Does this seem soft for a 70-200F4L?

These are some crops from me test shooting with my 70-200 F4L. They are all shot at F7.1 and various focal lengths. They aren't all true 100% crops but I wanted to include important subject matter.

Am I being greedy for quality or do they seem soft? I did a test for front/back focus and it came up spot on, and needed no adjustment

Sorry for such small photos. I'm bad at this!

A little soft to my eyes but need to know SS, point of focus to tell.

Depends what part of the frame they were in, what resolution the camera you are using is (and whether it is crop or not), and what percentage crops they are.

They are dead center focus point, camera was shot in sRAW1 and these are relatively very tight crops

I am taking for granted that you have the non-IS version?

If so these look softer than my 70-200 f/2.8 IS did at wide open.

Sorry to ask stupid questions but I just wanna make sure. You said you used dead center focus POINT. Does this mean that all these crops were right from the center of the frame? If so the first shot is the one that bothers me a lil.

2 Of the originals to give you a scale
Bird shot at 200mm
Six pack at 99 mm
Both ISO 400, no flash, 7.1 1/320

You may need to do a comparison with you're other lenses. You'll need to test all your lenses, and if the soft issue is only with the 70-200 then you'll need to see if your camera setting for 70-200 needs an autofocus micro adjustment.

Ed Harp wrote in post #10246055
You may need to do a comparison with you're other lenses. You'll need to test all your lenses, and if the soft issue is only with the 70-200 then you'll need to see if your camera setting for 70-200 needs an autofocus micro adjustment.

Did all that

This is my 100mm macro, unadjusted. No pp
Tack sharp

Why sraw1? thats about 6mp. Do you have any @ ISO 100 and Full resolution 15mp

On the bird picture, you have about 400 pixels wide on that square(crop) w/sraw1. If you were full resolution, you would've had about 1100 pixels. I'm pretty sure that would've made a difference. There would've been 3 times as many pixels on the bird

Drakeskakes wrote in post #10246096
This is my 100mm macro, unadjusted. No pp
Tack sharp

ISO 100! Is that 15mp or 6mp?

Drozz119 wrote in post #10246129
Why sraw1? thats about 6mp. Do you have any @ ISO 100 and Full resolution 15mp

On the bird picture, you have about 400 pixels wide on that square(crop) w/sraw1. If you were full resolution, you would've had about 1100 pixels. I'm pretty sure that would've made a difference. There would've been 3 times as many pixels on the bird

Didnt know that Sraw 1 was only 6mp on the 50d. Why shoot at such a low resolution? I think that might be half your problem, with possibly a slightly soft copy of the lens.

My way to test practical sharpness is to focus on eyes in different environment, lighting and apretures. Then, I compare the shots against those produced by my trusted 17-55/2.8 IS at the same apretures, lighting, setting. I use 17-55/2.8 as my benchmark (reference point) for sharpness as I know the lens very well. This is just my lazy method for quick check. Not the best nor the most professional way for sure. But that gives me a good feeling of how good my copy is. Tripod and IS off are encouraged although they don't matter as much if you can tell whether softness is due to handshake or not.

My 70-2004L IS is very very sharp wide open but my 17-55/2.8 is definately sharper at f/4.

I always was under the impression shooting sRAW1 doesn't hurt quality, just the ability to print larger. When I shoot knowing Im not going to print larger than 8x10 i always shoot sRAW1

isn't it a slogan or something...mp is the last factor when looking for a camera?Since it doesn't affect iq ?

Drakeskakes wrote in post #10246247
I always was under the impression shooting sRAW1 doesn't hurt quality, just the ability to print larger. When I shoot knowing Im not going to print larger than 8x10 i always shoot sRAW1

isn't it a slogan or something...mp is the last factor when looking for a camera?Since it doesn't affect iq ?

I don't know if it hurts quality? I was just saying that.. with the bird picture, you would have more cropping ability because you didn't have the reach.