Upgraded from a 20D to a 40D - VERY Dissapointed.

Are these shot with raw or one of the jpeg settings(which one if)?

The pics look great to me. Its nothing smart sharpen and/or USM wouldnt take care of. FWIW, it seems like the camera focused on the little sliver of the a board sticking out rather than the bolt.

Were these shot at 70mm? f/2.8? Its harder than you think to remain perfectly still and not move the camera AT ALL from when you focus it. Even if you were to put it on a tripod, theres still the fact that the focus areas are larger than the little boxes in the viewfinder.

Like I said, they look sharp enough to me. Dont mess with charts and batteries unless thats just what youre into taking pictures of. Use the camera in real world situations and if theres still a serious problem, then send it in to get it fixed. If you nit-pick over every little thing and keep staring at focus charts all day youll never take any real pictures, and you just wasted $2500.

40D is light years beyond the 20D. Go use it and stop taking pictures of tree bark and nails.

Just my two cents.

P.S. FWIW, Ive never seen a SHARP 100% crop from straight out of the camera...And I mean ANY camera.

Crobs808, if you decide to do another test, please shoot L .JPGs and save EXIF.
Just resize them to POTN standards, but don’t change anything else!
That will help us a lot in analyzing possible problems with your camera..

Well you have 2 variables here: both the 40D and 24-70L are new. Can you eliminate one variable? Either try the 28-135 on the 40D or the 24-70L on the 20D? Or have you gotten rid of both the 20D and 28-135?

crobs808 wrote in post #4241452
I do not understand...all my photos with my 20D were sharp and I was just using the cheap kit lens (28-135 IS), now I have a 40D and a $1,000 lens, then 24-70L and my images are soft in the middle and all over for that matter.

28-135 cheap kit lens? I wouldn't call it that way.
it's a good lens ! not L but sometimes referred to as hidden L

The blow-up areas do not look as if they are from the same picture - I had lots of doubts about the 40D and did all sorts of inconclusive tests when I first had it but came to no definite conclusion - I am now fairly happy with it and just go out and use it rather than keep testing it.

I sent two 24-70L s back as I thought they were crap and didn't see any point in getting another. I settled for the 24-105 L IS - Picture quality is better and it is a very much more convenient lens - I call it my everyday lens. However the f2.8 on the other lens was usefull.

crobs808 wrote in post #4241717
OH - I also have the image mode thing on Faithful, 0,0,0,0, since I figured all editing should be done in post...am I wrong, should I change it back to the default that was 3,0,0,0 i think? which is the best to put it on? I think it is dumb they added that feature.

That will definitely have an effect on the straight-from-the-camera sharpness. A zero setting for sharpness will cause images to appear quite soft (something like what you're seeing, though perhaps not quite to that degree) because that means the camera isn't doing any sharpening at all -- you're seeing the full effects of the demosaicing algorithm in the camera.

I use a sharpness setting of 4 myself, and find the resulting sharpness to be acceptable.

crobs808 wrote in post #4241452
I do not understand...all my photos with my 20D were sharp and I was just using the cheap kit lens (28-135 IS), now I have a 40D and a $1,000 lens, then 24-70L and my images are soft in the middle and all over for that matter. I always use the center AF point when shooting...whats going on? here are some unedited center crops from the middle of a few photos.
r

First things first: take more tests using a tripod and MLU

If you still have a problem after that send the whole kit to canon

Are the enlargements 100% or 200% crops? They look like the latter to me. If so, THAT would explain the 1st pic somewhat...

kitacanon wrote in post #4243747
Are the enlargements 100% or 200% crops? They look like the latter to me. If so, THAT would explain the 1st pic somewhat...

100% crop should be a lot better than that ...200% maybe - but he didnt say..

Rehuel wrote in post #4242123
It looks like hand shake to me. You probably got used to the IS on the other lens which is more forgiving.

no I only used the 28-135 for like 2 days before I sold it, and I have used a 24-70L at my workplace on both a 20D and a 5D for 2 years until I just bought my own. I shoot very steady, and shot the exact same way with my 20D and never got this bad quality. I've also used a 20D with the 24-70 at work for the last 2 years, and never had images come out like this, so it's not hand shake. I always shoot at 1/125 shutter or higher when handheld, unless I'm intentioanlly trying to get a blur

so you think I should send the lens in to canon? how long does it take, cause I need it for the lst week in november and I definately want it back before Christmas to use for ski shots of my family. So I cannot send it off until the end of november, will it come back before Christmas? Do I send the body and the lens? How much do they charge? they are both less than a month old. Thanks

::: Connor

kitacanon wrote in post #4243747
Are the enlargements 100% or 200% crops? They look like the latter to me. If so, THAT would explain the 1st pic somewhat...

they are 100%, i did not enlarge them at all...that is what they look like at actual pixel size.

here are four images, including those two, full size, so you can download and look at them, straight off the camera.
IMG_3088.JPG
IMG_3098.JPG
IMG_3097.JPG
IMG_3104.JPG

right-click, properties (in windows) will let you see my settings.

::: Connor

MICHELP wrote in post #4243243
28-135 cheap kit lens? I wouldn't call it that way.
it's a good lens ! not L but sometimes referred to as hidden L

well i said that because it came with my brand new 40D for a total of $1200, so i figured since other 40D bodies were selling for $1100 alone, it was cheap. wasn't insulting the lens, just cheap money-wise in comparison to L, im sure its ok.

::: connor

crobs808 wrote in post #4244047
so you think I should send the lens in to canon?
::: Connor

Take some test shots using a tripod and mirror lock up

Until you do that there is no way you can be 100% sure it's not camera shake

I Simonius wrote in post #4244127
Take some test shots using a tripod and mirror lock up

Until you do that there is no way you can be 100% sure it's not camera shake

how do i take pics with mirror lock up? is that the middle toggle between on and off?

why didnt my 20D ever do this? i have yet to get sharp image from my 40D, and i shot on the 20D for two years, same way that im shooting on the 40D...plus, i also have bright sunlight pictures shot at 1/2000 and they are still soft. there's no way average camera shake could overcome that shutter speed.

::: connor