Soft 24-70L 2.8 on Canon 40D?

macphisto

I have a friend who had to send his new 70-200 2.8L back to Canon because it was "soft" and wasn't focusing accurately. After seeing some of his soft images, I started to wonder if my 24-70L 2.8 on my Canon 40D was "soft".

I never thought that this lens was extremely sharp, and I attributed it to the crop sensor on my camera and that the lens wasn't a prime. Am I being a paranoid pixel peeper? Or is this lens something that I need to have Canon look at? Attached are the images.

Image one is f3.2, center weighted spot metering, ISO 400, 1/400, image is shown at 200%.
Image two is f9.0, patterned metering, ISO 100, 1/250, image is shown at 200% (with two crops from the same image).

I am importing them via Image Capture in OS X and with no processing done on them yet (except in camera sharpening as part of the custom settings).

Thanks everyone! (I am a long time lurker, but now looking to be an active participator).

ThatCanonGuy

Not sure about the images, but one thing's certain: it's not that you have a crop sensor. Crop sensors are plenty sharp, and zooms are often just as sharp as primes (maybe not as sharp as that 300 2.8, now that's sharp ;~). If yours isn't extremely sharp, it may be front- or back-focus.

JimKarczewski

Or you have a crappy copy of the 24-70, which I hear happens to a lot of people.

You could send it to canon to be calibrated to the camera and see if that helps...

onesickpuppy

JimKarczewski wrote: »

Or you have a crappy copy of the 24-70, which I hear happens to a lot of people.

You could send it to canon to be calibrated to the camera and see if that helps...

WOW............too many variables here to decide off your samples!!!

1. First....I'd use canon's software to determine where the focus point was
because you may have been focused on something other than what
is shown in the sample shot

2. Zooming in at 200% never offers "sharp" images....because based on
your setup, that's more like 300+

3. Your first one at F3.2.....could clearly be just that....too shallow DOF
IF you weren't focused on the face showing

4. NEXT....at 250th should be good enough to freeze motion....but then
we don't know how far away you were, and then at 200%...blur happens

5. Pattern metering....spot metering.....have nothing to do towards focus issues......only your focal point does!!!!!! Maybe you bumped the dial and in doing so...moved the focal point off to the side...and now all shots are off...giving you the illusion that you have a soft lens.....

CHECK where your FOCAL POINT IS!!!!!!!!!!! FIRST!!!!!!
Then do a test on some thing that is within 10 feet, and use the same settings at F5.6 at lest and shutter speed above 250.
Note: make sure that whatever your shooting has good lighting and patterns of different color or lines in it (bland colors are focus nightmares)

Then if you still have issues of focus, I'd say you may have a body that is front or rear focusing. Try someone elses body next with your lens

Then if all that fails...yes...send to Canon for adjustment.

Personally...without knowing what the real pics look like...knowing that these are zoomed at 200%...they look good to me
If any are soft, its #1...#3 for being at 200% is solid.

ziggy53

I have a Canon 40D and IMO it has a pretty strong Anti-Aliasing (AA) filter. A strong AA filter means that more sharpening has to be applied in order for the images to look normally and critically sharp. A strong AA filter is not necessarily a bad thing, but you do need some post-processing to achieve best results. I greatly prefer to shoot in RAW and add sharpening in PS.

At no time should you use 200% view to gauge critical sharpness. I generally use around 50% view for that visual test.

studio1972

I would advise that if you cannot tell whether the shot is sharp or not then the lens is sharp enough. Do you not have another lens to compare it to that makes you think it isn't sharp?