wooi_loon Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 Hi, Just got my 20D, and took some pictures, but found that most picture I took with Tv and on tripod not acceptable sharp, even worst than my A85 p&S digicam. Did I miss anything to set with the camera or any setting in the camera affect the sharpness? Hope can get some tips to solve the problem. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coconutdaydream Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 are you using an IS lens on a tripod? that can create additional vibrations. are you shooting RAW? a straight RAW won't be as sharp as a jpeg becuase the intention of RAW is more control over your images in post-processing. check your in-camera settings too. id suggest setting Sharpness to 0. you'd get more control in photoshop, and its hard to desharpen an oversharpened image, once the damage is done, it's done. maybe someone else has better answers than i can think of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moi_photography Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 I've heard about people mentioning the "soft" focus issue with the 20D. Don't really know the extend of your "focus" problem. Attach photo? maybe! The 20 D allows you to custom set the sharpness in the Custom Function. Maybe that will help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogbert Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 The drebel and I expect the 20D as well do not produce pictures straight out of the camera that are very sharp. My Pentax Optio P&S always produces sharper pics straight out of the camera than the drebel. It suprised me at first too. Initially I blamed the kit lens, and got canon's 50 f2.5 macro, one of canon's sharpest lenses. It improved things but not to the point where it it beat the Pentax P&S. After doing more searching on this issue I came to the conclusion that really sharp shots can be achieved only through post processing. I suspect that this is what nearly everyone who posts their pictures on these forums does. It makes me wonder why there is so much obesession in these forums about lens sharpness! If you turn the sharpeness parameters in the 20D up it will improve things with JPEG, but I still doubt it will beat your Canon A85 unless it is post processed. The Canon A85 and my Pentax have the post-processing built in I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nello Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 The problem with point&shoot digicams is that the cameras have a built in sharpening program. These in-camera automatic sharpening programs generally do a worse job than you can do with Adobe photoshop. On the other hand, DSLRs are designed to put out untouched "virgin" images to give one complete control over the image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christopher_bibbs Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 As others have mentioned, even on the highest setting, the 20D doesn't apply as much sharpening to the image as most P&S cameras. Why? Well for one thing, sharpening is the last thing you should do to an image before printing or posting on a website. So you want a relatively fresh image to do your color balance, levels, and other work. Also, the amount of sharpening is heavily dependent on the final output. Large prints look worse with heavy sharpening than small prints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PuppyDigs Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 WOOI, your 20D is defective. Please send it to me and I will dispose of it properly. Sometimes the light’s all shining on me. Other times I can barely see. - Robert Hunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_carlson Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 I'm curious if someone could post some examples of with and without all this sharpening or perhaps an example of a "Sharp" image. I've been shooting my 20D for 4 months and had a Drebel for a year before that. I've rarely used unsharpmask or any sharpening and I shoot almost exclusively raw. I'm just not seeing it and would appreciate understanding what I'm missing. My images are sharp and I love the output of the 20D with the 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wooi_loon Posted February 25, 2005 Author Share Posted February 25, 2005 Thanks guys! I only tried on my 24-85mm, but haven't got time to test on my Ef24 and 70-200 f4, will test it and see any big different of sharpness, will update later! I didn't notice my 24-85 has back focus problem, in fact the 20D AF was very fast and accurate from the view finder, and did not notice it was out of focus! Initially afraid that was my new 20D problem, but seems everyone here agree, DSLR have low sharpening, then I should have no worries about my new toy :) May update later. Thanks. Regards, Wooi Loon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christopher_bibbs Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 So here's shot of one of my most willing models<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christopher_bibbs Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 Let's do that again...<p> What you'll notice is there is a very subtle difference with the amount of sharpening I've applied. Not enough to matter at 4x6, but if this was something I was going to print 12x18 the extra detail would help.<p> Here's the image<p> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3148890-md.jpg"> <p>Here's the head sharpened</p> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3148892-lg.jpg"><br> <i>100% Crop</i> <p>And Here it is unsharpened</p> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3148894-lg.jpg"><br> <i>100% Crop</i> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogbert Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 Andrew Try using either Pentax or Canon digital point and shoot of around 3 or more megapixels shooting JPEG. Compare it to your 20D images. You will see that straigth out of the camera they will be a lot sharper than your 20D images. As other had said, it is easier to work with the relatively unprocessed images from Canon DSLRs than the heavily processed P&S images, but they do come out straight from the camera somewhat soft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
test11664875106 Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 It looks like you been shooting wide-open and hence got only small part of your toy within DOF limits. On the last picture the right vertical part looks like in focus, but the rest is not. Small digicams might be more fogiving due to small real focal length of their lenses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_carlson Posted February 26, 2005 Share Posted February 26, 2005 Not sure that "Model" was over 18 did you get a signed release? :o) To some degree this has helped but I also suspect that DOF or focus was off slightly I agree with the previous poster on that remark. Let me see if I have an example shot to post... I did mess around with some of the unsharp mask settings in PS 5.5 (sorry its all I have) and noticed some benefits but still not sure if I want to affect ALL of my shots. I've printed some 16x20 and larger posters with NO sharpening at all and am Very satisfied with them. Ok, 2 images, not the same sorry. 1st one is of a niece, no sharpening applied and jpg quality of 10 to reduce some of the loss. 2nd image I applied 100% Radius 5, threshold 0. I noticed some improvement on screen but not enough to worry about things.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_carlson Posted February 26, 2005 Share Posted February 26, 2005 yeah aside from some red-eye its not a bad shot. Here's #2 100% unsharpmask, 5 radius, 0 threshold.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_carlson Posted February 26, 2005 Share Posted February 26, 2005 I tried the same sharpening levels on the photo of my niece and hated the outcome, played around with the settings but didn't really appreciate the effect at all. Sorry to take this so far off topic but it has helped me greatly and maybe some others? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now