Unhappy with IQ (Is it lenses, camera or me)

Over the last few months or so, I've been getting what I feel are poor quality images from my 5D. The main culprit from the lens point of view was 24-105, which gets rave reviews everywhere, and is my main walkabout lens. I also have a 70-200 F4 which gets a run out every now and again, as well as 100mm macro, not used that often, nifty fifty, rarely used, and a new 17-40, which again gets great reviews and has good IQ.

So, I'm at home today and thought I'd do a rough test to see if any of the lenses produced what I feel to be a good IQ image. Bear with me, need 2 posts for this.

Below are 16 shots from 5 lenses mentioned about, taken at either end of the zoom range, if its got one, and at its widest aperture and also F8. All shots taken on a tripod, with remote release and mirror lockup enabled, with shutter speed of 1/125th. These are all 100% crops with no PP.

My question is this: Is the IQ what you would expect from these lenses or is there something wrong with a)lens b)camera or c)me.

Cheers

24-105mm @ 24mm @ F4

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17-40mm @ 17mm @ F4

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what kind of IQ problems do you think you're having? AF issues?.... you can answer that. I'm not sure what you're paranoid about.

Would you be happy with the quality of these images? Focusing may be an issue but I think there is a definite lack of sharpness to all the images. When I'm shooting in real life, like the wedding I did a few weeks back, my first one, I was really disappointed with the "fuzziness" of the shots. These test shots look the same.

What was the lighting setup for these test shots? Lighting can make all the difference in the world.

I don't see what's wrong with the photos. With two exceptions (both likely influenced by focus point or shutter speed), I can find a sharp area in each photo. I don't understand what you expect from the camera. Sharpness is largely dependent on lenses and focus, and amount of sharpening applied in processing.

Why did you spend that kinda money to take pix of boxes? How about some real world photos?

I would choose a different type of target too, I never understood why printed material on boxes and batteries make for good focus checks, because printing on paper, cardboard or plastic in itself isn't sharp. Maybe a fuzzy stuff animal or plants, etc would be better, something with some minute detail?

The 105mm seems off a bit especially compared to the 100mm, but that is all I see that might be an issue. However the crops on the 24-105 don't jive with the 100mm crop, the 105mm should be even closer and crisper than the 100mm, so the test was not consistent to compare between those two lenses.

OK, lets take the F8 shots of the 100mm and the 24-105mm at 105mm. You are saying that there is a sharp area to each of the shots, I' d like to know where it is on the 105mm shot as it looks less defined than the 100mm shot at the same f-stop.

So, from the responses so far, each of you would be happy with the IQ of these images, correct?

Direct lighting is never going to be nice (I think that's what these are..)

Below is a shot from the wedding I spoke about, again a 100% crop. I think the image is "fuzzy"

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they look a little over-exposed to me...

filters?

JuSlaughter wrote in post #8726855
Below is a shot from the wedding I spoke about, again a 100% crop. I think the image is "fuzzy"

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For a 100% crop, that is satisfactory for me, but there are more discerning folks here. It cleans up ever so nicely too.

If just this 100% crop cleaned up like this, I can only imagine what the full shot would be.

Pixel peeping will make you go mad!

The issue I see in the crop is the high dynamic range, so it is always tough to get a great shot in direct sunlight, especially with sky, then facial shadows (at least for me).

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JuSlaughter wrote in post #8726855
Below is a shot from the wedding I spoke about, again a 100% crop. I think the image is "fuzzy"

Hosted photo: posted by JuSlaughter in
./showthread.php?p=872​6855&i=i136468333
forum: Canon Lenses

100% crop is a bogus evaluation...equivalen​t to looking at the 5D image at 39x enlargement

I don't see any problems with what you are posting...it's a 5D, not the hubble telescope. I have/had some of the lenses you are using, and my advice would be to go out and enjoy your camera. If you printed the images you are posting at a "normal" size, and not looked at them at 100% (as Wilt said) you will be hard pressed to see any difference between them at all.