Focus or sharpness issue

I shoot with the XTI and sometimes some pics look sharp and in focus when you look at them at 25%-50% but look at them at 100% and they are not too sharp or look in focus?

Could be either. Post some with exif so we can see what you're talking about.

That sounds about right for your hyperzooms. You may find that stopped down a little, and in the middle of their range, they perform better.
It could be something that could be addressed by judicious sharpening in post production.
Care to post some examples?

Here is a couple pics

Grady69 wrote in post #5347424
I shoot with the XTI and sometimes some pics look sharp and in focus when you look at them at 25%-50% but look at them at 100% and they are not too sharp or look in focus?

They might be perfectly sharp and in focus, but it might be motion-induced by your movement!

the rocks look more in focus than the bird...


What AF mode are you in? One shot or AI servo? I notice i tend to "rock" back and fourth a bit when im trying to compose and focus so AI servo works for me.

The squirrel doesn't look bad! Can you post a 100% crop of a 900 x 600 pixel area, so we can see native resolution rather than decimated for posting on POTN?

Do you post process your images? dSLRs generally do not do much sharpening in-camera, to the same extent as done by digital P&S cameras, and many do not realize this.

and as a suggestion use an alternative image hosting service so the files aren't so compressed taking away from any detail in the photo. There are several Free ones out there.

Well I did use one-shot for those, but ive been using AI servo ever since. yes i do pp i use CS2 and i installed Lonestardigital.coms sharpening action that you can use thru CS2. Im almost agree with zacker about the movement i do use a mono-pod with the Bigma, but i maybe have been rocking lil bit back and forth. Ill post a new 100% crop of a pic later today.
Thanks for the replies.

Ok here is a 100% crop with no PP

Hi,
I just found this site today and can already tell that it is going to be a great site for me. I too shoot with the xti and have been having some real focus problems. Like Grady, my pictures look ok until I blow them up more than 50%, the focus is always to the side of where I thought I was focusing. I will post an example when I get back to my main computer.
Gina

That looks decent. Shot almost wide open. Try going into photoshop and adding some sharpening using the unsharp mask. Set it to 100% and play around with the sliders until you get it better. Just remember that too little is better then too much.

I also shot an xti for over a year until I sold it just last week. It can do well with the right glass. As someone else pointed out it does less sharpening in camera. Go into the picture styles menu and set a custom profile. Use the jump button to change settings and set the camera on a tripod, stop down 2 stops, so around F8 on you 18-125mm. Set the shutter speed and leave all exposure alone. Now focus on a still subject and keep changing the sharpening settings in the user defined style. View each one and let us know what you think.

It does appear to be some front focus involved, as can be seen in your first example. Sharpening with Unsharp does not seem to improve the squirrel much at all in the 100% crop.

Squirrels are born out of focus and stay that way through their entire lives.

For 500mm shot 1/400 shutter is marginal.