Anything that can make a body produce soft images?

I have never been real happy with the sharpness of my Tamron 17-50. I bought another on eBay to compare to see if I have a bad copy. However, my girlfriend was looking through some images I shot with my 85 f/1.8 and they don't look terribly sharp, either. If they are completely uncropped they look decent but if you zoom in at all they don't look like anything special.

Is there anything that could happen to my 40D that could cause this? The Tamron front/back focuses but the Canon is dead on. I have tried smaller apertures and faster shutter speeds with not a ton of success. Stopped down the Tamron looks like a P&S. The Canon stopped down is decent but not outstanding like some of the shots I've seen on here.

Could it be the low resolution?

Please post some examples with EXIF attached.

I will take some pictures tonight. What is the best way to upload them? Flickr? Someone said photobucket (what I normally use) messes them up.

HLxDrummer wrote in post #15998761
I have never been real happy with the sharpness of my Tamron 17-50. I bought another on eBay to compare to see if I have a bad copy. However, my girlfriend was looking through some images I shot with my 85 f/1.8 and they don't look terribly sharp, either. If they are completely uncropped they look decent but if you zoom in at all they don't look like anything special.

Is there anything that could happen to my 40D that could cause this? The Tamron front/back focuses but the Canon is dead on. I have tried smaller apertures and faster shutter speeds with not a ton of success. Stopped down the Tamron looks like a P&S. The Canon stopped down is decent but not outstanding like some of the shots I've seen on here.

Could it be the low resolution?

have you tried putting your camera on a tripod and using either a remote shutter or the timer function to take some shots to eliminate camera shake?

what shutter speeds are you taking these pics at?

it shouldn't have anything to do with low resolution. I've seen fantastic images here with 40D and even lower model cameras. check out this thread. the photographer used a 300D (6.5MP camera) with an 18-55 kit lens, and a couple of vivitar flashes to create this image (nevermind the ugly toenail colors lol) --> Jo

it may be your camera needs to be sent to Canon to get checked out as well.

Photobucket will not mess up photos that are 1024x683 (there is a size limit but anything under 200 kb should be ok.

You should crop your photo to retain 1024 x 683 photo (100%crop) and then upload it. If Photobucket resizes, it will not retain Exif, instead you get something like 'photo by Creator'.

In the new Photobucket you will not see the Exif on site by clicking on the photo on the site. You need to click the magnifying glass in lower right corner and then right click for the Exif

A dirty sensor can definitely cause image softness... loss of fine detail and reduced contrast. Try a good cleaning, if the camera hasn't had one done lately.

It's also possible for AF to get out of calibration. If it's occuring with all your lenses, then this is more of a possibility. It's not something you can adjust yourself on 40D. You'll need to have it professionally checked and adjusted.

Poor technique.

rrblint wrote in post #15998771
Please post some examples with EXIF attached.

yes, you need to post samples

HLxDrummer wrote in post #15998761
If they are completely uncropped they look decent but if you zoom in at all they don't look like anything special.

There's your problem, stop pixel peeping.

PLLphotography wrote in post #15998823
have you tried putting your camera on a tripod and using either a remote shutter or the timer function to take some shots to eliminate camera shake?

what shutter speeds are you taking these pics at?

it shouldn't have anything to do with low resolution. I've seen fantastic images here with 40D and even lower model cameras. check out this thread. the photographer used a 300D (6.5MP camera) with an 18-55 kit lens, and a couple of vivitar flashes to create this image (nevermind the ugly toenail colors lol) --> Jo

it may be your camera needs to be sent to Canon to get checked out as well.

I have tried the tripod/self timer in the past.

Some of my shots that have come out bad were too slow SS wise (thought I could get away with it with flash) but some that are at what I think is a reasonable SS are soft (1/100 and up).

MakisM1 wrote in post #15998826
Photobucket will not mess up photos that are 1024x683 (there is a size limit but anything under 200 kb should be ok.

You should crop your photo to retain 1024 x 683 photo (100%crop) and then upload it. If Photobucket resizes, it will not retain Exif, instead you get something like 'photo by Creator'.

In the new Photobucket you will not see the Exif on site by clicking on the photo on the site. You need to click the magnifying glass in lower right corner and then right click for the Exif

I got a new computer in the fall and Adobe is saying I registered Elements on too many computers (didn't reregister before formatting my old computer) so all I have is Lightroom and couldn't figure out how to crop it like that in there so I just cropped them to 8X10 and exported them to Flickr.

amfoto1 wrote in post #15998860
A dirty sensor can definitely cause image softness... loss of fine detail and reduced contrast. Try a good cleaning, if the camera hasn't had one done lately.

It's also possible for AF to get out of calibration. If it's occuring with all your lenses, then this is more of a possibility. It's not something you can adjust yourself on 40D. You'll need to have it professionally checked and adjusted.

I don't think it is the AF simply because my Canon focuses dead on everytime and the Tamron does sometimes.

Could be a dirty sensor as I bought the camera used and have never cleaned it other than a rocket blower. Should I try a wet method? Any tips?

Numenorean wrote in post #15998923
Poor technique.

Can you expand on that? I've heard people say that before but what technique is there? Center focus point on the subject, one shot AF, fast shutter speed/tripod, what else is there?

maverick75 wrote in post #15999080
There's your problem, stop pixel peeping.

Even if I crop it to 8X10 and then a touch more? I feel like I should be able to print 8X10s and crop very slightly with 10MP or am I wrong?


Nevertheless, here are the pictures: The Canon looks great, the Tamron is decent at f/5.6 and/or 50MM but 17MM and f/2.8 I think it looks pretty soft..

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/40655243@N02/

PS: On the ones with the paper I focused on the word coma

Try GIMP...

http://www.gimp.org/

It's free and quite sophisticated... You can't go pixel-peeping without a pixel editor...

The most common cause for soft images lies just to the rear of the eyepiece.

hollis_f wrote in post #16001269
The most common cause for soft images lies just to the rear of the eyepiece.

so true !

I believe what the OP is experiencing is narrow DOF - depth of field shooting at f2.8. The closer, the narrower!

HLxDrummer wrote in post #15999166
Nevertheless, here are the pictures: The Canon looks great, the Tamron is decent at f/5.6 and/or 50MM but 17MM and f/2.8 I think it looks pretty soft..

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/40655243@N02/

PS: On the ones with the paper I focused on the word coma

all I see are pics of trees!
isolate one easily identifiable subject (like a focus chart) to determine problems in sharpness.

XSi (450D)
Tamron 17-50 2.8

at f2.8

You don't see the pictures of words on paper right after the trees?

I don't see any related lens information and at least with my tools I can't call up any EXIF info to help.

I'd like to add that some pictures seem well underexposed, probably 1½ to 2 stops and I'd be inclined to address that issue and then attack the softness issue. Two images that come to mind are IMG_4840 (1/50 f6.3 ISO 200) and IMG_4834 (1/100 f6.3 ISO 100). While on those two you are pushing the limits are far as getting really sharp images is shooting hand held. It can be done, even at the 1/50 sec, but it puts emphasis on the photographer abilities.