My Photo's seem soft is it me?

Hi,

I bought a 20D 3 months ago having used a G7 for a few years. Trouble is the 20D is producing much softer images than the G7.

here is an example of the 20D.

1/30, f6.3, 74mm on a 55-250IS lens, ISO 100

^ try raising the shutter speed, you could get some blur from your motion at 1/30.

Yeah any air movement is going to move that thin branch and at 1/30th you cant really afford that.

I'd never shoot that shot at ISO100 and 1/30, even on a tripod. I think I see clear motion blur in the branch.

ISO400 and 1/125 would have probably worked a lot better for this shot.

Ok,

What ISO should i start with 400? Then bring it down when the light is good??

Nev

What about this one?

I think that one is atmospheric haze at work.

The best way to test it is to set you camera up on a tripod (or just on a table if you dont have one), and photograph something with clear visible lines (text for instance).
Make sure you TURN OFF IS.
Make sure its NICE AND BRIGHT.
Make sure you use AUTO FOCUS, in case its your eyes/spectacles/diopte​r.
Make sure you REMOVE LENS FILTERS, as they could be at fault.

Ok,

That seems fair i shall try and do a comparison between the 20D and G7 to.

Nev

Nevtiger wrote in post #7065973
What ISO should i start with 400? Then bring it down when the light is good??

Nev; you'll probably find that the majority of people here adjust ISO after they've set their other parameters (assuming they're shooting in M).

As a general rule, your shutter speed shouldn't be less than the reciprocal of your focal length. (eg, a FL of 100mm needs a SS of 1/100). Thus, for the shot of the branch at 74mm, you should have been up at around 1/80th of a second - your camera won't have a 1/74 setting. Your shutter speed of 1/30 is most likely the culprit here.

Bear in mind this is to account for your movemnet only. As has been pointed out by JeffreyG, the branch was probably moving too, so you may need to up the shutter speed even more to freeze it's motion.

After establishing your shutter speed, and setting your desired aperture, the most appropriate ISO setting should be more obvious.

Oh, and I agree with SwingBopper about the haze in the second pic.

Ok,

I ran a little experiment this afternoon and it it appears to me the 20D does not produce as sharp an image as the G7. Is there anything i can do about it? Take it to a Canon agent or good camera shop????????

This is shot with my G7 and to my eyes seems fine and sharp

are you shooting raw by chance on your 20D?

polarbare,

Yes i take RAW plus a Medium JPEG.


Nev

You appear to have a lot of noise in your 20d shots.
What settings did you use (auto or manual)?
Are they cropped?

Let me have a think and come back to you.

PCThug,

They are cropped to the same amount, as best i could, the ISO for the 20D long lens was 800 and 400 for the short lens all set with Aperture priority and manual setting of the ISO.

Nev