Sharp photo by 7D?

[jo7hs2]

I don't recall if this link has been provided, but this set of various AF microadjustment instructions could also prove helpful

in checking focus issues.

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/cameras/1ds3_af_micoadjustment.html

 

I can completely understand your frustration. If it were me, I'd play around with some of the various methods for checking focus that have been suggested in your threads and elsewhere, and if that doesn't help you identify the cause, I'd send it in to Canon for calibration.

[hakhtar]

Joshua, I'm not writing a thesis on 7D focus and therefore need not to follow those academic procedures to get better results! I'm a serious photographer who has used a number of cameras in the last 50 years - and in most recent times, 350D to 500D to 5D and now 5Dll with no focus problems.

 

In view of the hassle which I'm having with a new 7D, my second camera, and reading dozens of other comments on the internet, my logical conclusion is that 7D has a design or serious quality control problem. What annoys me most are the Canon promoters who are bended to veil the 7D shortcomings and rubbish the well intended and reasonably experienced photographers.

 

The attached image was not captured under lab conditions but the way I normally capture, but has been very skilfully processed to make the point that 7D can give sharp image but only by processing, the level of which is far more than needed for the images captured by, say 5Dll. Therefore, the conclusion is that taking image by 7D is iffy while making the images by 7D might be okay!

 

BTW, does the image below indicate that the camera needs calibration?<div></div>

[scott_a]

<p>Keith, I could just as easily have said that some 7D’s focus correctly and been totally correct in saying that so your point in saying that only some of them might have a problem is just as much <strong>“TRIPE”</strong>. I would also like to know why you’re getting so wound up about having a camera that you like and that you say focuses correctly. Did you help design the camera? Are you somehow financially connected to Canon? If not I don’t see why you’d be so worried about people saying the 7D has an issue with focus just because you own one, the 7D seems to be the only camera that I see people defending so strongly. I don’t go around posting how good all my other cameras are, just because someone else has an issue with them, namely the 1D MK III.<br>

I would like to know how you can say the 7D doesn’t have issues, how many do you own? If you only have one, that seems to be a very small sample that you’re using to fight for the 7D. I've had 6, out of those 6 only 1 had ok focus, nothing I would call super sharp, that’s also a small sample but if it were just a small number of them that had problems one person would not get them all, I might add that when I sent my 7D's back, Canon did agree they had problems when they had them in for service, somehow they were never able to fix them, that’s why they sent me a different camera 4 times. Just do a internet search for Canon 7D soft focus and see how many hits you get, I stand by my saying the 7D is flawed.<br>

I’ve been to your site and you have some really nice pictures there, some do seem to be over processed but look good none the less. I also see you talk a lot about your 40D and not so much about the 7D how do we know what camera those pictures are taken with? Why don’t you post the EXIF data with your pictures, lastly why are you so bitter about have a camera you like?</p>

[jo7hs2]

Husain, how much sharpening are we talking about here? Your post makes it sound like it is a lot, but I'm not sure what

you consider a lot of sharpening. I currently own three different Canon dSLRs (but not a 7D) and each requires a different

level of sharpening in DPP. It isn't a huge difference, maybe a notch or three between cameras, but each model has some

quirks due to differences in the sensors, sensor filters, etc... Interestingly, I'm pretty happy with the in-camera JPEG sharpness default on all three cameras, and haven't had to tweak any of my cameras to suit my taste on the rare occasion I'm forced to shoot JPEG due to limited capacity. But in RAW, I do have to bump up the sharpness on all three cameras. It depends on the scene, but it usually runs one or two notches on my 5Dmkii, and a bit more on the 40D and 350D.

 

If you just had to do a little bit of sharpening, then this difference is probably normal. But if you have to apply substantial sharpening, something is going on...what exactly I cannot tell you at this point. That image you posted looks properly focused, by the way.

[jo7hs2]

I almost forgot... Do you have an unsharp outdoor samples? Maybe something with distant objects? I'm curious to see

what those areas look like.

[tpurvis]

I have access to 2 7Ds. One is mine and one my sons. His was purchased first and was borrowed for an event I was

shooting with my newly purchased 85 1.8. I walked away from that event so sold on that combo that I stopped my

wavering between it and a 5d and quickly purchased one. A few months later at an event the two of us were working, my

camera and that 85 lens was paired. The images were all out if focus and unusable. Had this been my first experience

with this camera, I would have never purchased one or myself. I have adjusted the macro focus and solved my problem

with this lens, but can say with experience, that sometimes you need to use your head and look for the solution. Not every

camera/lens combo work out of the box.

[scott_a]

<p>Tom, you are right about the micro adjustments, and that is one of the first things I do when I get a new camera that has that option, the problem with all the 7D's that I had once you set the MA and turned the camera off or removed the battery the adjustment would be off and it wouldn't just be reset to zero, if I would set it at say +5 it would go to something like -17 or some other number and it wouldn't go to the same number if I reset it again, the camera has issues. As I said before I noticed on one of the 7D's I had, just as you took a picture the camera would jump out of focus, if I remember correctly that was the camera Canon had for over 8 months while they left me without a camera from April to November. I really wanted to love the camera because I liked everything about it, except the pictures that came out of it. As of right now if Canon would come out with a 7D MK II or something like that I would not touch it.</p>

 

[m_m7]

Who promoted the 7D here?First you should judge for yourself no matter what other people say.Second I promote Leica

M9 and S2 .You can blame me if you do not like them.I see Keith being hammered here and I fail to see why....The

sentence in the OP that the camera is faulty by design is just plainly ridiculous to be polite.Just send your camera to

Canon if you suspect something is wrong with it

[keith reeder]

<blockquote>

<p>I see Keith being hammered here and I fail to see why...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because, I imagine, it's much easier to do that than to deal with the facts, especially when those facts imply that their problem isn't with the camera but with them.</p>

<p>It's a typical reaction: when confronted with ample, compelling evidence that the 7D doesn't have any kind of inherent focusing flaw they get defensive, because it pokes at their competence as a photographer, and they don't like that.</p>

<p>The fact remains: the 7D has a brilliant AF system - not bettered, even now, in the APS-C arena (even the 51 point AF in the Nikon D300 doesn't exceed the 7D's in Real World use) - so I can only conclude that <em>it's simply too much for some people</em>...</p>

<p>(Oh - and the argument that "<em>my new 5D Mk III is much better and doesn't cause me any of the issues my 7D did..</em>." proves nothing - I'd surely hope that the 5d Mk III <em>would</em> out-perform the 7D - but it still doesn't prove anything about how competently the 7D was being used. The 5D Mk III is presumably simply better configured out of the box).</p>

<p>The easy - and the only logical - way to look at it is this: an inept photographer will make even make a great camera perform poorly; but even the best photographer would not be able to make up for the inadequacies of a <em>truly </em>broken AF system.</p>

<p>When so many 7D users (yep, like me) report that it <em>never</em> lets them, no matter what they're shooting - sports, wildlife, <a href="http://www.capture-the-moment.co.uk/tp/tfu29/upload/pigeon_blyth_6.jpg">birds in flight</a>, whatever - the only possible conclusion to draw, assuming that <em>their own</em> camera isn't broken, that the problem isn't with the design of the7D itself.</p>

<p>This has been the gist of my argument all along - <em>the</em> 7D isn't at fault, <em>a given</em> 7D might be.</p>

<p>But people <em>do</em> like to lay blame on the easiest target rather than confront the notion that they might actually have to <em>shift themselves</em>: to do some proper testing to definitively eliminate themselves from the equation; to AFMA the camera if necessary; to test their lenses; and to learn the camera properly (its AF is surely not maximised out of the box) and so on.</p>

<p>There's also a depressing lack of understanding of the implications to apparent sharpness of high density/small pixel sensors - it utterly escapes some people that by <em>their very nature </em>small pixels can need a different and sometimes more aggressive sharpening approach - that's just the physics of the thing, but a lot of (lazy, uninformed) people misinterpret that as a "failing" too. But the sharpness is in there, it just needs to be brought out by competent conversion/PP - and that's entirely beyond some.</p>

<p>Example: see how soft <a href="http://www.capture-the-moment.co.uk/tp/tfu29/upload/before_recovery.jpg">this looks off the camera</a>?</p>

<p>And when it's <a href="http://www.capture-the-moment.co.uk/tp/tfu29/upload/muscovy_bolam_PN_1.jpg">properly converted and processed</a>?</p>

<p>A lot of the 7D bashers would assume that the former is proof of their point, whereas it only proves that they don't understand what they're dealing with - you can't generate sharpness and detail that isn't there, and the finished version of the image has sharpness and detail to spare.</p>

<p><strong>7D and Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 OS + Sigma 1.4x TC, handheld at 420mm and f/4 (wide open), incidentally</strong>.</p>

<p>No, let's just blame the camera, and express completely unjustified righteous indignation when someone confronts them and their cosy little bubble of self-satisfied finger-pointing...</p>

<p>Anyway, I'm out. They can continue to languish in their ignorance, laziness and ineptitude, and I'm going to continue producing stupid-sharp images, without any trouble, with my 7D. </p>

<p>You can draw your own conclusions about who's calling this situation right. Three years in, I'm still <em>blown away</em> by the performance and capabilities of the 7D - shooting in circumstances a damn' sight more challenging than those many of the whiners shoot in, too - and I'm <em>really </em>demanding in terms of sharpness and IQ; and the 7D still impresses me so much that for the first time in my photographic life I'm not by now hankering for the Next Big Thing that might be coming down the line.</p>

<p>The 7D <em>is</em> that good.</p>

[Nick D.]

<p>Husain,<br>

"7D can give sharp image but only by processing, the level of which is far more than needed for the images captured by, say 5Dll."<br>

7D and 5D2 have different sensors, pixel size and pixel density are different, that is why different level of sharpening required in post processing.<br>

It has nothing to do with autofocus, if you got focus error, you will tipically have front focus -back focus issue, when some part of the image sharp, which is not your case.<br>

Go through Canon website, they may have recommendation for unsharp mask settings for 7D, it is called white paper which lists recommendation for camera settings. They have it for my 1D3.<br>

Hope that helps.</p>

[Nick D.]

<p> Seems like case closed, problem solved.<br>

If not, only recourse left, is one Scott A. took, I can foresee big line of users wishing to trade their 7D for 1D Mark4, poor Canon. </p>

[Mark Keefer]

<p>How many times do I need to send my 7D back until they upgrade me to the 1D Mark IV. lol</p>

 

[scott_ferris]

<p><em>"Example: see how soft <a href="http://www.capture-the-moment.co.uk/tp/tfu29/upload/before_recovery.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this looks off the camera</a>?</em><br>

<em>And when it's <a href="http://www.capture-the-moment.co.uk/tp/tfu29/upload/muscovy_bolam_PN_1.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">properly converted and processed</a>?"</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em><br /></em>This "example" might have some weight if it was actually the same image pre and post processing, but it clearly is not, so it is worthless.</p>

[scott_a]

<p>Mark, I don't know the exact number of times I sent 7D's back to Canon but the first one went back I believe six times, the second one was in for service at least four times maybe more. The third one I know went back five times because I started keeping a list, the fourth one went back three times and the fifth one went back two times, when that one was in for service the first time, I got a loaner which was the sixth 7D I had and the only one that took any kind of good picture. The fifth camera was really the reason I got the 1D MK IV from them because they had my 7D from March until November, it was actually a stress free summer because I didn't have the 7D, I did have my other cameras. With the last two cameras I was dealing with the corporate office in New York, I told them they might just as well give me a different camera because I didn't want to see another 7D and all the shipping is going to cost them as much as a camera would cost me, I also brought up all the time I wasn’t able to use my camera because I didn’t have a camera, they agreed.</p>

[scott_a]

<p>Scott, I agree with you on the picture examples shown, they aren't the same and are as you said they are worthless for this example, I only wish any of the 7D's I had, took a picture as sharp as the soft picture posted, mine were nowhere near as sharp as that, a lot of the time they were so far out of focus you couldn't tell what it was.</p>

[hakhtar]

Oh, dear, dear, my last concluding message to Nick saying that yes the case is closed and that 7D has focus problems as well high noise at ISO1600 and above, has been taken off the forum! This tends to strongly suggest that there are Canon agents here promoting the Canon's iffy products who kill the voices that challenge them! Shame!

[joe_c6]

This is sure to anger the fanboys, but I have the same issues, and have been testing my camera's capabilities (or

rather lack of) for two months. A simple search would indicate that the problem is not isolated.

 

My camera was just mailed off to Canon service center. My call to Canon support was revealing. I asked these

questions:

 

Would you like copies of my documented methodology and findings?

Would you like to know the lenses I used to test?

Would you like links to sample images?

 

To each, the answer was "No, just send it in". In most posts I read from 7D users' experience with deficient

autofocus these questions were asked and Canon requested documentation. Now they do not. At least to me, this

indicates that Canon is now aware of issues with this particular model.

 

That you haven't an issue is great, but some do. Maybe a little respect is in order, maybe not replying is the best

choice. Flaming those with problems is absolute deviation from the level of conversation I would expect from fellow

photographers.