Please help a new 50D owner

[dadgummit]

I picked up my new 50d with the 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 lens last Friday and I am having problems.

Maybe 1 out of 10 pictures are in focus. I have tried shooting in full auto mode, portrait mode, CA mode, P mode etc. Beyond the normal AF, I have tried telling the camera to only use the center focus point and I have tried facial recognition in live view.

Please excuse my inexperience! I cannot tell if it is the camera, the lens (bad copy or too small aperture), the settings or my skill that is the problem. Most of the pictures were indoors and some were outtside in the shade. None were in full sun or other bright lighting.

In the Canon lens forum, people have almost unanimously recommended that I try a fast prime lens like the 28mm f 1.8 or the Sigma 30mm f 1.4. I understand that it will gather more light but will it focus more accurately with less light than the 28-135?

I am stepping up from a Sony H5 which was much better in the focusing department but a little worse in low light performance compared to the 50d using the 28-135 lens in the same lighting.

If they will help I can post some examples.

 

[carlk]

Did you half press the shutter, hear the confirmation beep before press all the way down? Are they OOF the same way? All front or all back focused?

 

[dadgummit]

Did you half press the shutter, hear the confirmation beep before
press all the way down?

Yes, every time except for in liveview which seems like it cannot focus until you hold down the AF-On button on hte back until you get the beep (thought that was strange)

Are they OOF the same way? All front or all
back focused?

The majority of the pictures are of my daughter where both the fore and background are way out of focus. Do you know of any blogs or tutorials on the test?

 

[carlk]

Try use AI servo when shooting something that is moving. Could be that she moved out of focus after focus is locked. Your Sony probably gives you much deeper DOF that you will not easily see if something is out of focus.

Did you half press the shutter, hear the confirmation beep before
press all the way down?

Yes, every time except for in liveview which seems like it cannot
focus until you hold down the AF-On button on hte back until you get
the beep (thought that was strange)

Are they OOF the same way? All front or all
back focused?

The majority of the pictures are of my daughter where both the fore
and background are way out of focus. Do you know of any blogs or
tutorials on the test?

--

 

[Olga Johnson]

The majority of the pictures are of my daughter where both the fore
and background are way out of focus. Do you know of any blogs or
tutorials on the test?

You may have to post some samples with complete exif for a more precise answer.

Forgive me for asking but are you sure you are not seeing a narrow depth of field? If you are used to a P&S camera, your eye is used to seeing a lot more in focus throughout the entire image. With a dSLR, your depth of field narrows, and you could be seeing the foreground and the background out of focus which may be normal.

You can take a test shot without your daughter in it. Perhaps a doll or even a canned drink.

Olga

 

[dadgummit]

Try use AI servo when shooting something that is moving. Could be
that she moved out of focus after focus is locked.

I will give that a try this evening but there was a series of shots yesterday, probably 20, where she was sitting on the floor playing with a toy. None were taken in burst mode. 1-2 seconds between each shot and received a conformation beep every time. She was not moving much at all and still 80-90% were a little out of focus. The 2-year old $300 sony would have nailed 18 of the 20.

On the camera's LCD the images look clear but on my computer they are a little fuzzy. I am not looking at them at 100% or anything just the full photo sized to fit my 17" laptop screen.

 

[dadgummit]

Forgive me for asking but are you sure you are not seeing a narrow
depth of field? If you are used to a P&S camera, your eye is used to
seeing a lot more in focus throughout the entire image. With a dSLR,
your depth of field narrows, and you could be seeing the foreground
and the background out of focus which may be normal.

You can take a test shot without your daughter in it. Perhaps a doll
or even a canned drink.

Olga

Yesterday evening I set the camera to only use the center AF point and placed it squarely on her face, either her eye or cheek.

The Sony's pictures I am using to compare were all shot at F2.8 where the canon shots were at F3.5-f4

Would a P&S have a larger DOF at 2.8 than the canon at 3.5?

 

[dadgummit]

Could it be that there is just not enough light indoors for the F3.5 lens to focus correctly? Is it mostly an outdoor/ bright light lens?

 

[DavZell]

As someone else mentioned, try posting a couple of pictures for us to look at. You may want to try a few shots at f/7.1 or f/8 to see the difference in DOF as well.

If you do not have a site to pose pictures at yet, you can do so for free at Flickr and Picasa (as well as others). These two are run by Yahoo and Google, respectively.

David

 

[DavZell]

Without knowing how much light there was, we cannot answer that. There is no defined amount of light indoors versus out. Was it candle lit, one 40W bulb, a chandelier with 10 60W bulbes, etc?

Again, posting examples would help.

To your question, though - if there was enough light to read by comfortably, then most likely there was enough light to focus.

D.

 

[jbarber]

Still one of my ongoing lessons is shutter speed indoors or in poor lighting. Even with a stabilized lens anything less than 1/60 can easily be full of camera shake. I just did some portraits yesterday under a tree in dull lighting and many are blurred but the shutter speed was hitting 1/30 or lower. take a look at your shutterspeeds.

James

 

[dadgummit]

Thanks for all of the quick replies. I will put some up tonite, I have a photobucket account.

As someone else mentioned, try posting a couple of pictures for us to
look at. You may want to try a few shots at f/7.1 or f/8 to see the
difference in DOF as well.

If you do not have a site to pose pictures at yet, you can do so for
free at Flickr and Picasa (as well as others). These two are run by
Yahoo and Google, respectively.

David

 

[J A K]

"NT" means no text.

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

 

[dadgummit]

Still one of my ongoing lessons is shutter speed indoors or in poor
lighting. Even with a stabilized lens anything less than 1/60 can
easily be full of camera shake. I just did some portraits yesterday
under a tree in dull lighting and many are blurred but the shutter
speed was hitting 1/30 or lower. take a look at your shutterspeeds.

James

With the camera's built in flash it will does 1/60 at f3.5 or f4. Without the flash it is much slower.

I have a 430ex II flash in the mail right now. Hopefully its combo of stronger flash bounced off the ceiling and internal af light will help even more.

 

[SteveDude]

Yesterday evening I set the camera to only use the center AF point
and placed it squarely on her face, either her eye or cheek.
The Sony's pictures I am using to compare were all shot at F2.8 where
the canon shots were at F3.5-f4

There's a HUGE difference in the depth-of-field on the sony P&S compared to a DSLR. F3.5-4 is indoors would be a VERY very small depth-of-field, AND it's the going to be soft because it's the limit of that lens. You should always be stopped down maybe 1 stop with that lens to prevent softness.

Try the following, get into bright light and see what happens. Set ISO to 400 or so, use P mode (the camera will choose shutter and aperture), and see how that goes. If the shutter speed is slower than maybe 1/150th (with this lens), try ISO 800 or even 1600.

And if you want to shoot flash indoors, use M mode, set the shutter to 1/60th, and set the f-stop to F8. Then set the ISO to maybe 800. This will be enough depth-of-field for most indoor shots, and the flash will adjust power to expose properly. See how that works.

There will be a LOT of other folks just buying a 50d, who are just getting started like you. You certainly have have a lot of learning ahead of you! (no offense meant).

Steve

Would a P&S have a larger DOF at 2.8 than the canon at 3.5?

--

--
My galleries are at http://www.GrillosView.com , Equipment on profile page

 

[kbj 50D]

--Are you using a tripod? If so, you need to make sure you shut off the IS. Also, have you tried a faster ISO?

 

[dadgummit]

Yesterday evening I set the camera to only use the center AF point
and placed it squarely on her face, either her eye or cheek.
The Sony's pictures I am using to compare were all shot at F2.8 where
the canon shots were at F3.5-f4

There's a HUGE difference in the depth-of-field on the sony P&S
compared to a DSLR. F3.5-4 is indoors would be a VERY very small
depth-of-field, AND it's the going to be soft because it's the limit
of that lens. You should always be stopped down maybe 1 stop with
that lens to prevent softness.

Thanks, this is why I am thinking it is my inexperience instead of a defective product.

Try the following, get into bright light and see what happens. Set
ISO to 400 or so, use P mode (the camera will choose shutter and
aperture), and see how that goes. If the shutter speed is slower
than maybe 1/150th (with this lens), try ISO 800 or even 1600.

I will try this tomorrow and see what happens

And if you want to shoot flash indoors, use M mode, set the shutter
to 1/60th, and set the f-stop to F8. Then set the ISO to maybe 800.
This will be enough depth-of-field for most indoor shots, and the
flash will adjust power to expose properly. See how that works.

I can try this tonight. Thanks!

There will be a LOT of other folks just buying a 50d, who are just
getting started like you. You certainly have have a lot of learning
ahead of you! (no offense meant).

Steve

Thanks! I really appreciate all of your help, I have taken the H5 about as far as it will go and thought I could just slide into the 50d. Didn't some famous person say "The more that you know, the more you know that you don't know."

 

[dadgummit]

I don't have a tripod yet but I will try a higher ISO this evening Thanks!

 

[SteveDude]

With the 28-135, it should be nice and sharp at F8-F11 (you may already know this, but stay away from anything over about F13 because diffraction will soften the images).

So what you could do is use Av mode and lock the aperture at F8, allowing the shutter to move around based on exposure. Then kick up the ISO enough to get at least 1/200 shutter speeds. (don't try to use Av for flash - it won't do what you want - for that use M as I previously suggested).

One more thing about the image stabilization on that lens. When you half-press, make sure you wait until the IS kicks in - it's not immediate. It's like 1/2 second before it locks on. Then press the shutter. Hope that helps!

Steve

--
My galleries are at http://www.GrillosView.com , Equipment on profile page

 

[Judy Howle]

My 28 - 135 is a bad copy. i have gotten many out of focus and none very sharp that are in focus. I sent it to Canon under warranty with photos and they sent it back saying it was "within factory specification". Sheesh! I didn't send it in again. I recommend that you avoid this lens in a kit!!!!
--
Judy Howle
FortyD, TwentyD, S Three IS

Southern Exposures
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