Unsharp pictures with 7D and EFS 17-55mm, F2,8. Peter, Copenhagen

Shutter 1/400, av 2.8, Iso 400, focall. 55mm, spot metering, one shot autof., (bounce)flach canon 580 II.

1/1000, av 2.8, iso 400, focall. 55mm, Al servo AF.

1/1600, av 2.8, focall. 38mm, Iso 400, Al Servo AF, AF area select mode: manual selection

1/2500, Ap 2.8, iso 400, focall. 37mm, one shot autof., AF area select mode: manual selection. The young man is the father to the young boy at the previos picture.

1/400, av. 2.8, Iso 400, focall. 55mm, one shot autofocus, AF area metering mode: manuaal selction, this young man is one of the guests

I have written some metadata fron the RAW files. Please take a look at theese pictures, i hope i have done something wrong with my 7D and the lense, i do not hope, there is somethinh wrong with the camer, the lense, og the way, they work together. Comments and critics are very welcome, but my main concern is, why are these pictures not sharper. I am considering to buy another 17-55mm, and hope its a better copy, but if the failure is mine, i will save the money for another nice lens.Greetings, Peter/Copenhagen

All pictures are shot with the lens wide open (f/2.8). Most lense perform better with the aperture one or two stops closed. The wide aperture also causes a shallow depth of field, as you can see the background is blurred. But the main objects look sharp to me.

Images uploaded to DPR are so small now its difficult comment but from what I can see I don't think you have a lens problem or faulty equipment. If you blow up to 100% & feel that the images are not really sharp the most probable root cause is that the AF does not manage fully. Focus is just slightly off and that is causing the softness.

You can try can try to MA-adjust but for many real life photo situations the AF-systems accuracy (or lack of) is the main problem. You can easily test this even on portraiture-type of photography: put your camera on a tripod ask your model to sit perfectly still and do a "Live-view 10* manual adjustment, this image is your reference and should be perfectly sharp. Now take the camera off the tripod and shoot as you normally do .... check and compare results.

The work-arounds are to learn and understand which light-situations & where to aim to aquire focus best, all to help the certainly less than perfect AF-systems.

I they look ok, but only ok. I think that lens and body combination can do better.

My 17-55/2.8 once upon a time delivered very sharp shots at 2.8 on my 7D. But after both a lens repair and a camera repair (shutter replaced), it hasn't been the same since.

Given the posted size the images look good to me and similar to what I get in similar situations with the same equipment.

You obviously expect more. Where do you get that expectation from? I notice that the lighting situations are all challenging (to say the least).

Another option to explore might be the picture processing (increase sharpness globally or locally to enhance focal points).

The smoking person looks just fine, look at the suit and parts of the face. Nice and sharp.

You shoot all your images at f2.8. That gives you thin DOF. I think your first image, the face is ok, but everything else is out of focus just because of the thin DOF.

WIth the boy running, you used AI servo, AI servo also shoots when the subject is not in focus. If the boy is running fast, he may just have run out of the optimal focal plane.

So, at the moment, there is nothing to suggest the lens is bad based on these samples.

petwil01 wrote:

Shutter 1/400, av 2.8, Iso 400, focall. 55mm, spot metering, one shot autof., (bounce)flach canon 580 II.

1/1000, av 2.8, iso 400, focall. 55mm, Al servo AF.

1/1600, av 2.8, focall. 38mm, Iso 400, Al Servo AF, AF area select mode: manual selection

1/2500, Ap 2.8, iso 400, focall. 37mm, one shot autof., AF area select mode: manual selection. The young man is the father to the young boy at the previos picture.

1/400, av. 2.8, Iso 400, focall. 55mm, one shot autofocus, AF area metering mode: manuaal selction, this young man is one of the guests

I have written some metadata fron the RAW files. Please take a look at theese pictures, i hope i have done something wrong with my 7D and the lense, i do not hope, there is somethinh wrong with the camer, the lense, og the way, they work together. Comments and critics are very welcome, but my main concern is, why are these pictures not sharper. I am considering to buy another 17-55mm, and hope its a better copy, but if the failure is mine, i will save the money for another nice lens.Greetings, Peter/Copenhagen

I don't have a 7D, but do have a 50D (15MP) and an EFs 17-55 bought about two years ago.  I needed to optimise the AF MA setting for my lens on my 50D.  Have you done this for your lens on the 7D?  (At f/2.8?)  After adjustment, my lens is sharp - and at full aperture.

1/640, av 2.8, iso 400, focall. 55mm, oneshot AF, Manual Selection, no flash.Very sharp , also at 100% crop, especialy my daughters left eye.

Hello everybody, thank you very much for your quick answers, its the first time, i succeded to get pictures in this forum, so i have at least 1000 questions to ask. But i try to ask for few things in this thread/post.

I will ask SebastianX, what do you mean by *live - views 10*?

To ok55, yes, i often focuse and then recompose; perhaps its a source to unprecise AF?

To AlterHase, well i read some very good reviews obout the EFs 17-55mm, good reviews of 7D, and i have read good contributions about both camera, lens and the compination.

And the pictere i posted of my daughter is thad sharp, specially round her left eye, where i have focused. So i have heard good things about lens/camera combination, and sometimes it succeed me and the combination to make very sharp pictures. Therefore i have some (maybee to high?) expectations to this combination

Do some of you know, how to get a 100% crop of a picture in a post?

Do some of you know to import EXIF data in a post?

I often use spot-AF point, is that to slow in compared to, for example, single point AF or AF point expantion?

Again, thank you for your answers,

Greetings, Peter Copenhagen

Peter,

As others have said at f2.8 the DOF is very shallow...at the closer distances you were shooting the DOF was probably only a few inches.  Focusing and recomposing with this shallow a DOF can definitely make the focus appear off as will as a subject that moves just a few inches between focusing and shooting.  Canon's servo focus tries to predict where the subject will be when the shutter fires and adjusts accordingly.  But it is not perfect, a subject that changes direction can trick it into making the wrong adjustment, i.e., kids, pets, insects, birds, etc.  Stopping down to f5.6 to f8 will double to triple your DOF making focusing errors much less apparent.

photonius wrote:

The smoking person looks just fine, look at the suit and parts of the face. Nice and sharp.

The smoking person is the key shot.  It looks like the focus is just at the back of his head.  Check out the individual hairs that stand out.  That part is very sharp.

So it seems like it may be back-focusing, at least for this shot, or there is some other problem with technique.  If you can get hairs that sharp, it is not the lens.

Maybe spend some time working on MFA.  Also, review this info on focusing (3 parts):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAx86nblZ2g&feature=relmfu

I think there's nothing wrong with the lens, either

What you are doing is at the limit of what can be done. Focus, at least really accurate focus is difficult in the flat lighting that is present, and at this wide aperture.

You can make your pictures look sharper if you want by processing.

I just did it in two of them for you!

1/200, av 4.0, Iso 400, one-shot auto, EFs 17-55mm F2,8, 7D.

Hello eberybody

Thank you for your comments !!

To Rickpole and Sovern, i try lesser perfectionism, and the picture of the young longhaired man is very sharp at av 4.0.

to Georóid ó Laoi

Thank you for postprocessing; wich tool do you use?

I´m used to DPP, and i have just installed LigthRoom 4 (and try to learn to use it by this book "Lightroom 4, book for digital phtographers" writtwn by Scott Kelby).

Greetings, Peter Copenhagen

i did simple sharpening in bibble pro and a small increase in contrast. that helps

They don't look all that bad to me.  It's more thin DOF than softness.  You should stop down to f8 or so for the landscape shot.  Try not to focus and recompose when you do want thin DOF such as shooting the portrait.  I always use AI servo with AF point fixed on the subject eye when shooting at wide aperture.  There are enough AF points on 7D to allow you do this and still be able to frame the way you like.

Hi there Peter

This looks familiar. The efs 17-55 is a great lens, but it is not tack sharp at f2.8. Thats just how it is, i regrett to say... I've sold my 17-55 f2.8, but not because it is bad (it is great!), but because it is not compatible with FF bodies. My 24-105 f4 IS ain't that sharp at f4 either, but when it is stopped down a bit it is great.

I used to stop both my 17-55 and 24-105 down to f5.6 in addition to using a bounced flash indoors. At 5.6 they are both really sharp! These days I'm experimenting with high ISO + f4. Iget more ambience, but aslo less sharp, grainer pics.

Rune

Mine is tack sharp, granted, I have to micro adjusted it.

Shot indoor 7D with 17-55mm 2.8 at 2.8, sharp enough? I love this lens.