7d soft focus issue (1 Viewer)

Thanks everyone, I am now prepared to except that I am just expecting to much from this camera, though that does mean I am at the moment a little disappointed with it. I guess I was expecting an improvement over my 40D when it comes to noise levels at higher ISO’s, in short from what I can tell there isn’t one. Some of the first shots I took were at ISO800, which I won’t be using again due to horrendous excessive noise. ISO 400 seems poor too and is probably the max I will go to on this camera in the future, noise probably degraded the whole look of the image for me, and processing the noise also doubtless lost me some IQ as well. I was pleased in many ways to see the Crossbill image Ian, since it is very detailed, knowing now that it is from the 40D I am a little surprised and worried that seemingly IQ is worse on the ‘new improved camera’ !!!!

I shoot RAW so I am used to having to do a bit of processing, once I have made adjustments and applied some sharpening I am used to being pleased with the results, but I am talking about images from my MKIII. The first time I took that camera out I was wowed by the result having only shot with 20D 40Detc bodies before.

On the up side I was very pleased at how well it tracked some Common Terns in good light a few evenings back, I took some near full frame shots that seemed sharp until I got them home. I have looked through these shots again and re-evaluated them; on reflection there are a few that maybe I should be pleased with. Perhaps you can let me know if this is typical. The three images below show a 100% crop showing the noise at ISO800 and then a 100% crop after processing in DPP, followed by and un-cropped edited version so you can see how much of the frame was filled.

I do want to have a backup body though (thank god I’ve kept the MKIII) so I will take the 7D out again today probably leave it on ISO200 and be a little more open minded. I’ll report back here later.

Thanks for the help so far

Richard

paul goode said:

Completely off thread but at least your post Tim has answered why most of the images I've seen from Biggin are yucky. I'm glad I went to Kemble the weekend before!

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I went on Saturday, promised blue skies all day by the weather forecast. Well it started out that way, but it wasn't long before the cloud started to build and as the sun moved in front of us (far too early in the day for my liking) it was hard to avoid shooting into backlit cloud while at the same time securing a good angle on the aircraft and shooting at a worthwhile distance. All in all I was appaled at the positioning of the grandstand. It's the first time I've been to Biggin for around 40 years and I don't think I shall waste my time going again. £42 down the drain. Scandalous!

BTW the Tern shots are at f8, 1/6400, ISO800, handheld (i think handheld is acceptable at that shutter speed .

The 7D is very unforgiving of underexposure. I always endeavour not to underexpose, preferring when it makes sense to expose to the right. If I had been shooting those terns with my 7D and 100-400 I would have tried my luck at 1/800, f/5.6 and 100 ISO, or maybe 1/1000, f/7.1 and 200 ISO, or something like that. That would have given me the extra stop of brightness that you were missing, and dramatically reduced noise. The question then is how skilled/lucky are you when shooting at "only" 1/800 or 1/1000 with a long lens?

Remember as well that the DOF is reduced greatly when you view a 7D file at 100%. The huge enlargement that 100% viewing causes means that the usual DOF tables (unless they allow you to specify viewing distance and reproduction size) are way off track. Your AF calibration needs to be bang on and your AF tracking must be faultless.

I've attached a shot from my 7D at 3200 ISO, no edits except WB and crop. EXIF is intact. IQ seems acceptable to me, although some tweaks might improve it. Certainly you can use higher ISOs with the 7D, but there are practical constraints on how large you can go with your files when you care capturing less and less light with each pixel.

I am most surprised at some post on here with regards to the 7D high ISO noise levels v the 40D. I still have both Cameras and find the 7D far better than the 40D in this respect. Shooting RAW I was always very reluctant to go above ISO 400 on the 40D but have no problem in shooting at ISO 800 on the 7D. As has already been indicated by Tim the 7D is unforgiving if you under expose and then push in processing. Providing you get the exposure right (preferably exposing to the right) I much prefer the noise levels on the 7D, in fact I would say that ISO 800 on the 7D is as good if not better than ISO 400 on the 40D.

Also the comment on about AI servo producing soft results is again strange to my experiences - I shoot in AI Servo 99% of the time and have no problems in getting sharp images. I can only assume that there are some rogue Cameras out there.

The Stonechat shot below is typical of what I am getting at ISO 400 on the 7D, it is a very heavy crop with just a minimal amount of noise reduction on the BG (something I do with just about all my shot no matter what ISO).

The bug , Spadger and Blackcap shots were at ISO 800, again with just minimal noise reduction on the BG. All three were very heavy crops.

BTW all three bird shots were taken in AI servo mode (and all with a 2x tc).

Might not be up to some peoples standards but they are sure better than I was achieving with the 40D.

Richard, I've now looked at the EXIF for your tern. Given you are using the 400/5.6L I'm not sure why you would shoot at f/8 instead of f/5.6, since certainly lens IQ wide open should not be an issue. That would buy you a stop on the ISO straight away. Also, for a 400mm lens a shutter speed of 1/2500 should be all you need for sharp 7D shots viewed at 100%, unless you are especially shakey. That would buy you over a stop again on your ISO, but quite frankly I would think that 1/1600 would be plenty with a little skill and/or a little luck. Certainly in my experience I think 1/6400 would be vast overkill for most people. Shooting at 1/1600 would buy you a further 2 stops on your ISO and you'd be at 100 ISO. Of course, you were about a stop underexposed with your settings so bumping the ISO to 200 would have that sorted, or lowering shutter speed to 1/800 if you are brave.

I also note that you are using DPP for your raw processing. You have high ISO NR set to "Standard", which will lose some detail (create softness) in its efforts to combat noise. In addition, you are shooting with Portrait picture style, which seems an odd choice, as it is intended to conceal skin blemishes a little and sets sharpening to a rather modest value of 2. 7D files usually do require a little more sharpening than other Canon cameras and can take sharpening well, if the files are clean. I suspect there is opportunity to improve your results with an adjustment to your processing workflow, but nailing that exposure and using a more sympathetic combination of exposure parameters should have the greatest impact.

Finally, I'm not quite sure what is going on with your colour space settings. According to DPP you are using Adobe RGB (why?) but my EXIF viewer says the colour space is uncalibrated. Now I'm no expert on the topic but I think you'll find that some browsers and software will not display your files correctly if you use Adobe RGB colour space and/or if the software cannot tell which colour space you have used (especially if it was Adobe RGB). sRGB is the standard for display on the web and most consumer print shops will expect sRGB files. Indeed, the colour rendering of your file is different in Internet Explorer compared to DPP and Lightroom, looking a little dull and flat by comparison. Is there a good reason you appear to be using Adobe RGB?

Oh, and to see what kind of results others are getting from their 7Ds you might like to browse this thread on POTN - http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=799284.

Thanks for going to so much trouble Tim, it seem like the problem could be the user! Having just looked at the picture style settings ‘portrait’ isn’t a sensible choice and also makes the noise look much, much worse than with Standard or Neutral, not sure why I didn’t pick up on that, what a numpty, but I had been playing with all the setting in DPP to see what effect they were having. And yes I normally use the 400mm f5.6 wide open since it is just as sharp at 5.6 as any other. I had been playing with various settings and the only reason the shutter speed was so high is that I had cracked the ISO up to see what it was capable of and see what the noise levels were like.

I have got into the habit of shooting Abobe RGB because that is a requirement of an agency that I submit images too. I’ll admit to knowing almost nothing about the subject either, but I have noticed my images look different in different programs as you say. I will address these problems and change some of the setting, thanks for your advice.

Richard, I also noticed you have ALO set to "Standard". ALO can conceal errors in your exposure and may also contribute to visible noise if it does some brightening of your image for you. It can be a useful "get out of jail" feature for the inexperienced when shooting to JPEG but does not make a whole lot of sense when shooting raw and prefering to take charge for your IQ personallyh. I recommend disabling it completely if you shoot raw. At least you don't have HTP enabled.

EDIT : If your agency wants Adobe RGB then that's fair enough, but you might consider converting/outputting to Adobe RGB for them and sticking with sRGB for posting to the web, if you want the majority of your online audience to enjoy your images as you would wish.

davem said:

A mate of mine has just ditched his 7D in favour of a 1D3 - he found the one shot focus was perfect but the Servo was anything but, resulting in soft images.

It was going to be sent back to Canon for a check and fix if necessary but the 1D3 deal came up and for him it was a no-brainer. I've read several reports of this across the web and all were fixed by returning them to Canon.

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Thats very interesting as recently I have had to go off ai servo to one shot as I dont trust ai servo anymore.
I actually think my 7ds focus on ai servo got worse after the last firmware. Im going to go back a firmware and see if it makes a difference.

Roy C said:

I can only assume that there are some rouge Cameras out there.

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Mine's black but if I'd known they were available in red...

Richard Ford said:

Hi All

Just got myself a 7D and having read reviews and info on the web I was expecting to be ecstatic with the results. I haven’t read much on the web about any issues with this cameras focus though I gather there were some. Could someone either point me to any information about this, or perhaps post a 100% crop showing the detail of what you consider a sharp image taken with this camera, exif intact.


Thanks in advance for any info

Cheers

Richard

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The link on this post is exceptionally informative. I've found single point focussing for static birds essential as multi-point expanded focuses all round but not on the subject giving poor results. Images viewed in DPP also look poor and I'd deleted many photos before I realised they were sharp when viewed in iPhoto, a basic Mac application.

Here's a Blue Tit taken in strong sunlight on a tripod with no manipulation other than converting to jpeg & cropped, exif intact.

peteh said:

Thats very interesting as recently I have had to go off ai servo to one shot as I dont trust ai servo anymore.
I actually think my 7ds focus on ai servo got worse after the last firmware. Im going to go back a firmware and see if it makes a difference.

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No hope for me then - I shoot the 7D in AI Servo all the time :C. Mind you I have never updated the firmware (I also focus via the AF-ON button as well but that should not make any difference).

This is a 50% crop showing AI Servo and Zone AF working in perfect harmony, with firmware 1.2.1, which is the latest release....

Edit :just added another example, this time single point plus expansion, but with my 100mm macro lens at f/4....

Ive found the problem has occurred on static birds with one focus point and holding the focus button (using af-on as well), I was using 1.2.1 and ended up going to one shot and pumping the focus.
Ive just gone back to 1.1.0 and done some quick tests and Ive had to change my lens adjustment to -10 instead of -15 straight off. Haven't been able to test any further but will hopefully get to tomorrow.

tdodd said:

Richard, I also noticed you have ALO set to "Standard". I recommend disabling it completely if you shoot raw. At least you don't have HTP enabled.

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Thanks Tim, already un-ticked that box actually. It seems I jumped the gun a little with this thread, and I am now much happier with the camera, having taken a bit of time to think about what I was doing and listen to advise. Trouble is it’s all to easy to just go out and start shooting.

tdodd said:

EDIT : If your agency wants Adobe RGB then that's fair enough, but you might consider converting/outputting to Adobe RGB for them and sticking with sRGB for posting to the web, if you want the majority of your online audience to enjoy your images as you would wish.

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Yep thanks, I’ll take that onboard and change setting there also.
Thanks again

BTW, I didn’t reply to some who were kind enough to post images earlier in this thread, all of which looked fine to me. I have attached a Stonechat images I have taken, one showing the original size of the bird in the frame and another a slightly edited 100% crop, showing detail that I am NOT unhappy with.
Handheld with the Canon 400mm f5.6, ISO 320, f5.6, 1/1250sec.

How did you shoot that Richard? cus that looks very similar to my problems in that the focus has 'missed'.

have you done the lens micro adjustment in the 7d?
are you shooting on the latest firmware 1.2.1?
were you using aiservo and holding the focus down?

if you have done your microadjustment tests and set that correctly then that problem looks earily similar to the problem I have encountered.

peteh said:

How did you shoot that Richard? cus that looks very similar to my problems in that the focus has 'missed'..

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Actually i was fairly pleased with that, it's no MKIII images but i was at least happy that there is detail in the breast feathers. I realise its not spot on in focus on the eye, is that what you mean? but i wasn't gona blame the camera for that its probably me. I assume your missed focus was also happening with shots on a tripod too?

peteh said:

have you done the lens micro adjustment in the 7d? .

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No not yet, actually need to read up on that one, not sure what i need to do?

peteh said:

are you shooting on the latest firmware 1.2.1? .

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No haven't updated yet, another thing i will do soon though

peteh said:

were you using aiservo and holding the focus down?.

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Yes i think i was, which good or bad is a habit i have got into when handholding

peteh said:

if you have done your microadjustment tests and set that correctly then that problem looks earily similar to the problem I have encountered.

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Richard

Your soft focus problem could just a simple answer that you are exceeding the enlargement capabilities of the resolution of your camera.

High image resolution definition requires the image enlargement to be within the tolerance of the available resolution, whether that’s 400dpi or 72 dpi.

Going beyond degrades the images.

Digital differs from film enlargement because it has a set enlargement limitation factor against resolution.

Film you scan at the correct resolution at the required enlargement.

Certainly all the images in HOS Kingfisher magazine are sharp, so do you think that you are being overtly critical of yourself?

Richard Ford said:

I have attached a Stonechat images I have taken, one showing the original size of the bird in the frame and another a slightly edited 100% crop, showing detail that I am NOT unhappy with.
Handheld with the Canon 400mm f5.6, ISO 320, f5.6, 1/1250sec.

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You need to be very careful when judging hand held results from the 7D at 100%. A while back I was trying to shoot garden birds from close range with my 7D and 100-400. Trying to get my focus perfect, every time, and also achieve shake free images was beyond my skills. The problem was not the camera, or the lens, or the subject. It was flesh and blood causing the problem. My results improved significantly when I started to use a tripod. Not only does the tripod eliminate shake, but it also locks the distance to the subject, and when your DOF at 100% is measured in mm that can make a world of difference.

Here are a couple of examples with the tripod. In the first image I've just about got the eye in focus but nothing in front of the eye is sharp and there really isn't much behind the eye that is sharp either. Now, did I mess up the focusing, or did I luck out this time on the inevitable variation in AF performance that you can expect from shot to shot, which would not be noticeable at all when viewing at more conventional sizes, or did the robin simply move a fraction between focusing and firing? Either way, there is no room for error here at all, but AF does have a margin for error in its operation and I dare say that humans do too. There is no doubt there is something sharp in that image, but the DOF is miniscule. If you need mm perfect focusing then it is definitely worth checking out your AF calibration and making sure that any necessary adjustment is made.

In the second shot I think I've nailed it, and when you nail it there is no doubt the 7D can extract bags of detail from your subject.

Richard, on your shot it looks like the camera is back/front focusing to me. First step is to do the lens micro adjustment. I am amazed at the amount of people who dont use this. Its absolutely vital. In the old days we used to send our bodies and lens to canon straight off to get them adjusted nowadays the adjustment option is all built in and a superb feature.
Google "focus test chart" and print one out. You then place that at a 45 degrees angle and focus on the middle. You can then check which way your focus is out, then adjust the microadjustment and keep shooting till its bang on.
At the moment I have my 7d, 500 combo at -10... my 7d, 500, 1.4tc combo at -3.
my 1dmk3, 500 combo at -15. etc etc.
Leaving them at unadjusted would have every shot not as sharp as it should be.

I am sure the difference between your mk3 and 7d is that the 7d with the lens combo needs an adjustment whereas you were lucky with your mk3 in that it didnt.