Please peep at my Sigma 30mm pixels, even though we all know better

So, I finally bought a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DC. But at the same time I have also gone from a 30D to a 7D which has thrown my idea of how sharp a pixel should be. There are just so many of them!

Obviously I do not expect the best performance wide open, but the shallow depth of field is a big part of the attraction, so it needs to be usable. I decided to take the lens with me to the local common as I went for a walk to try and learn the new body. Which is fantastic, incidentally, but oh, so many pixels.

I found a sign which I though would make a useful test that reflects a normal subject and situation, at least for me, and shot it in raw at f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.8, and f/4.0.

This is a 100% view in DPP with no editing, so just a default sharpness of '3', and focus point displayed of the f/1.4 shot (handheld at 1/1000th, ISO 100, single AF point (one shot)):

i dont think it looks bad at all. Also I dont feel when you pixel peep the 7D raw files they are ever real sharp. Compared to my old 1DIII to the 7D the 1D3 images were just soo much sharper loking straight out of the camera. No matter what lens I use on my 7D they always seem to have little softness look to them at 100%. Little sharpening will fix that up

The first thing to do is to retake the photos with manual focus, using Live view assisted focus

Without liveview manual focus, it's impossible to assess if the copy is a "sharp copy" or not - because any softness could be due to AF issues

smorter, I have never used live view on small P&S cameras (well, except my phone) that I would never have thought of that, but it makes perfect sense. Will try to do that later this week on the same or similar subject.

Thinking it would be useful to judge real world conditions, I have put the f/1.4 version through my basic, semi-automatic, processing*. I also never did anything about the chromatic aberration, which was quite noticeable as some of the thin twigs turned green or purple in contrasty areas.

Looks pretty damn sharp to me. Stop looking for issues with your lens, and get out and enjoy photography.

That really seems like a terrible test subject/target. The red auto focus square isn't as precise as it may appear, meaning just because you aligned it over the "P" doesn't mean that the camera didn't actually try to focus on the leaf, the wood, a nearby twig, or even the adjacent "E". IMO, find a flat target with some kind of texture but minimal depth...a brick wall has worked well for me in the past, so long as the grooves aren't more than a couple millimeters deep.

Looks like you have a good copy to me.

You can also try taking some pictures on your lens box, white text on black background. Under good light, a good copy should show the white text being sharp and almost no ghosting at wide open. Of couse, you can put something in front or behind the box to check for focusing issue.

Sorry for the belated follow up, some other projects came up. But the other day I took some more tests and the results are interesting.

Following smorter's advice I used live view, between this shot and some others I feel okay that the lens is a good copy. I should have said this was my second one as the first was quite clearly bad hence wanting to be sure I did not need to send it back too. This was taken zooming into maximum on the LCD and focussing on the "al":

Please watch this short video on pixel peeping. It may save your sanity!

http://www.ukphotosafa​ri.org …t-friends-pixel-peep.html