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New 30D owner Please Help

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Edo1

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Hi everybody.

Finally decided to go digital after using an older Canon Elan IIe and shooting slides for the last two years..

I just bought Canon 30D and 17-55 lens (I think this is a good lens) and I’m really happy so far.

I need your help on judging my lenses/cameras Quality/Sharpness/focus and whatever else is important with lenses.

I have seen some people saying sometimes not so good things about Canon 30D and some canon lenses like (soft images-focus, back focus, front focus etc.) I am not so sure what they are referring to when they talk about that stuff. And how can I test my lenses for those problems. So. Please help me decide if this camera/lens quality is acceptable.
All images are JPG straight from the camera no PP or sharpening in camera..

Thank you in advance to taking your time to look these images.

17-55mm efs http://www.pbase.com/abea/image/62895869

17-55mm efs http://www.pbase.com/abea/image/62895996

50mm 1.4 http://www.pbase.com/abea/image/62896070

85mm 1.8 http://www.pbase.com/abea/image/62896610
 
As a general comment, you would prefer to have your photos on the soft side, because then you can manually sharpen them -- you have total control. In digitall photography, a lot is done in "post-processing" to get the final result, especially if you shoot raw.

I think these photos are fine. You can sharpen them yourself if you want

Please see this site for amazing tutorials and wealth of information for beginner. One of the best sites!

http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm
 
Have to agree, though large files and a tad underexposed the combo looks fine.
Enjoy the camera!

MarvC
 
The underexposure is small and can be 100% corrected in post processing, especially if shooting RAW.

The ability to "correct" your photos yourself in post-processing is one of the most benfecial features of going digital compared to film.

Why, with "blending" (see Bigelow articles) you can extend the dynamic range of your photos -- just amazing.
 
I'm a relative beginner, so maybe my perspective helps... (maybe not!) Anyway, at first I thought JPEG was the way to go because (1) I could fit a billion photos onto a card and (2) post processing sounded like a lot of hard work. Well..... after my first experience shooting RAW I was instantly converted (just like my photos, haha). I found that not only is it actually a lot of fun to work with the RAW images, but it's also pretty easy and doesn't take much time.

Shoot one of your photots again in RAW and then play with the sharpness slider in DPP and I think you'll be convinced that the 30D is completely satisfactory in that regard. Good luck and have fun.
---Will
 
Again, I don't know how new you are to dSLRs... but for JPEGs the camera automatically applies some things to your picture based on "recipes," or collections of settings for things like contrast, white balance, sharpness, saturation, and lots more. The camera lets you choose a few "programs" with various mixes of these settings, i.e. various recipes, but the important thing to remember is that the camera processes your photo for you.

Not true if you shoot RAW. Then you get to apply all of these things yourself. Want it sharper? Done. Want it softer? Done. More contrast? Done. Also, you can simply apply the same settings that the camera would have applied in one of the preset programs, that is, you can choose one of the preset recipes and apply it to your picture after the shoot. It's not that much work and really a lot of fun.

I have never had problems with sharpness. One good example is my cat; I don't have a way to host photos so you'll have to trust me, but every hair can be nicely seen in a close-up of his face.
---Will
 
Well.. this is my first DSLR so there is lot to learn. But my main concern is quality on the focus on those pictures because I heard lot of bad things about lens focusing on the wrong thing.. which I don't understand.
 
You know, on second thought, something is up. I blew the pictures up to the "Original" size by clicking on the pbase button and now I'm inclined to agree with you. Look at ...070, or picture 085.jpg. If you look at the boy's hair, it seems like the sharpest area is about two inches behind his nose. Look at the light spot on his hair on the left side (his right side) of the forehead. That area looks more in focus than his eyes. Of course, with f3.5 your depth of field is going to be quite narrow, but the question is this: is this your (inadvertant) technique or is the camera/lens acting up? Did you focus on his eyes? Did the autofocus square that was over his eyes light up red, or was it possibly one of the preipheral squares? To be sure, you could lock the auto-focus to the center square and retake the shot.

I think that the area of sharpness in his hair demonstrates that your camera is capable of producing very sharp images; the thing to ask is why isn't that area of maximum sharpness in the place where you'd like it to be.
---Will
 
Will,

I think you are right 100% red square (focus point) is just little above his right eye.
Thank you for all your help.
 
Will,
You are right.. red point (focus) was just above his right eye..
 
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