HELP! 10D v 5D close-up at 100%

[luke_tyssowski1]

I would try shooting at some other aperture than F/32. Last week I took off into the woods and found a small stream. I installed a polarizer so that I could use slow shutter speeds to blur the water. I found that I needed to go to F/32 to get any kind of slow shutter speed. Once I made it back to the car I realized that I had been shooting at 400 ISO all day. Duh. I forgot to set the ISO to 100 which would have allowed me to use more reasonable aperture settings. The results? None of my pictures taken at F/32 are sharp. That's right, none of them. So much for standing in the middle of an icy stream in freezing temperatures. ;) I knew right away that I had made the error, not the camera.

 

We learn from our mistakes. It would be SO easy for you to retest the lens at different F stops I don't know why you wouldn't give it a try. You're shooting straight down at the coin so depth of field should not be an issue. You could probably get away with a much lower f stop as suggested previously.

 

Heck, there might be something wrong with your camera, but without further testing I think you're jumping the gun.

Luke

[gdanmitchell]

Can you just take one shot at f/8 of a simple subject at a normal distance - say 10 feet to

infinity? Put the camera on the tripod, use a remote release and MLU.

 

By doing this you can determine more accurately where the problem might lie.

Theoretically, if it is done carefully, you should be able to determine the optimum that the

lens/camera combination is capable of as a baseline. (You won't find that baseline

shooting at f/16, etc.)

 

Let's say you do not get a nice sharp image under these conditions. Now you could try a

second lens and see if there is any diference. You could also try manually focusing a bit

closer or further away. These tests might help you figure out if the lens is simply bad, or if

there is an AF issue with the lens or the body. If you don't get a good image under these

conditions then there is likely a problem and you probably won't get one shooting macro.

 

If you do get a good image with f/8, careful focus, tripod, remote release, and MLU... you

can move ahead and try to determine where the problem is occuring. Assuming sharp

photos in the above test, you might want to try reshooting the same test at different

apertures, especially at the f/16-f/32 apertures you used in your posted examples. If you

notice decreased sharpness - and you will - this does not indicate a problem with the lens

or the camera. It is simply an illustration of the effect of very small apertures on DSLR

image sharpness.

 

You can also try the same test - again at f/8 with tripod, etc. - at macro distances.

 

Do check your histogram on the camera as you do this to make sure that you are getting a

good exposure.

[mrstubbs]

First rule of GWC...blame the tool.

 

Sharp is relative to a lot more than simply viewing an image at 72dpi on a monitor.

 

If you think the 10d is a better camera than the 5d simply offer to swap it with someone.

 

Any takers?

[mpalmquist]

I was curious so I set up my 5D took a picture of a Susan B $1 coin, sigma 105MM, racked out to 1:1, F11, standard picture mode, MLU, using a focus rail to focus without changing the lens extension remote shutter. Then I swapped out to the 10D same settings, you will note that I did not adjust for the crop factor so the FOV is different but keeping things as equal as possible I did not move the tripod. I am not sure why your 5D shot was so soft mine certainly was not.<div></div>

[mpalmquist]

here is the 10D shot<div></div>