

What Dutch said.

Copidosoma wrote in post #13037791
I had trouble with sharpness with my 7D as well. Short version

Shoot RAW (you already do)
Open with DPP (NOT ACR) allow it to develop a high resolution image (takes a while) and sharpen to 3
Export to photoshop.

This has made all the difference in the world to me. I don't know what DPP does differently with the RAW files but it is significantly better than any other RAW converter I've used (too bad becasue overall it isn't a really useful program).

You've got alot of good advice in this thread. Don't give up on the camera. There is a learning curve.

I think the standard default sharpness setting is 3 on the 7D (standard picture style), so if you open a RAW image it should already be at 3, unless you modify the default settings in DPP.
Picture style settings do not transfer to ACR however.

I find DPP is a good program for a few things I do. The DPP tutorial linked below from Canon gives a good idea what is capable of and how to use it....
http://www.learn.usa.c​anon.com …rials/dpp_tutor​ials.shtml

Hi Copidosoma,

Havent tried Canons DPP, but will. I've read that ACR was better but now you mention it maybe better. As well, I believe TeamSpeed also uses DPP. I wonder if there is a poll about what percentage used ACR vs DPP vs LR?

Also, is there sharpening if shooting straight RAW? I thought that was zeroed out for RAW?

General_T wrote in post #13037999
Hi Copidosoma,

Havent tried Canons DPP, but will. I've read that ACR was better but now you mention it maybe better. As well, I believe TeamSpeed also uses DPP. I wonder if there is a poll about what percentage used ACR vs DPP vs LR?

Also, is there sharpening if shooting straight RAW? I thought that was zeroed out for RAW?

All camera settings are attached to the raw file, some converters honor them, others may not. DPP will, by default.