Poor Images w/ Canon 50D+17-55 2.8 ?

[OPK]

<p>Terry,</p>

<p>50D can behave strangely. I had similar problem, no matter what lens. this camera is very sensitive. any tiny handshake can produce unsharp images. despite it is a great gear I sold it and bought EOS 1D - no problems anymore.</p>

<p>maybe your lens is faulty and need alignement? If you can't take sharp picture on f 5.6 then you should ASAP go to your seller or Canon service.</p>

[michael_young3]

<blockquote>

<p>John is right, P&S will often produce better results than a DSLR on full auto.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Where are you guys getting this stuff? That isn't going to happen, unless it's the uninteresting case of having the P&S in your pocket when you left the DSLR at home. It sounds to me like you're just beating on the OP for whatever your reasons. The 50D on full auto <strong>is</strong> a P&S. With good glass, it'll outperform handily every little lozenge lens, small sensor box sold as such. The 17-55/f2.8 IS is one of the finest short zooms Canon makes. If he isn't seeing that, the problem almost certainly is in that particular lens. He just needs to make a few careful test shots to rule out other problems.</p>

[steve_copen]

I have the 17-55 lens also. And very often, I have the same problem. Try this. Use live view and manual focus on a

tripod. That always works. I have a canon G-10. And it's always been sharper than my 17-55. But, it's not the fault of the

lens. I can make the 17-55 as sharp as the g-10 if I go to the trouble. It also helps if you have a lot of light and I saw the

car photo was in a darker room. I'm using on a canon 40d.

[john_tran14]

<blockquote>

<p>It sounds to me like you're just beating on the OP for whatever your reasons. The 50D on full auto <strong>is</strong> a P&S</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Michael, I have no idea what beating you are talking about. All I said is that I concurred with the OP that, depending on who is shooting, a P&S may have a sharper picture than a 50D has. I just agreed to that because his finding seems very possible. That's ALL. I don't even have a 50D and honestly, I didn't think that the 50D has a full auto mode. I thought only the P&S have the "Green square" mode (full auto)</p>

[michael_young3]

<p>John, I see a lot of blowhard talk about how difficult photography is, and why his amateurish attempts should be lousy. Why don't we both just give it a rest?</p>

 

[joe_c5]

<p>The 50D photo of the poster appears to be focused on the front edge of the frame, with such a narrow depth of field at f/2.8 that almost the entire poster is out of focus. Make sure to focus on the center of the poster if it is not parallel with the focal plane, and perhaps try f/5.6 at ISO 400 or f/8 at ISO 800 for greater depth of field.</p>

<p>The landscape photo seems fine at the 1600 x 1067 pixel resolution posted. Depending on what the full resolution version looks like, increasing the sharpening in-camera might help. At f/10 on a 50D, diffraction blur will be starting to set in. Something like f/8 or f/7 should be slightly sharper, though with less depth of field which may not be a net win for a landscape.</p>

<p>From those two photos I cannot draw any conclusion about the quality of the lens beyond that it is at least sane.</p>

[dee_hornbacher]

<p>Hi Terry,<br>

I also went through the same disappointing results when I started using my "new" 20-D, (8 mega-pixels). None of my photos were as sharp as the ones that I had been getting with the old G-2 (4 mega-pixels). What I learned after much frustration, was... the G-2 had more in camera sharpening (jpgs) than the 20-D had set in the parameters from the factory. Plus as someone noted already when you check photos @ 100% taken with both cameras @ the same settings, the 8 mega-pixel file will appear less sharp because you are seeing a much smaller area (as in, the 100% crop is a much smaller piece of the original photo) so in essence what you're seeing is the same number of pixels but a much smaller piece of the entire photo, thus not going to look as sharp.<br>

Hope this is not too confusing, I know it took me a month or two of reading this forum to get this through my head.<br>

I don't know how many pixels your point & shoot has, but I'm assuming less than the 50-D.<br>

I also have the efs 17-55 2.8 and like Michael says its a sharp one.<br>

Have fun with it,<br>

Dee</p>

[don_bryant2]

<p>Michael Young's comment is spot on and agrees with my experience shooting this lens and camera.</p>

[ruslan]

<p>I am also dissappointed - but not EOS50. The EOS 450 with Sigma 28-70/2.8. Just crap - both the lens and the camera. My Olympus is 2 heads&shoulkders above.</p><div></div>

[rubo]

<p>OP, you have "Micro Focus Adjustment" - use it to callibrate the lens to your 50D.<br>

It looks like it does front focus a little, but you should be able to adjust for it in camera.</p>

<p>MFA is the main reason i decided to get 7D instead of the 60D (altho i must say, playing with it at the Canon Expo, it is A LOT of camera for a little over $1000, IMHO the only thing missing is the MFA).<br>

My XSi if front focusing with every lens i have used on it (to a different degree, but it's always off). My old 28-135mm was dead on on my XTi, never looked sharp after i got the XSi.<br>

Thinking there must be some thing wrong with the lens i got the new 15-85mm. it's a little better, but still not very sharp.</p>

<p>I was adjusting my friend's 50D with he's lenses (including my old 28-135mm) and most of them were dead on on the 50D, only 2 of them needed adjustment. The same lenses on my XSi are missfocused.</p>

<p>I came to a conclusion - next time, get a camera with MFA in whatever price range you are.<br>

If i can't afford 7D when i'm ready to buy, i'll just get a 50D. Thought it's an older camera, but at leas i'll know that when i focus on some thing it will be focused correctly. And if the picture is still not sharp or is out focus, than it's not the camera/lens problem but the idiot behined it :-)<br>

Just my $.02</p>

[mike_hitchen]

<p>I don't think an angled flat surface (such as a poster) is the best way to test the accuracy of focussing - I am not sayng it can't be done (some test regimes rely on this) but it is prone to error on where you are focussing; surely easier to set up a series of stacked objects (offset a set of books or scatter a load of coins for instance) and focus on an actual edge.<br />But, like others have said, I think a key part is thet the SD1100 has a lens with a focal length of 6mm to 18mm - with that range, virtually anything is going to be within DOF (especially at 6mm). You then have the in-camera sharpening that is factory-set and you may need to be more aggressive than you first think when you post-process.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The 50D on full auto <strong>is</strong> a P&S.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I agree completely</p>

<p>It may well be the 50D or the 17-55 has a fault, but only after being scrupulous with your testing of the DSLR can you come to this conclusion, and work out which one it is.</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>First, figure out if the lens is focusing right: http://www.photo.net/learn/focustest/</p>

<p>Then shoot something using the camera on a tripod with mirror lock-up and bracket focusing manually (shoot the first frame where AF recommends and a few frames manually adjusted either way from there). Look at the raw files on your computer and see which is the sharpest. </p>

<p>If you have a focus problem, send to Canon. If not, enjoy your camera and try to keep your shutter speeds up.</p>

[jean-louis]

<p>Hello<br>

you've made the update of frimewar, currently 1.7. think of personalize your settings, especially that of sharpness, contrast, saturation and your picture-styles. Think also has developing your RAW with DDP. it gives matches Exelente!</p>

[darleen_prem]

<p>Its a little late I am sure to respond to this post, but I thought I would anyway. I too have a Canon 50D. T I use a Canon 24-50 2.8 L .. I had the same problem when I first got the camera. I swore for 2 months that the camera was broken..LOL But it was me. It produces beautiful images, but it takes a little time to figure out the best settings. Its just my opinion, but I don't think it takes that great of pics on auto mode. However if you use the AV,TV and P modes with the proper settings, It produces high quality sharp images. Little quirks I have found with it...1. Really need to set the focus points manually. 2. The auto white balance not so great, really need to set it for the occasion (shade, daylight etc). 3. It is extremely sensitive to ANY camera shake whatsoever. I posted 2 pics for you on here in the gallery. The lake picture was when I first got the camera. The river picture was after I finally got the hang of it. I really found out that it was me once I put it on a tripod and worked with all the settings. I hope that helps you. If you work with the camera and still can't get sharp pics, then perhaps maybe there is something wrong, because it really does take nice sharp pictures. </p>

[darleen_prem]

<p>Its a little late I am sure to respond to this post, but I thought I would anyway. I too have a Canon 50D. T I use a Canon 24-50 2.8 L .. I had the same problem when I first got the camera. I swore for 2 months that the camera was broken..LOL But it was me. It produces beautiful images, but it takes a little time to figure out the best settings. Its just my opinion, but I don't think it takes that great of pics on auto mode. However if you use the AV,TV and P modes with the proper settings, It produces high quality sharp images. Little quirks I have found with it...1. Really need to set the focus points manually. 2. The auto white balance not so great, really need to set it for the occasion (shade, daylight etc). 3. It is extremely sensitive to ANY camera shake whatsoever. I posted 2 pics for you on here in the gallery. The lake picture was when I first got the camera. The river picture was after I finally got the hang of it. I really found out that it was me once I put it on a tripod and worked with all the settings. I hope that helps you. If you work with the camera and still can't get sharp pics, then perhaps maybe there is something wrong, because it really does take nice sharp pictures. </p>

[laura2]

<p>Hey Terry, I had a similar problem when I purchased my 50D. Have you tried creating your own "mode" to shoot with? I punched the sharpness up in the internal camera settings and it made a world of difference. </p>

<p>I also had a similar problem when I owned my 300D "back in the day." I had dropped it/banged it a few times too many and it needed to be recalibrated by Canon. </p>