40D Sharpening - What is the standard?

First, thank you for any help y'all might provide (I may be in CO now, but I am GA born and bred!)

I have read that the 40D has a more "aggressive" anti-alias filter. Does this mean I need to do a bit of sharpening on all my photos? If so, what amount would you recommend? Or is there an in camera setting for that, using RAW?

Thanks!

There is an in camera setting for sharpness but like all such settings it only applies to the jpegs created in camera. If you are shooting in raw then there are many options for applying different types of sharpening during post production.

In RAW format I leave the camera set at factory default for Picture Style. Having moved up from the EOS 30D I haven't noticed having to apply Post Processing Sharpening any more so than with the EOS 40D. If anything the 40D images sharpen a slight bit better in my opinion.

Are the recommended unsharp mask settings in the manual?

The whole point of shooting RAW is that it is RAW. You then apply a sharpening level that suits, and different images need different levels of sharpening.

One thing I do, however, is to set the camera's Jpeg settings to something I might like. IF you use DPP as the RAW converter, it will use the Jpeg settings as the "default" conversion guess. (Other converters do not recognize any Jpeg parameters, however.) Sometimes that saves time in batch conversions, but the image itself and its final use determine how much sharpening is needed, not the camera or the lens. There is no magic formula, just personal preference.

Keltab wrote in post #6328382
First, thank you for any help y'all might provide (I may be in CO now, but I am GA born and bred!)

I have read that the 40D has a more "aggressive" anti-alias filter. Does this mean I need to do a bit of sharpening on all my photos? If so, what amount would you recommend? Or is there an in camera setting for that, using RAW?

Thanks!

A good question. There is a Canon white paper that recommends USM settings of 0.3, 300, 0 to restore the sharpness that was lost in the filter, but that was before the 40D was produced.

If the 40D really does have a stronger filter that softens the image more than earlier models, seems like the settings should be adjusted upwards.

-js

That's the info!

But I don't use the native unsharp mask, so sorry that I can't share my 40D settings.

I actually increase my in camera sharpening pretty high -- one less than max.

If you are shooting jpegs it is best to do all of your sharpening in post for the best image quality. And there is no "best" setting it very much depends on the subject, background and detail in the image. And likewise there is not a best method whether using a straight USM or one of the myriad of other methods, it is very much subject sensitive.

If I am shooting wildlife I use completely different techniques than I do for portraiture or landscapes. And that also goes for images shot at a higher ISO (above 400) maybe one technique or a multiple number of techniques than it would be for one shot at 50 or 100.

When shooting raw I apply very minimal sharpening using DPP, I find better image sharpness can be found using the more precise tools I have available in CS, either native to the application or plugins like Photokit Sharpener.

Sharing sharpening settings doesn't really mean much. The same amount of sharpening is going to always have a different effect, depending on a whole host of factors: subject, background, image size, lens quality, etc.

But yes, you will definitely need to add SOME sharpening to just about any image you take. With my sharpest lens (70-200mm f/4) I find that I need a minimum Smart Sharpen of .3 to bring back detail lost by the AA filters on my 20d and 40d.

On some images like portraits you will want to do selective sharpening. Personally I have learned to like the slightly soft images that the 40D produces. It lets me control the method, amount and what is sharpened.

Great info - thank you to all who answered!
I appreciate it, and it gives me some ground to cover as I learn this wonderful hobby, hmmm art, no wait... passion!

Thanks!

go here-

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=466333

It's all about experimenting. I did a test using both in-camera sharpening and no in-camera sharpening. With both images I then applied the required amount of sharpening in pp.

I actually found the the image which had in-camera sharpening applied had less noise.

I use neutral picture style customised with sharpening of 3/7.

The Digic chip does a great job on in camera sharpening. I leave my camera on +3 or +5. BTW it only applies to JPG's. I shoot RAW +JPG most of the time. This makes my JPG's sharp right out of the camera. I also bump up the saturation a little.