I thought 1D series bodies were supposed to be the best?? WHY THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS???

The story:
I started off with 20d/30d probably 5 or 6 years ago. Never really had an issue with soft images. Eventually moved up to 5D, still great images with no issues of having soft images. My expertise is in portrait work but I often find myself doing other gigs for money (sports / weddings / events).

The problem:
So I picked up a high mileage 1D Mark IIN a while back. I had an issue with the people in my photos being soft but the background was sharp. This only happens when shooting from a distance, and It NEVER happens in studio. (70-200 f/2.8L IS) I read and read and read everything I can find and no answer. So one day I'm playing around and I figure that I'm using one shot "regular". So I try to use one shot "high speed - Low" mode. And the problem is not as bad, but the people in my photos are still a tad bit soft. So I blame it on the camera, send it in to get fixed at canon, they say nothign is wrong and send it back. So I sell it and buy my current 1dmk2N with only 488 shutter actuations. Can't get any newer than that so I figured there would be no issue. I GET THE SAME DAM PROBLEM WITH THIS CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!

I have been trying different styles of taking pictures to solve this problem. Mashing the trigger, beep then click, everything possible.

I recently started shooting hockey games for this dood who shoots nikon. I look at his images and they are sharp as hell, I'm embarassed to even compare photos. He is using D200 with 70-200VR with 1.4TC and his images are still sharper??? I thought the 1D Mark IIN was supposed to be a great camera for sports?

Here is a sample of the softness. It's not nothing too bad to b!tch about but jesus there has got to be an answer to why this is not sharp.

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Most certainly mis-focus... perhaps a misunderstanding of focus points? Tough to tell from the small shot but the stitching on the mitt looks sharp.

What focus point are you using? Have you tried shooting at a higher ISO for the hockey so you can stop the lens down more for more depth of field? (ie, shoot at 5.6 instead of 2.8 )

In this shot:

- I was in the penalty box so I have great access to get great shots, this kid was right by me at the box in between periods. So he was really close, I should have a great super sharp image since he is soo close.

- I have control of the lights in the rink (pocket wizzards) so lights were used and should be a great help to make images extra crisp.

- I have a 1D Mark IIN supposedly a great camera for getting tight shots of things in motion. This kid is not moving and I can't get a tight shot of his face???? I'm doing something wrong, custom functions? drive mode? what is it?

TheHoff wrote in post #5602215
Most certainly mis-focus... perhaps a misunderstanding of focus points? Tough to tell from the small shot but the stitching on the mitt looks sharp.

What focus point are you using? Have you tried shooting at a higher ISO for the hockey so you can stop the lens down more for more depth of field? (ie, shoot at 5.6 instead of 2.8 )

That shot was taken at f/7.1 everything in the image should be super tight. He was directly under one of the lights so I had to adjust my aperture accordingly. Shutter speed was at 250/sec so there is no way he's moving too fast even though he's just sitting there.

Tomorrow I'm going to shoot some comparison pictures from 30D and 1DmarkIIN. To see the difference in sharpness. I guarantee the 30D images will be sharper. I know the lens and camera are not damaged or anything, there is just some setting I don't know about. Anyone out there have a 1D? Still no answers or suggestions?

Sorry, there was no EXIF attached to the image before.

Is there any part of the image that is sharp to you at 100%?

It would then sound like a mis-focus. Load up Zoombrowser or the EOS Viewer from Canon and you can see what focus point was used. Do you know? Was it on center point? If you're confident that the focus point was over his face, it would be a mis-alignment of that lens with that camera. Luckily with the 1D you can do micro-adjustment per lens.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk …s3_af_micoadjus​tment.html

link says 1DSmarkIII and 1DmarkIII only

Yes focus was on the kids face, whole image is a little soft. Might not be an issue for the rest of you guys, but for me when seeing the images from a $1500 nikon body vs my $2500 canon body I get a little upset when their prosumer body produces better images than my pro body even though we're both using the same settings.....

Here is a 100% crop of the glove that you said looked sharp

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I know it's not an issue of the camera having problems or the lens having problems. I've had 2 1D Mark IIN's do the same thing with the same glass. And my 5D and 30D do not have this problem. Tomorrow I will do a test to show everyone what I'm talking about, how the sharpness on the 1D and 30D are different. I can already bet $1000 that the 30D images will be sharper at 200mm.

THERE HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF SETTING ON THE 1D THAT I DON'T KNOW ABOUT

Anyone with 1D have any advice?

I did find out that High speed Low and High speed High is good for taking pictures of people and that the single box is good for taking pictures of still things like product photography. I thought that the 1DmkIIN would give me a good keeper rate, but at this point I think I might have better luck sticking to 30D until I can figure out what settings I have to play with on the 1D.

Or maybe just switch to Nikon and I wont have to play around with any settings....

have your lenses got IS? is it on/off?
and last but not least RTFM.

Adaptive wrote in post #5602825
Or maybe just switch to Nikon and I wont have to play around with any settings....

With an attitude like that you may as well ditch DSLR altogether and grab yourself a point & shoot.

Have you tried a focus test like this to see if your camera is front/back focussing?

http://focustestchart.​com/focus21.pdf

More details here: http://focustestchart.​com/chart.html

Sorry if this sounds amateurish.

The other thought is in camera sharpining.Where do you have it set.I use the same camera and I am pretty sure I have it set at 3 or so.

Make sure that the rear element of your lens is clean as well. I had a thumb print on one mine that gave a similier effect to the image. It is a new camera so I would not suspect a sensor issue but how about the rear lens mount is it nice and tight?

If you can dupe it under controlled conditions that would help. Also is this directly from the RAW file? or was it taken from a jpeg.

Adaptive wrote in post #5602825
THERE HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF SETTING ON THE 1D THAT I DON'T KNOW ABOUT

Anyone with 1D have any advice?

I started with this then changed as I got more used to the camera..

http://www.siphoto.com​/?canon1DM2.inc

BOSS wrote in post #5603064
have your lenses got IS? is it on/off?
and last but not least RTFM.

Believe me, if there is some simple solution I would not be wasting my time posting on here. It's 7am, I just woke up, what's RTMF?

iamaelephant wrote in post #5603102
With an attitude like that you may as well ditch DSLR altogether and grab yourself a point & shoot.

I spend close to $3000 on a camera and I expect it to have the capability to take sharp images equally nice to the images taken by my 5D and 30D, do I not have the right to be pissed off? And these Nikon cameras are sharp as balls right out of the box no tweaking needed. The guy that has the D200 that I was using knows pretty much nothing about photography and his images are sharper than mine? There is absolutely no way he sat around tweaking any settings. I'm surprised that clown even knows where the shutter is.

blackcap wrote in post #5603313
Have you tried a focus test like this to see if your camera is front/back focussing?

http://focustestchart.​com/focus21.pdf

More details here: http://focustestchart.​com/chart.html

Sorry if this sounds amateurish.

100% sure the camera focuses fine, I will look at this later today when I get home from work. I will also try with my 30D and 5D to see difference.

LBaldwin wrote in post #5603357
The other thought is in camera sharpining.Where do you have it set.I use the same camera and I am pretty sure I have it set at 3 or so.

Make sure that the rear element of your lens is clean as well. I had a thumb print on one mine that gave a similier effect to the image. It is a new camera so I would not suspect a sensor issue but how about the rear lens mount is it nice and tight?

If you can dupe it under controlled conditions that would help. Also is this directly from the RAW file? or was it taken from a jpeg.

I will give my lenses and camera a through cleaning when I get home. I'm pretty sure no amount of dirt will do this, but at this point I'm desperate to find a solution. Rear lens mount is pretty tight. Directly from jpg, no editing, i don't shoot raw too often especially at weddings and hockey games, no need really. Camera sharpening is at +3 I believe, I would not have it set to negative sharpening I know that much.

KIPAX wrote in post #5603599
I started with this then changed as I got more used to the camera..

http://www.siphoto.com​/?canon1DM2.inc

thanks, yeah I think you or someone posted this in another thread, I'm definitely going to give this a try later today.

Is this the first in a series or only shot? When using AI Servo, it's shutter-release priority as opposed to focus-priority as in one-shot so the first frame is almost always out of focus. It's best to fire at least a short burst when shooting action.