Canon 60d/ 50d and EF-S are garbage and soft? Explain this.

Before you get your undies in a bundle, this is not a troll thread but a serious question to what I see as a serious issue.

While replying to another thread, I was going to give examples how a lens could be soft at f wide open and sharp at F8 on a 60d.

So I head over to the digital picture where the guy rates lenses and shows us how they differ in resolution at different focal lengths and fstops. So I go to there for a view of the EF-s 18-135 on the 60d.

What I find there is no difference in apparent center sharpness between wide open and f8 at any focal lengths.. they all look very soft.

Digital picture review of the EF-S 18-35 on 60d

So then I look at all the other EF-S lenses, the ISO test shots are all taken on the 50d 15mp or the 60d 18 mp. They all exhibit the same behavior all soft. You can see the images change slightly and when choosing f16 you can see the images get a little softer or show CA.

So then I checked all the EF lenses and you can see a difference between wide open and stopped down, except for primes 135 and up seen to not get sharper as you get to F8. They are sharp all the way.

So then I look at DPreview of the EF-s lenses there are tested on the 450d which has a 12mp sensor and it shows that there are differences between center resolution at different Fstops.

So my conclusions are,

the 50d and 60d are higher resolution and they show no difference

The method that the guy at The Digital Picture are not showing the differences or the site has a problem.

I am missing something in viewing the ISO crops

Something is wrong, it would seem or it would seem the higher resolution APSC cameras do not play well with the EF-S lenses.

What do you think?

I have already sent and email to the guy at Digital Picture asking him why the difference between DPreview and his ISO shots. So hopefully I will have an answer.

With my 60/7Ds & 18-135 I see quite a difference between wide open, particularly at the corners.

The 18mp sensor has enough resolution to show these differences whereas a lower rez camera wont.

Maybe you should have a closer look at these pictures.

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Brian Schneider
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6115/6285300710_0fcee72bb1_m.jpg

Yes, his (and everyone esles) method is garbage.  When you take one random lens and one random body it is always a crapshoot.

18-135 does not get many stars in tests - it gets 2-3  stars -  when max. is 5*

I recommend to you Photozone.de tests - they are quite reliable and consistent, also different bodies used.  They are also explaining what they are doing.

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Kari
SLR photography started in 1968, 40D since 2007, and now 7D !
60.21 N 24.86 E

his answer

Not sure what pictures you are talking about but I did go to your flickr account. The pictures there are web size, you can take a huge 7d image, resize and sharpen it and not see that the image is sharp. If you were to blow that image up and print big without huge sharpening, you would see it soft.

The explanation given me from the owner of the website is this, and if it is true, I will have to say I am not interested in getting sensors with any higher resolution.

His answer

After getting an email from him, it is not due to variances in lens build, something worse.

His answer

I went to Photozone.de they have the exact same results. F8 is less sharp than wide open.

The guy on The Digital Picture seems to know what he is talking about. He said that the D60/7d is limited by defraction after F6.5 and after looking at photozone.de they show the same less sharp at f8 and that is on a 15mp 50d, see for yourself.

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/776-canon_18135_3556stmis?start=1

See his explanation here

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50286513

Oh my...it looks like someone has just learned about diffraction.

I'm referring to the pictures YOU were talking about.

I can view my pictures at 100% view and they are NOT soft.

I routinely make 16x20 and larger prints and have no softness problem at all.

There IS no softness problem with Canon's 18 mp sensor.

That answer is ridiculous. The diffraction "limit" is not a wall you can't cross. F8 is not soft, F11 you can start to see a little softening. You can still get away with F16 for most things. F 22 is getting mushy and probably usless for most things.

If you're getting soft pictures you might have a focussing problem.

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Brian Schneider
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6115/6285300710_0fcee72bb1_m.jpg

Poor technique perhaps.

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Brian Schneider
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6115/6285300710_0fcee72bb1_m.jpg

At f8 it's still well into the Excellent range and the corners are better.

If you're having problems MA your lens or GET A BETTER LENS. The sensor is not a problem.

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Brian Schneider
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6115/6285300710_0fcee72bb1_m.jpg

I think he needs to learn a little more

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Brian Schneider
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6115/6285300710_0fcee72bb1_m.jpg

Every lens has it's limits and work differently with different sensors. There's also a difference in copy to copy IQ with lenses. All lens manufactures do their best to limit these variations but they still happen. Discover these limits and either send the lens back for an exchange (same or another lens altogether) or learn to stay within it's limits. I don't know of any zoom lens that's perfect at any setting.

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DonR
http://donr.zenfolio.com/

60D does NOT have focus microadjustment.

7D DOES have microadjustment.

If your lens consistently front-focuses or back-focuses in autofocus mode, you can use the body's microadjustment capacity to dial in a setting specific for that lens. If you don't have microadjustment capacity, you had better make sure that the lens has spot-on autofocus before you accept it and pay for it. I have a 60D, which has been an excellent camera for me. I bought lenses from the local camera store and from B and H, both of which let you return lenses within one or two weeks of sale. I wouldn't buy if I didn't have the money-back or exchange option.

You can also compare autofocus result to same shot with manual focus viewed at magnification on live view. Camera must be on tripod, with timer or remote release. If manual focus shots are excellent, then the problem is with the autofocus.

Fact of life. All manufactured products have variances. It is necessary to test your lens-body combination to see if that combo works for you.

See Roger Cicala's articles at the LensRental.com blog, if you want more info on testing or just want to get your geek on.

ALL APS-C sensors are theoretically limited by diffraction somewhere around f/7 .

35mm FF sensors are theoretically limited by diffraction at f/11.

Large format cameras don't reach theoretical limit until some ridiculous number like f/45 or f/64

Then you notice the softness then yourself on his ISO crops. I don't know his method seems to work on other lens camera combinations. But perhaps you are right.

As far as my images being soft.. well it depends. When I had a 6mp camera, images were pretty sharp to my eye. When I got a 10 mp, the images were softer, but the image was bigger, then I went to the 7d and the images seemed softer, now if I resampled them down to 6mp they would look pretty sharp but I would have to sharpen the 7d images and I would get them looking pretty good.

But as for defraction, I had heard of it before but I did not know it would create that much softness according to the digital picture web site. I was concluding that either a problem with testing method/ camera lens, or as he said in his explanation the images are soft because of refraction and not method.

So I was asking what others think, and you gave me your answers. I am not so sure they are correct though.

I had heard of it before and seen the calculators. I was trying to justify the website owners answer with what I was seeing which was called defraction.

From what I understand, it is a function of sensor resolution, not sensor size. The defraction calculators on the internet point in that direction.

I wasn't discussing my own tests, just the Digital pictures websites 100 percent iSO crops. They just looked soft to me at all Fstops on the 60d and 50d with efs lenses. All the FF images looked very sharp.

When you are looking at 100% crops of a high rez camera you are looking at a much smaller part of the picture so it might look softer. If you view at output size it will be fine.

Solution? Don't pixel peep.

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Brian Schneider
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6115/6285300710_0fcee72bb1_m.jpg