New Canon 40D. What am I doing wrong?

macmassey

I purchased a brand new 40D in the box in person at Wolf Camera with the 28-135 kit lens. I was excited because I really I didn't think there were any new ones left in the world. Obviously there is a HUGE learning curve going from point and shoot to DSLR. But I would have thought, that taking the camera out of the box and putting it on automatic would produce at least some decent photos. However, they all seem to be very soft even outdoors in good light. I am taking time to read the manual and attempting to take lots of photos in varying settings but so far, still seeing great inconsistency in sharpness. I know I can grow into this camera in time, but for now, any suggestions on at least getting decent clear, sharp snap shots? I hope to buy a 17-55 lens in November for my birthday. Will that help some with photo quality?

ziggy53

macmassey wrote:

I purchased a brand new 40D in the box in person at Wolf Camera with the 28-135 kit lens. I was excited because I really I didn't think there were any new ones left in the world. Obviously there is a HUGE learning curve going from point and shoot to DSLR. But I would have thought, that taking the camera out of the box and putting it on automatic would produce at least some decent photos. However, they all seem to be very soft even outdoors in good light. I am taking time to read the manual and attempting to take lots of photos in varying settings but so far, still seeing great inconsistency in sharpness. I know I can grow into this camera in time, but for now, any suggestions on at least getting decent clear, sharp snap shots? I hope to buy a 17-55 lens in November for my birthday. Will that help some with photo quality?

Please post links to a few samples with full EXIF that show the difficulty you are having.

kdog

Blurriness is generally caused by either motion blur or incorrect focus. Motion blur is easy to counter. Take the camera outdoors in daylight, use an aperture of F8 and use a shutter speed greater than say 1/400s. Faster is better. Note that in order to do this, you'll probably need to take the camera out of Auto mode. That could be half your problem right there. No serious photographer uses Auto mode. Use TV, AV, or M instead.

To ascertain that you're focusing correctly, simply aim the camera at some high contrast stationary target. A tree trunk, a brick wall, or a picket fence are good examples of nice focus targets. Stand square in front of your target and use only the center AF point. Use the same exposure parameters as I mentioned previously and your shots should come out nice and sharp.

If you posted a picture along with the exposure data (or embedded EXIF data if that's not been removed), we'd be in a much better position to offer concrete advice. (Edit: oops, Ziggy beat me to it.)

Ric Grupe

Images from P&S cameras tend to be over sharpened and over saturated colors.

This may be part of your worry.

That lens is not known for great performance...not a bad lens...just not as good as some others.

photokandy

First, an example of an image lacking in sharpness would help. But that said, there are a few things it could be:

1) As said above, P&S cameras really like to boost sharpness and colors. If you are shooting JPG with your 40d, chances are it is not set up to do that to your images, and if you are shooting RAW, well -- you get to sharpen and boost colors all you want in post-processing; the camera isn't going to do anything for you there.

2) Lens choice does matter. Kit lenses are great to get started with (esp. for the price), but sooner or later you'll probably want to climb the lens ladder. But you shouldn't see a huge amount of inconsistency even with your existing lens, so...

3) Are you shooting wide open (low f/#) or shooting stopped down (high f/#)? Lenses are not usually their sharpest wide open, and generally improve in sharpness as the aperture is stopped down (until about f/11 or so due to diffraction limiting). Since you are shooting in auto, watch what settings your camera is picking, and see which images seem to be sharpest to you.

4) Are you shooting at the minimum or maximum focal length? Lenses rarely perform at their best at the minimum or maximum focal lengths.

5) Also, you've just had a big jump in terms of depth-of-field. This means you have a narrower area in which you can obtain sharp focus than when you were using the P&S (where practically everything was in focus). Stopping down will increase your depth-of-field, as will using the lower end of your lens.

6) Are you focusing using the center point only, or are you letting the camera decide, or have you selected something other than the center point? In all but the first, you're going to come out with some odd results -- where the camera confirms focus, but it's really not looking at what you're looking at. Watch the confirmation lights in your viewfinder to see where your camera is really looking.

6a) Keep in mind that your camera is not a mind reader (boy, I wish!). Just because it confirms focus at the center point does not mean it focused on what you were looking at - especially when using a shallow depth-of-field. Here's where having full time manual focus helps -- you can correct for that when your camera gets it a little wrong (but you have to know when your camera has got it wrong, or tends to)...

7) Try to avoid using a shutter speed that is slower than the reciprocal of your focal length (i.e., at 135mm, don't go slower than 1/135th second). Depending on how steady you are you might need to adjust that number a bit (i.e., maybe you shouldn't go slower than 1/160th).

8) Are you using any filters on the lens? UV filter for instance? Was it a cheap $15 filter? If so, toss it. Cheap UV filters will only do more harm to your image than they will do to protect your lens. If you want to use a UV filter, buy a pricier one (i.e > $50), with the understanding that the more expensive filter will still affect your final image quality - just to a much lesser degree.

Hopefully something in there helps...

macmassey

ziggy53 wrote:

Please post links to a few samples with full EXIF that show the difficulty you are having.

I will try to get a couple of samples up this weekend. And to be fair to the camera, I haven't actually off loaded any of the photos yet, simply due to time, but plan to so that tomorrow (Saturday). So they may actually look better once they're on my computer monitor. But then that brings up another question: if some of them DO end up looking ok on the monitor, does that mean my LCD isn't working properly?

macmassey

kdog wrote:

Blurriness is generally caused by either motion blur or incorrect focus. Motion blur is easy to counter. Take the camera outdoors in daylight, use an aperture of F8 and use a shutter speed greater than say 1/400s. Faster is better. Note that in order to do this, you'll probably need to take the camera out of Auto mode. That could be half your problem right there. No serious photographer uses Auto mode. Use TV, AV, or M instead.

To ascertain that you're focusing correctly, simply aim the camera at some high contrast stationary target. A tree trunk, a brick wall, or a picket fence are good examples of nice focus targets. Stand square in front of your target and use only the center AF point. Use the same exposure parameters as I mentioned previously and your shots should come out nice and sharp.

If you posted a picture along with the exposure data (or embedded EXIF data if that's not been removed), we'd be in a much better position to offer concrete advice. (Edit: oops, Ziggy beat me to it.)

Thank you very much for your feedback and asssistance. I will be spending a much greater amount of time with the camera this weekend and will follow your suggestions. This is such a great forum for folks like me to get some good advice from more seasoned photographers.

macmassey

photokandy wrote:

First, an example of an image lacking in sharpness would help. But that said, there are a few things it could be:

1) As said above, P&S cameras really like to boost sharpness and colors. If you are shooting JPG with your 40d, chances are it is not set up to do that to your images, and if you are shooting RAW, well -- you get to sharpen and boost colors all you want in post-processing; the camera isn't going to do anything for you there.

2) Lens choice does matter. Kit lenses are great to get started with (esp. for the price), but sooner or later you'll probably want to climb the lens ladder. But you shouldn't see a huge amount of inconsistency even with your existing lens, so...

3) Are you shooting wide open (low f/#) or shooting stopped down (high f/#)? Lenses are not usually their sharpest wide open, and generally improve in sharpness as the aperture is stopped down (until about f/11 or so due to diffraction limiting). Since you are shooting in auto, watch what settings your camera is picking, and see which images seem to be sharpest to you.

4) Are you shooting at the minimum or maximum focal length? Lenses rarely perform at their best at the minimum or maximum focal lengths.

5) Also, you've just had a big jump in terms of depth-of-field. This means you have a narrower area in which you can obtain sharp focus than when you were using the P&S (where practically everything was in focus). Stopping down will increase your depth-of-field, as will using the lower end of your lens.

6) Are you focusing using the center point only, or are you letting the camera decide, or have you selected something other than the center point? In all but the first, you're going to come out with some odd results -- where the camera confirms focus, but it's really not looking at what you're looking at. Watch the confirmation lights in your viewfinder to see where your camera is really looking.

6a) Keep in mind that your camera is not a mind reader (boy, I wish!). Just because it confirms focus at the center point does not mean it focused on what you were looking at - especially when using a shallow depth-of-field. Here's where having full time manual focus helps -- you can correct for that when your camera gets it a little wrong (but you have to know when your camera has got it wrong, or tends to)...

7) Try to avoid using a shutter speed that is slower than the reciprocal of your focal length (i.e., at 135mm, don't go slower than 1/135th second). Depending on how steady you are you might need to adjust that number a bit (i.e., maybe you shouldn't go slower than 1/160th).

8) Are you using any filters on the lens? UV filter for instance? Was it a cheap $15 filter? If so, toss it. Cheap UV filters will only do more harm to your image than they will do to protect your lens. If you want to use a UV filter, buy a pricier one (i.e > $50), with the understanding that the more expensive filter will still affect your final image quality - just to a much lesser degree.

Hopefully something in there helps...

Thank you very much for taking so much time to address these issues. I will be spending a much greater amount of time with the camera this weekend and will follow your suggestions. Everyone has been great on this forum. I hope to post some samples shots on here this weekend as well.

JohnBiggs

macmassey wrote:

I will try to get a couple of samples up this weekend. And to be fair to the camera, I haven't actually off loaded any of the photos yet, simply due to time, but plan to so that tomorrow (Saturday). So they may actually look better once they're on my computer monitor. But then that brings up another question: if some of them DO end up looking ok on the monitor, does that mean my LCD isn't working properly?

What?? You haven't loaded them on the computer yet? The LCDs on cameras suck! I zoom into a picture on my 5D and it looks soft.

divamum

JohnBiggs wrote:

What?? You haven't loaded them on the computer yet? The LCDs on cameras suck! I zoom into a picture on my 5D and it looks soft.

You really can't tell on your LCD screen (and the alternative is true, too - something that looks perfectly exposed and sharp on the small screen may not be quite as purty once you get it uploaded).

In time, you'll learn how what you see on your LCD relates to what appears on your screen but it takes a while to get familiar with it enough to know. In teh meantime.... get uploading

photokandy

macmassey wrote:

...to be fair to the camera, I haven't actually off loaded any of the photos yet, simply due to time... if some of them DO end up looking ok on the monitor, does that mean my LCD isn't working properly?

!!!??? Not Uploaded????

Sorry - couldn't resist. My workflow is such that pictures get immediately offloaded from the camera after a shoot. Whether or not I work on them immediately after is due to time, but with things like Lightroom, you can set an import to go and forget about it...

As to viewing on the LCD screen on a camera - it pretty much sucks for determining sharpness. Especially if you've anything less than a 930k pixel screen (and even then, somewhat). For example my XSi (a nice camera in pretty much every way except the LCD - 230k dots) will show images as very blurry when I'm zoomed in all the way. Several times in the beginning I was quite disappointed with the images, thinking I'd not got anything good. But once I put them on the computer, many of the images I thought weren't sharp actually were very sharp.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your LCD -- just a fact of life. Don't count on it for sharpness (or lack thereof), and don't count on it for colors or exposure (Use your histogram).

All that said, the T1i has a 930k screen. It's gorgeous. And it seems to do away with whatever processing was going on in the XSi that created blur when zooming in, because if an image is sharp zoomed in on that screen, it is very likely to be sharp on my monitor. Don't know they did differently, but part of it is no doubt the fact that it is just a newer screen with better technology behind it. Color isn't spot-on - there are differences between it and my monitor at home, but sharpness, at least, seems to match.

Also, just because it looks sharp on your camera doesn't really mean anything. I've had countless images that looked sharp on my XSi, only to get them on my computer and then pixel-peep and find out I had a miniscule amount of movement blur or that I was slightly off on focus.

In other words: don't trust your LCD. ;-)

Scott_Quier

Repeat after me, "The LCD on the back of the camera will lie every single time!"

Ric Grupe

Scott_Quier wrote:

Repeat after me, "The LCD on the back of the camera will lie every single time!"

The LCD on the back of the camera will lie every single time!

BigAl

The 40d shows the embedded jpeg "thumbnail" - the quality of which is not very hot. Couple with that the lowish res LCD screen makes for an image which can look depressingly blurry.

niccapo

divamum wrote:

You really can't tell on your LCD screen (and the alternative is true, too - something that looks perfectly exposed and sharp on the small screen may not be quite as purty once you get it uploaded).

In time, you'll learn how what you see on your LCD relates to what appears on your screen but it takes a while to get familiar with it enough to know. In teh meantime.... get uploading

So true. When I started shooting with a DSLR it seemed as if all my photos sucked. In reality, that's how photos should look. Keep up with photography because it's a great hobby to be in IMO. This may be bad karma here on the forum () but this is a great beginners guide from photography on the net.

ziggy53

niccapo wrote:

So true. When I started shooting with a DSLR it seemed as if all my photos sucked. In reality, that's how photos should look. Keep up with photography because it's a great hobby to be in IMO. This may be bad karma here on the forum () but this is a great beginners guide from photography on the net.

Niccapo, welcome to the Digital Grin.