5D MkII Sharpness

Well, I finall took the plunge and got a 5D MkII! Since I had photoshop CS3, I had to wait until CS5 came until I could view any of my RAW files....kinda sucked because I have been shooting with it for 3 weeks! As soon as I got the camera, I calibrated it with the AF Micro-Adjustment. I did it about as well as my resources allowed; I had the camera on a tripod about 15ft from a paper with crisp text on it....shot using my laptop as the wired release via EOS utility...narrowest aperature possible..IS off. I have done this 3 different times. Each time, my results are slightly different, but all fairly similar. The problem is this, my rebel xt gave me sharper images with my 70-200 2.8 IS than the MkII does. In the two images below, you can see a pretty big difference between the two. Is my lack of sharpness at 100% common for the MkII, or should I be sending this thing to Canon for some work?


This first one was done with the rebel xt with the 70-200 2.8 IS @ 2.8 with an ISO of 100


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This one was shot with the MkII with the same lens. Aperature at 4 wth an ISO of 100. Exposure was 1/500


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Mat, First let me say that both of these women are very attractive models----If they are friends or family, you should take full advantage of thier willingness to model for you.


Now--for your question: I don't have any experience with either the camera or lens your working with----but, I have had similar frustrations from my equipment. So, my suggestions are this, go back to default autofocus settings on your camera.


#1--First: rule out the human factor. If you don't have a top-o-the-line tripod use something else that is rock steady----I used a kitchen countertop and placed my camera upon it with books to achieve the proper lens elevation. I shot out my back doorat a subject in the yard.


#2--Second: using the timer on your camera or a shutter release take at least 10 shots of a properly exposed subject---Use the autofocus on your camera.


#3--Third: Turn auto focus off and manually focus using the X10 magnification on the camera display screen---again shoot 10 shots with the timer or shutter release at the same subject and exposure.


Compare the results: if both are satisfactorily sharp--then it's you---get a good tripod or practice handheld


If the camera/lens (#2)autofocus is satisfactory-----get a good tripod/practice hand holding


If you can manually focus, but can't auto focus, try setting your camera to single point focus---if this still doesn't work to your satisfaction, try the microadjust---if this still yields unsat results, send the lens to canon for calibration.


Note---I solved about 90% of my "soft/out of focus" problems with a high quality tripod.


Hope this helps, Let us know how it goes for you.


Bob

Oh,one more thing:


The cardinal rule is if your shooting at 200MM, your shutter speed should be at least 1/200th of a second. But some recommend that you double that----so if your shooting at 200mm, you should set your shutter at 1/400th. The latter works best for me.





Just a thought.


Bob

First of all, let's compare two images where the subjects fill about the same amount of the frame (the subject needs to be closer in the 5D Mk II sample). Second, I think your focus was off (or there was motion blur) in the second image or else you had some RAW conversion issues. Might want to try Digital Photo Professional to convert RAW files to jpeg and use similar settings for conversion.

The second images does look misfocused. I would say it could also be motion/shake blurred, but you indicated the image was at 1/500 s which should eliminate subject motion (for a person) and even at 200mm should take care of any camera shake, too (especially on a FF body). Which focus point did you select - and did you focus then recompose?

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Originally Posted by matrixman45054

As soon as I got the camera, I calibrated it with the AF Micro-Adjustment. I did it about as well as my resources allowed; I had the camera on a tripod about 15ft from a paper with crisp text on it....shot using my laptop as the wired release via EOS utility...narrowest aperature possible..IS off. I have done this 3 different times. Each time, my results are slightly different, but all fairly similar.

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When you did the AF Microadjustment, were you able to obtain sharp images of your test target with the 5DII +70-200 2.8 IS? How much adjustment was required?

First of all, something is wrong. This is *not* the way a perfectly executed picture from the 5DII should look.


By 100%, do you mean this is the whole picture, or cropped so the pixels are seen 100% size? In either case, the 5DII can make pictures that are far sharper than what you have here. Note, though, that the 5DII and rebel XT have the same size pixels, so if you crop them to 1-1, I expect the pics to look similar at very low iso (which means the 5DII should look much sharper when you look at the whole picture).


As others have said, either you messed up somehow (missed focus or, less likely given the high shutter speed, camera shake), there is something wrong with the lens, or there is something wrong with the camera. It is tempting to rule out a problem with the lens since it got good pics on the rebel.


Are you unable to get any picture sharper than the one you've shown? How about the pictures you took to do the calibration... are any of them sharp? Use a tripod and manual focus at 10x with live view and use a very high shutter speed. Stop down. Can you get a sharp picture then?





There seems to be a lot of texture in the out of focus portion of the image and in the model's neck. When I saw that I thought the picture was taken at high iso, and I'm surprised to see it at iso 100. Did you apply heavy sharpening to the image?
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Originally Posted by matrixman45054

I did it about as well as my resources allowed; I had the camera on a tripod about 15ft from a paper with crisp text on it....shot using my laptop as the wired release via EOS utility...narrowest aperature possible..IS off

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You should adjust focus with the widest aperture possible, not the narrowest.

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Originally Posted by Jon Ruyle

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Originally Posted by matrixman45054

narrowest aperature possible

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You should adjust focus with the widest aperture possible, not the narrowest.

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Great catch, Jon - I read that and translated it to 'smallest aperture number possible' (= widest aperture). Ifmatrixman45054 was testing at f/32, the enormous DoF with that narrow aperture would make AF microadjustment practically impossible!

Ah ya good catch guys. I shot the test images at 2.8. As for the other images, some of the others from the same shoot have gotten slightly sharper, but nothing close to that of the rebels IQ (never thought I would say that). I did bump up the camera's "in-camera" sharpening to +7. The default was at +3, but I figured that a little boost couldn't hurt. And by 100%, I mean that the pixels are seen at 100% size.


The test images seemed to be fairly sharp. The problem is that I could never find a adjustment point that was tack sharp. I tried every adjustment from +9 to -9 and everything in between there. At the moment, I have it set to front focus at +5. That seems to be about as good as it will get


The fact that some images are getting sharper than others makes me think that it is an autofocus issue and not necessarily just a calibration issue. Sometimes the AF will hunt for no apparent reason....it can even be in decent lighting and have a clearly defined subject. Granted, both of those shoots were done with all AF points activated. Since then, I also did a shoot where I only activated the center AF point. Those seem to be slightly sharper so far, but I want to take a closer look and see what is going on.


For calibrating again, should I just try it using the center AF point instead of having all points activated? I never thought it would be a problem before because the paper was flat against a wall, but perhaps that could make a difference.

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Originally Posted by matrixman45054

Granted, both of those shoots were done with all AF points activated.

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Usually not a good idea, IMO. The camera is going use the AF point on the closest subject (or part of subject, or foreground element). Usually, that's not what you want. I prefer to choose for myself what the actual subject is (generally for portraits, that's the eyes).

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Originally Posted by matrixman45054

For calibrating again, should I just try it using the center AF point instead of having all points activated?

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Yes, calibration should always be performed with the center AF point. This is especially true for f/2.8 and faster lenses, since the center AF point is a high-precision point with f/2.8 and faster lenses.


On a 5DII at 200mm f/2.8, the DoF should be ~3.5". Instead of a flat sheet of text, have you tried shooting a ruler or focus target at a 45&deg; angle? You can use a chart like this linked one, taped to a door so it's easy to get the angle.

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

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Originally Posted by matrixman45054

Granted, both of those shoots were done with all AF points activated.

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Usually not a good idea, IMO. The camera is going use the AF point on the closest subject (or part of subject, or foreground element). Usually, that's not what you want. I prefer to choose for myself what the actual subject is (generally for portraits, that's the eyes).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matrixman45054

For calibrating again, should I just try it using the center AF point instead of having all points activated?

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Yes, calibration should always be performed with the center AF point. This is especially true for f/2.8 and faster lenses, since the center AF point is a high-precision point with f/2.8 and faster lenses.


On a 5DII at 200mm f/2.8, the DoF should be ~3.5". Instead of a flat sheet of text, have you tried shooting a ruler or focus target at a 45&deg; angle? You can use a chart like [url="http://focustestchart.com/focus21.pdf]this linked one[/url], taped to a door so it's easy to get the angle.
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He beat me to it by a minute. Use center point for focus calibration on a test sheet that is angled at 45 degrees. Also, it's best to calibrate at the focal length you'll be using most.

When I tried my hand at testing my lenses a few weeks back, I used a level and square to square the camera with the wall on which I taped the chart. I wasn't super careful, but I did try. Even so, when I focused on the corner, the center was out of focus and vice versa.