For those who believe a 40D is soft and maybe the 50D as well

This issue had me going for a while and I took a while to understand the makup of a 40D digital image. I still have a way to go, but in the understanding lies the success of a good photo. I can get used to a little bit of softness, but then it must be little.

This photo is an example of wher I started. Soft?

The previous quality had me going and I sulked, because I believed my 40D can do better. I started to tweak sharpness levels and it impressed me, because I was gaining knowledge and understanding. Next to follow.

I started to study the concept around sharpness and not soft focus. I initially thought I had a focus issue, until I set the camera's Standard profile to 7 and I saved a RAW to JPEG with 7.

First One - JPEG from camera and Second the JPEG from DPP

Then I had the idea to go all the way and see what that does to a shot. Crank up the levels. Note, I am not saying go all the way, I am just pointing out a tool/setting that you can play with. Obviously at some point it is possible to overdo it and the results start to degrade. This one is at 10.

All the demo areas a 100 crops of this photo.

Thanks for the advice and nice examples.....Im having big problems with alot of my pics so soft they look blurry. Hopefully a setting change as you describe will help. Im not a noob to thses cameras either, as I also own a 300D, 20D and never had these issues. Ill try what you did before I send in to Canon.

Great examples - thanks for taking the time to do these and post them.
I am still somewhat new to this stuff, and I am learning all the time. This really helps!
Nice dog too!

Thanks for the examples!

Good job doing the homework. Maybe this can start a broader discussion about how these cameras are so much more sophisticated than film, some old paradigms don't apply. It is not just about exposure + shutter speed + focus, etc. These cameras are capable of changing so many more variables, many that users don't find in the first shots, so it is a steeper learning curve all around. When people start discussions about DSLR vs film, I often note two things: one, I always have the right 'film' in my camera and two, I have quite a few different cameras hanging off my neck in one box. All those little adjustments count. And between bodies, even more differences. I should restrict myself to my 20d more often so I don't lose touch with that camera vs my 40d. It would be nice to see this discussion evolve along those lines and not 'dissolve' into the crappy 40d back and forth.

You might want to take a look at this video as well:
http://www.usa.canon.c​om …harpening/sharp​ening.html
Can't remember who posted it up a while back, but I booked marked it and it's a handy video that explains much of Canon's thinking and why digital photographers have to sharpen their pics.

Thanks, my current research is about the effect of F-stop on sharpness settings. In low light conditions you tend to go F2.8 and then sharpening can be overdone. As soon as the light is better and supports say F5.6 to F11 and better, then you start to hit the sweet spot.

Thanks for the URL, I am watching the video.

That is one URL that I have bookmarked and will test all the advice. Many thanks. I now have my User Defined 1 set at: Sharpness 5, Contrast +2 and Saturation +3. Will test this for sure. Watch this space.

It may be just me but the first thing I saw was noise in your image. As you sharpened it it became more noisy. I looked at the exif data you used ISO800

Photographers always talk about the quality of light. It is important because you need enough of it so you can use low ISOs and get the lens out of the f2.8 range and closer to f8 (though not always true)

Here is a test that shows some of the sweet spots.
http://www.photozone.d​e …st-report--review?start=1

40mm at f5.6 seems to be the sweet spot of this lens. f5.6 seems to be the sweet spot at any focal lenth.

The sad thing, at least by this tester is the sigma version of this lens is slightly sharper than the Canon at all focal lengths and has less chromatic abberation and it is much less expensive (which is why I never bought one)

But you are on the right track, experiment with different setting and ISO's once you get the images sharp before sharpening then the less sharpening you do in photoshop the better the image and less visable noise.

Good luck on your experimentations. Look to tests to help you find where the sweet spot are and see if you notice the difference.

It may be just me but the first thing I saw was noise in your image.
r1ch

I don,t see the noise that you have seen looking at the closeups 3 or 4 times the closest noise is the softness of the skin on the dog.
Now David has gone and recked the fun of literally dozens of problematic photographers.
The link form canon is very good and sets the perameters for sharpness (it,s what you consider sharp!) now thats just not what most want is a difinitive setting so that if the results are different it,s the cameras fault.
The real deal with digital photography is exposure+processing to get a good result and that take some real solid time spent getting to that point in the photographic process.

bazz8 wrote in post #6623818
It may be just me but the first thing I saw was noise in your image.
r1ch

I don,t see the noise that you have seen looking at

In the shadows of the water. It increases as sharpening increases.

This is a link to haloless sharpening. I have used this with good results.
http://www.dgrin.com …ve/index.php/t-36930.html