Never thought I'd say this

I never thought I'd say this but I've actually acquired a camera that outstrips my skill level. IE with my old Rebel I didn't need to do much other than get focus and snap the picture maybe provide some fill light and I was done. I've got my 50D and I notice it's a lot trickier to get what I would consider a keeper image. At first I thought it was the camera or my lenses but I've now come to realize that it's me. Basically what I've found is that if I'm pixel peeping for fine focus (which I never could on my XTi (well at least in camera anyways) that things aren't as tack sharp as they seem. I then gave my head a shake and realized that if I had something zoomed into actual 100 size (ie it would be a massive image if printed and would only see the little fine detail stuff that appeared a tad fuzzy from extreme magnifications) that I was just being too nit picky. I guess I have to accept that there is so much resolution in the 50D image that my lens can not possibly capture all of it perfectly there just isn't the possibility there. It's also showed me that even what appears to be infinite DOF if magnified and you're looking at something you shot from 40 or 50 feet away that there are still limits to what will be perfectly in focus. My 50D has made me almost OCD!

PS sorry for the wall of text I just needed to get it off my chest

Welcome to the real world of photography.

Yea I was thinking the same thing while typing my post lol.

Even when I first got my Rebel 1000D as a starter 5 years back after shooting film on the Canon AE-1 for the longest time, I was thinking of almost the same things you describe here, lol. Those 10 Megapixels might not sound like much, but looking at digital photos at 100% on a large LCD monitor just made me so OCD. But considering that most of the photo prints that I had developed from negatives were either 4x6 or 5x7, I quickly realized how ridiculous all that pixel peeping was.

Well I'll admit I was never a huge pixel peeper pre 50D now it was like WHY is this happening? but yea I'm at your stage now where it's like ok IF I print and I mean IF it'll be at like 8x10 or 8x12 or something at the largest so pixel peeping is ridiculous

Just keep shooting that canon and you will start to make it work for you.

Keep at it, everything will become seco d nature after awhile.

I admit it. I am a pixel peeper. I like my pictures to be sharp past 100%. All the way until the individual pixels begin to show. Usually just past 200%. Sometimes near 300%. That said I seldom achieve this level of sharpness. So I usually settle for what looks good at the size I want to view it at. But that doesn't mean I won't keep trying to improve. I get these high levels of sharpness often enough to know it is possible. To me it is just one of the challenges of photography.

Mike

I too started with a Rebel XS (1000D) after using a point and shoot for a year. I thought the rebel was worse than the point and shoot (sharpness and color) at first, but eventually learned how to use it properly.

Some of my best photos are still with that Rebel XS, even though I haven't had it in years.

Glass makes a huge difference. Everyone says it, and they are right. The camera body holds the image, true, but the light has to pass through that glass first before it can hit the sensor, and bad glass makes it much harder to get proper contrast, sharpness, color, etc.

It's like a funnel for light. If the funnel isn't good quality then the "light" that pours in gets bottlenecked and spills out. But a good funnel brings in all the light to the sensor, giving you more information (color, contrast, etc.).

NOTE: About pixel peeping. I do it only for noise control. I'd rather lose a slight bit of detail and get rid of noise than to have some noise and a sharper photo. When viewed at common sizes (4x6 up to 8x10, etc), it looks better to have no noise.

In other words, a Rebel XS with quality glass will easily get a much higher quality photograph than a 7D with that ho-hum 28-135 kit lens.

I rarely look at anything beyond 100% unless I'm editing where it needs to be done pixel by pixel, and I almost never do that. I have a 22" Samsung LED monitor, and anything that looks good there is going to look good anywhere I'll ever use it.

I bought my lens kit with the thought in mind that I didn't want to be dealing with lens limitations, and I feel that I've been successful in achieving that goal. Even after using my 60D and current lens lineup for more than a year, I'm still amazed at how sharp even some of my poor photos are. When there is a problem now, I know that it's 100% me.

yea I've come to the conclusion that part of my issue is just the fact that what I was expecting was not realistic. IE I took a shot of a bird bath we have in our backyard that's a statue of the virgin mary from my back door (about a 40-50 feet at least) and when I zoomed in as far as I could on it it looked not tack sharp. I then realized that oh wait I'm shooting a 15MP shot and trying to focus point on a really tiny detailed thing in the back corner. The entire image when viewed at normal non zoomed in resolution looks nice and sharp and I was like DOH when I zoom in that far that means the pixels on target are next to nill no wonder it looks like ^&$#!!!! but yea Preeb I'm realizing that it's not me my lenses don't need MA or if they do it'd be very slight and you won't notice it anyways at normal viewing resolutions so it's not worth it. I guess it's like stepping up from a little beater civic to a Ferrari Enzo (basically what I did in terms since the 50D when released was the highest end non 1 series camera) and expecting driving the Enzo to be second nature. I feel like I'm almost relearing photography again when it's more so I'm relearning how this camera acts itself lol

I'm actually having a hard time editing pictures on my 15' Macbook Pro retina screen compared to my 23' desktop monitor. There are just so many different kinds of screens out there. Prints ftw

Keep in mind that you are beyond 100% if you click all the way, at least with prior gens like the 50d. You actually want to be one click less than full.

icacphotography wrote in post #16008588
I never thought I'd say this but I've actually acquired a camera that outstrips my skill level. IE with my old Rebel I didn't need to do much other than get focus and snap the picture maybe provide some fill light and I was done. I've got my 50D and I notice it's a lot trickier to get what I would consider a keeper image. At first I thought it was the camera or my lenses but I've now come to realize that it's me. Basically what I've found is that if I'm pixel peeping for fine focus (which I never could on my XTi (well at least in camera anyways) that things aren't as tack sharp as they seem. I then gave my head a shake and realized that if I had something zoomed into actual 100 size (ie it would be a massive image if printed and would only see the little fine detail stuff that appeared a tad fuzzy from extreme magnifications) that I was just being too nit picky. I guess I have to accept that there is so much resolution in the 50D image that my lens can not possibly capture all of it perfectly there just isn't the possibility there. It's also showed me that even what appears to be infinite DOF if magnified and you're looking at something you shot from 40 or 50 feet away that there are still limits to what will be perfectly in focus. My 50D has made me almost OCD!

PS sorry for the wall of text I just needed to get it off my chest

Only one plane of space will ever be in focus. THe rest of that depth of field is just "acceptably sharp". The higher the resolution of the image the less you have that's acceptably sharp.

Also... the 28-105 (was my main walk around lens on the 50D and a few cameras before) that lens really starts to show it's flaws with the 50D's resolution. It has a gritty look that adds to noise, among other things.

That's true Mavgirl you make an excellent point that when you really zoom in only point under where you actual focused on is tack sharp for the most part everything else is simply acceptably sharp. Thanks for the heads up on the 28-105. I guess maybe I'll have to look into some other options then as I'd not want to have something around that will add more noise.