20 D - Incorrect functioning ?

Antonio Correia

FIRST PROBLEM – Unsharp pictures
Pictures straight from RAW files and converted in JPG without any adjustments, with 16~35 mm f/2.8 L USM lens and 20D.

Look at this first picture.


Sharp, neat, clear.

Now have a look at the second picture.

Disgusting. A shame.:huh

Both pictures were shot with the same camera, same lens, same mode (P mode).
The available light is the same.
The position of the models is a little bit different. Is this a justification ? Not for me. :huh
I shot 4 or 5 pictures to get the second one… all are like this one.
-Why is the first picture so sharp and the second one so lousy? :dunno

SECOND PROBLEM - Vertical shots
Pictures straight from RAW files photoshoped and converted in JPG, with 16~35 mm f/2.8 L USM lens and 20D.
In this photo the lower part of the balcony is not neat. Why ? :dunno

In this photo the bottom is not neat. Why ? :dunno


In the shop where I usually buy the equipment they say that this is a problem of the 20D which has been corrected in the 30D. Is that so ?
These problems are supposed to happen only in vertical position ( !!??… )

• For the 20D owners: Does this happen to you ? With which lenses ?
• For the 5D owners: does this happen with your camera?

Your answers are much appreciated. Thank you. :thumb

Andy

Please give us full exif for each photo, so we can help you

Exif links look like this:
http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=75984510

OK?

marlinspike

First, no, the 30D doesn't corrent anything that could be going on here.

When you say that second picture is disgusting...what are you referring to? I don't see it.
In the last picture, I thnik those chickens on the floor are blurry simply because they are closer to you so they are out of focus.

Antonio Correia

Andy wrote:

Please give us full exif for each photo, so we can help you

Exif links look like this:
http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=75984510

OK?

Andy.
I think it's not a SmugMug problem.
It's a 20 D problem.
Anyhow here are the exifs
1. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/76433117-L.jpg
2. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/76433117-L.jpg
3. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/76433117-L.jpg
4. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/76433117-L.jpg
I am sorry but this is the only way I know - now - to show the exifs

Thank you so much.
No. No. I am going to try again because I saw it is no good.

Antonio Correia

4. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=53355555
3.
That´better.
Just a moment please. Sorry ...

Antonio Correia

1. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=75680772
2. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=75801315
3. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=73985112
4. http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=53355555

One day I'm going to learn how to embeb exif in photos ...

Antonio Correia

marlinspike wrote:

First, no, the 30D doesn't corrent anything that could be going on here.

When you say that second picture is disgusting...what are you referring to? I don't see it.]
In the last picture, I think those chickens on the floor are blurry simply because they are closer to you so they are out of focus.

About the second picture.
If I sent you a crop at, say 150 or 200 % you would see that it is not sharp as the first.
I am going to do it. Show you in minutes.
The chicken are like if we had tear in our eyes... It is not a question of out of focus... I'll enlarge that too but will take me longer as I have to find the file...
Thank you.

Andy

Antonio Correia wrote:

Andy.
I think it's not a SmugMug problem.
It's a 20 D problem.

I don't think it's a SmugMug problem, either
We *need* the exif to properly diagnose the problem for you, though. I'm looking now.

Andy

Antonio Correia wrote:

f/4, 1/60th sec, ISO 800. What's disgusting about it? The woman's face is perfectly sharp and in focus. The arm in the foreground, is not expected to be in focus, not at that aperture, and not with where the (presumably) the focus point was (her face).

Andy

PS: IT would GREATLY help us if you don't add colors to the text in your posts. With the colors, it's *very* hard to read them and reply.

Andy

Antonio Correia wrote:

About the second picture.
If I sent you a crop at, say 150 or 200 % you would see that it is not sharp as the first.

This, is called "measurebating" -- who cares at 200% what's it look like in a print?

Andy

You will gain much more control of DOF when you get out of P mode and start shooting in either Av or Manual mode. YOU choose the aperture, YOU control the DOF. Not the camera

gubbs

antonio,
I think the dof is too short at f4 and f2.8 to keep the full frame in focus

marlinspike

Any time you look at something at over 100% you're wasting your time. Look at them only at 100% or less.
As far as the chickens, it's because your camera is rotated, i.e. it's not facing straight ahead. google "converging lines"

Antonio Correia

Andy wrote:

You will gain much more control of DOF when you get out of P mode and start shooting in either Av or Manual mode. YOU choose the aperture, YOU control the DOF. Not the camera

Andy.
What you say is demagogy...
Excuse me but I don't take that.
And, my friend, who told you I do not make large photographs ?
For example 1 m * 1,5 m whide ?
That argument of yours justify the lack of quality or are you assuming it ?

bham

In picture number two the 3 people who are sitting on the other side of the table are all in focus. Your f stop is 4 so everything is not going to be in focus that is as close those arms or as far as the soap on the sink.

Do you understand depth of field and f stops? I think your "issues" with the sharpness of the images has more to do with this than an error with your camera.

Antonio Correia

gubbs wrote:

antonio,
I think the dof is too short at f4 and f2.8 to keep the full frame in focus

May be ...

claudermilk

To be honest I would look to the lens first. I think the second shot is much better than the first, better lighting, color & contrast; hopwever both look to be reasonably sharp. The chicken shot looks just how I'd expect a wide-angle shot from a close distance to be, the colors & sharpenss look fine except for hte WA distortion at the edges--normal. IMHO there's nothing wrong with the camera.

Antonio Correia

marlinspike wrote:

Any time you look at something at over 100% you're wasting your time. Look at them only at 100% or less.
As far as the chickens, it's because your camera is rotated, i.e. it's not facing straight ahead. google "converging lines"

Sorry that's no reasonable reason. :
Well, then, later I will google, when the camera is straight I have a kind of work and when it is vertical I have another ??

marlinspike

Antonio Correia wrote:

Andy.
What you say is demagogy...
Excuse me but I don't take that.
And, my friend, who told you I do not make large photographs ?
For example 1 m * 1,5 m whide ?
That argument of yours justify the lack of quality or are you assuming it ?

That's not that big. Trust me, look at it at 100%. Here's why. You may be printing at 300 dpi (or whatever), but your monitor is MUCH lower dpi, so it is giving you a view of what it looks like when enlarged. Also, whenever you go over 100% the software is just doing a quick and dirty interpolation, which is not the same interpolation that it uses when it prints, so you aren't actually looking at it at 150%, you are looking at something similar to 150%. If it looks good at 100%, it'll look good at any size you print at.

Antonio Correia

claudermilk wrote:

To be honest I would look to the lens first. I think the second shot is much better than the first, better lighting, color & contrast; hopwever both look to be reasonably sharp. The chicken shot looks just how I'd expect a wide-angle shot from a close distance to be, the colors & sharpenss look fine except for hte WA distortion at the edges--normal. IMHO there's nothing wrong with the camera.

It is not the 1.st time this happens..
I won't go and show you all the photos...

Still not convinced ?
Look at another crop (100 %)

The bottom of the balcony is exactly like the chickens.
Excuses ? Whide aperture, shoot in Manual whatever !
I'm mad and ungry (not strarving the other word) because the material is supposed to be super and it is not.
Thank you

marlinspike

Antonio Correia wrote:

Sorry that's no reasonable reason. :
Well, then, later I will google, when the camera is straight I have a kind of work and when it is vertical I have another ??

No no, I'm not saying vertical instead of horizontal, I'm saying pointed downwards instead of straight ahead (or more commonly you get converging lines when you point up at like a building). Try pointing up at a building and look at your picture. At the bottom of the picture the building is as wide as the entire picture, but at the top it's much smaller. But the building is a rectangle, so why does this happen? It's called converging lines, though I'm not smart enough to explain it.

On second though though, I think this here is mostly just being too close at too wide an angle, a limitation of lenses we have to learn to live with.

Antonio Correia

These photos do not have the same quality.
And they should.
Am I wronge ?
We talking about professional lens and top level amateur camera !
Both pictures 200 % crop.






These here are 100 % crop and it is very evident the degradation of the image at the ends of the rectangle.
1. the top

2. the bottom

Why ? See no reason !... Apparent ! ...

Antonio Correia

I find interesting how such a matter interests so many people suddenly ...

marlinspike

It's just the way it is, you expect too much from your equipment. At 2.8 the 16-35 is not very good near the edges. Stop down to like 5.6 if you want the edges to be good at 16mm...also, the reason there is no detail in the man standing there is because he takes up so little of the picture, i.e. very few pixels are of him, so he doesn't have much detail.

As far as those first two you showed up 200% crops of, they both look fine to me.

Antonio Correia

Andy wrote:

f/4, 1/60th sec, ISO 800. What's disgusting about it? The woman's face is perfectly sharp and in focus. The arm in the foreground, is not expected to be in focus, not at that aperture, and not with where the (presumably) the focus point was (her face).

Andy

PS: IT would GREATLY help us if you don't add colors to the text in your posts. With the colors, it's *very* hard to read them and reply.

Sorry Andy but I thought the white was better for you to read.
Here Andy you do not have that argument of shooting manual and aperture priority...
The woman's face is NOT so sahp as the man's face.
The difference of light is not that bit.
For the 20D it is.
Does this happen with the 5D ?

marlinspike

Antonio Correia wrote:

Sorry Andy but I thought the white was better for you to read.
Here Andy you do not have that argument of shooting manual and aperture priority...
The woman's face is NOT so sahp as the man's face.
The difference of light is not that bit.
For the 20D it is.
Does this happen with the 5D ?

The man's face and the woman's face look the same to me, but a 5D would have slightly more detail yes. However, the edges of your pictures will be even worse since you are using more of the lens (no crop factor). If you want the most detail buy a 1Ds Mk2. Seriously though, if you are thinking about a 5D, wait until after Photokina in the first week of October.

bham

Do some comparison shots of similar shots looking at the building using the same f stop you used in the current shots and then trying the same shot, same focus point with a f stop like f11,13 or 16. If you do this and gives us something to compare then you can help us "diagnose" your problem. Just looking at a few different shots can't help us diagnose your problem. They are just two many variables. Many shot of the same thing with different setting will usually help. Also in the picture you decide to take make sure they are objects close (ie 2ft away) and far (over 20ft away).

bham

In the shop where I usually buy the equipment they say that this is a problem of the 20D which has been corrected in the 30D. Is that so ?

I think they are just trying to sell you another camera and making you paranoid about your current camera.

Andy

Antonio Correia wrote:

Sorry Andy but I thought the white was better for you to read.
Here Andy you do not have that argument of shooting manual and aperture priority...
The woman's face is NOT so sahp as the man's face.
The difference of light is not that bit.
For the 20D it is.
Does this happen with the 5D ?

It's not a fair comparison. I have loads of photos from 20D and 16-35L that are sharp. It's a matter of settings, and camera technique, IMO. Sure, the 16-35L is also not the sharpest at the edges, and also wide-open, your range of sharpness will be very limited.

Andy

Antonio Correia wrote:

Andy.
What you say is demagogy...
Excuse me but I don't take that.
And, my friend, who told you I do not make large photographs ?
For example 1 m * 1,5 m whide ?
That argument of yours justify the lack of quality or are you assuming it ?

Antonio,

I'm sorry, you are not understanding me. I'm not being "demagogy" I'm just trying to help

I said nothing about whether you print big or not I'm saying, that looking at these files at 200% crop is a bit silly IMO. That's all.

It's all good, sorry for my poorly written post. Don't overreact, please, I meant no harm.

Antonio Correia

bham wrote:

In picture number two the 3 people who are sitting on the other side of the table are all in focus. Your f stop is 4 so everything is not going to be in focus that is as close those arms or as far as the soap on the sink.

Do you understand depth of field and f stops? I think your "issues" with the sharpness of the images has more to do with this than an error with your camera.

As a matter of fact I am an lausy amateur pretending to take good pictures.
For this purpose I have bought sofisticated equipment as I think it helps to take good pictures...
It's like money: It does not give you Heath or Happiness but it does help a LOT.
I do know about apertures and that stuff.
The think here is that the camera "says" the face is in focus and it is not.
The thing is that the sharpeness is not homogenuous in all the pictures ...
The think is that I am not supposed to shoot in M P A if I want to shoot in P. I want results from the camera.
I'll be aware on this matter from now on because I does happen quite often.
I want my pictures sharp.
Look at this example shot with a minor photographic camera

She is my daughter.
Now, look at this with the 20 D and the 16~35:
Fantastic !!!

Here I am not modest.
This is a great picture.