10D image sharpness

[Vern Stevens]

One of the best pieces of advice that I have read from some of the non-measurebators is this. View your image in it's final output stage, usually a printed image. Images on the computer monitor, particularly zoomed in images will frequently appear soft. Printed on 8x10 or even full sized pics on as much as 13x19 can be a different story.

Of course, yes you can submit your camera to any number of focusing and sharpness tests, which if carried out with rigid precision may give you results that ease your mind. But you can make a mistake in these tests which may alter the results and have you thinking that something is wrong with the camera. I still prefer the real world images "tests".

And for my part, yes I do at least some minor image processing on any shot which I intend to use in some final output form. Usually, I make some minor adjustment to levels, and I may do 1 or two passes of USM. The first low power, high radius pass has the effect of taking a "film" off the image, or increasing contrast. The second medium power, low radius pass sharpens the edges. These are commonly used techniques, easy to do with the supplied software (PS Elements 2), and fairly tried and true to add some punch to your images. I won't get into the plethora of PS actions that are out there which do some of the same things. The work is minimal, but the results can be astounding.

VES

Having read countless posts here on the subject, I conceptually
agree with your thoughts on the quality of the raw material file
coming straight out of the 10D. I just got mine last week and am so
ecstatic to be back in the world of interchangeable lenses,
imperceptible focus/shutter lag, and control of depth of field.

So here's my question (asked out of paranoia, having read countless
posts about the focus issue):

How do you judge the accuracy of the AF if the shot straight out of
the camera is soft? Do you apply sharpening to it? Sorry if this
seems a bit stupid but the argument is somewhat circuitous to me. I
can obviously tell if something is in "relative focus" straight out
of the camera. Should this be the test, i.e. if the AF point is
clearly the point that is most in focus before sharpening, should
this mean that the camera/lens are focusing correctly? By the way,
I don't care if my focus is 5 mm off and only noticeable when I
view the image at 100% in PS.

Hope this is clear. Thanks in advance,

Steve

There is a reason the 10D gets all those great reviews, it's a
great camera. It's just and adjustment from P&S cameras, a little
culture shock. You can almost think of a DSLR image as a
"negative", especially so if you shoot RAW images. From that
negative, you have more control over the final image. I too
learned to benefits of Capture One: LE. Used it a few days then
bought it. Now I shot almost all RAW. Sounds scary to some, but
it's not that hard.

VES

This topic gets discussed a lot. Many people making the transition
to the 10D (or any DSLR for that matter) seem surprised by how
"soft" the images appear out of camera. The 10D gives you a better,
unprocessed, artifact-free image to start with. It then requires
some post-processing to get the final result, but that final result
will blow any P&S camera out of the water. And it takes minutes,
not hours to achieve those results in Photoshop; the process can be
automated in many ways with great software tools, like C1LE,
BreezeBrowser, etc. My ideas: read here, learn the tools, and soon
you'll be very happy that you switched to the 10D.

--
My pictures may only be worth 500 words, but I'm taking a
Photographic English Composition course.


Grateful for any constructive criticism regarding my photos,
composition, lighting, technique, etc.

http://www.pbase.com/vsteven

--

My pictures may only be worth 500 words, but I'm taking a Photographic English Composition course.

Grateful for any constructive criticism regarding my photos, composition, lighting, technique, etc.

http://www.pbase.com/vsteven

 

[nick onken149343]

Yeah. It's fun, especially for specific images i want to take special time to edit in Photoshop, but time/budget is also a factor. I just shot a wedding this weekend, and I don't have time to open each photo and sharpen it to my liking. 400 photos would take a couple days to do that. I'm trying to look for a photoshop filter that will sharpen in a batch process or do multiple files with out manually doing it myself. I was just checking out the fred miranda filters, but i'd like to try it before I purchase it. Any other suggestions for PS filters on the mac?

I just picked up the 10D last week. I shot a wedding with it this
weekend. After looking though the photos, looking at the images at
100% in photoshop, they're really soft. I had a Sony F707
previously, and have compared my 10D images to the sony images and
the sharpness of the sony dominates the 10D sharpness. I've tried
unsharpen mask in photoshop, with the 10D images and still can't
get the sharpness of the sony.

I've got a Tameron 24-135mm on there right now, but I've been into
camera store and taken a couple shots with a Canon L glass series
and it's still soft.

A little frustrated.. yeah.. after dropping $1500 for a camera body
that has had nothing but great reviews, one would think that it
would give sharper images than a consumer sony without spending
hours of editing time.

Any ideas?

My 10D indeed takes sharp images. Of course you can adjust images
to be what you want in Photoshop and I do use Photoshop quite a
bit. But consider these two totally unprocessed images straight
from the 10D as I shot them.

Canon 24-70 2.8L, 1/125, f/2.8, ISO 100, @153mm, Gitzo Tripod



Canon 70-200 2.8L IS, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 400, @170mm, Hand-held



--
Gary Coombs
My Profile contains my Equipment List
http://GaryCoombs.com/10D/New
http://GaryCoombs.com/10D/Test

 

[S. Miller]

Derek,

Thanks for your response.

My lenses aren't anything special: 50/1.8, 28-105/3.5-4.5 II USM, and 100-300/ 4.5-5.6 USM (will run into family problems if I start buying L glass). I'll try some test shots later today. It's funny, I never noticed any focus problems with any of these lenses when I was shooting with my Elan IIe (as I'm sure you can tell, that's not a knock on the 10D, more a dig at how demanding we have become).

Steve

Vern and Derek,

Having read countless posts here on the subject, I conceptually
agree with your thoughts on the quality of the raw material file
coming straight out of the 10D. I just got mine last week and am so
ecstatic to be back in the world of interchangeable lenses,
imperceptible focus/shutter lag, and control of depth of field.

So here's my question (asked out of paranoia, having read countless
posts about the focus issue):

How do you judge the accuracy of the AF if the shot straight out of
the camera is soft?

If you have read posts on AF accuracy, you are probably aware of
the various AF test setups proposed in this forum. Pick one
(whether a ruler or something more realistic), and perform the test
with all of your lenses. As you said yourself, you can tell which
part of the image is in "relative focus" even if it's not pixel
sharp, and that should be your guide to where the AF locked. The
in-DOF (in-focus) part of the image, even if not tack sharp, should
be relatively sharper than the out-of-DOF part. That's why AF tests
rely on finely spaced targets or a ruler; to make sure that there
is SOMETHING to lock onto at every depth. That's also why AF
testing is done with the lens wide open; to make DOF as shallow as
possible, so it's as easy as possible to tell what part of the
image is in relative focus.

Do you apply sharpening to it?

Generally no sharpening is needed when testing AF. Again, the
in-DOF part of the image, even if not tack sharp, should be
relatively sharper than the out-of-DOF part.

Sorry if this
seems a bit stupid but the argument is somewhat circuitous to me. I
can obviously tell if something is in "relative focus" straight out
of the camera. Should this be the test, i.e. if the AF point is
clearly the point that is most in focus before sharpening, should
this mean that the camera/lens are focusing correctly? By the way,
I don't care if my focus is 5 mm off and only noticeable when I
view the image at 100% in PS.

Exactly!

And while the in-focus part of the image will never be tack sharp
without sharpening (at least by my standards), it should not be too
soft either; but that's a different issue altogether. Objective
image sharpness depends on many things, including which camera you
are using (10D and 1D have very different AA filters), which
lens/aperture you are using (the 24-70 is sharper than the 28-135),
and sadly whether you have a good copy of the lens (sometimes the
24-70 is NOT as sharp as the 28-135, and you should send it back!).
Skill and knowledge also factors into it; I have seen people post
hand-held shots taken at 1/6 sec claiming their 10D isn't sharp.

Good luck.

Hope this is clear. Thanks in advance,

Steve

 

[BobbyC]

That's sure brave, I would never do a paying job with a camera I only had for a few days. Didn't you experiment with it first or learn to calibrate for proper color and exposure? That should be done whether it's digital or film.

It's very well known that all the Canon dslr's require some post processing. Most of the P&S digitals I've seen look oversharpened, I believe Canon wanted us to make that decision, not the camera.

It shouldn't be a big deal to create an action to do the sharpening while you sleep.

Good Luck,
Bobby

 

[Derekasaurus Rex]

Someone here once reasoned that looking at a 6mp image on a screen at 100% is similar to stuyding an 8x10 print through a 5x loupe. I don't know about you, but I never scrutinized my prints that carefully when I was shooting with my Elan IIe a couple of years ago. I think you are right that we have become more demanding. And technology has made it easier than ever to put a glaring spotlight on the most minute imperfections.

In any case, I wouldn't worry about testing too much unless you have reason to believe your AF is misbehaving in real-world shots (unless you want to do it for the peace of mind).

Derek,

Thanks for your response.

My lenses aren't anything special: 50/1.8, 28-105/3.5-4.5 II USM,
and 100-300/ 4.5-5.6 USM (will run into family problems if I start
buying L glass). I'll try some test shots later today. It's funny,
I never noticed any focus problems with any of these lenses when I
was shooting with my Elan IIe (as I'm sure you can tell, that's not
a knock on the 10D, more a dig at how demanding we have become).

Steve

 

[John Lehmkuhl]

I've got a Tameron 24-135mm on there right now, but I've been into
camera store and taken a couple shots with a Canon L glass series
and it's still soft.

I would HIGHLY suggest picking up a 50mm f/1.8 for 70.00. The Prime lenses are way way sharper than almost any zoom lens and the f/1.8 is faster than your Sony camera.

My 50mm 1.8 and my Sigma 105mm macro are my fav. 2 lesnes I own, probably because they are not zooms.

I posted a note here about a free Photoshop action called DigiEdge that I really like (URL in the message below) :
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=5993102

And Jouko posted a reply with a custom script that he made for PHotoshop 7 (requires the Adobe Scripting enhancement update to Photoshop 7 (link in below message) that is even better/sharper than the DigiEdge actions and adds ZERO noize to parts of the image that it doesn't sharpen. So get this update to Photoshop and try out his script if you want amazing detail to come out of your photos:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=5993957

Also, of course more sharpness will be evident with aperatures of 8 or f/11. Universally on almost every lens, f/8 is THE sweet spot where images have best contrast and sharpness.

Hope this helps,
John Lehmkuhl

--
*********************************************************
I have no doubt that I will continue to make photographs till my last
breath - Ansel Adams
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples

 

[Michael Eckstein]

I would suggest Nik Sharpener Pro...Put all your photos in a folder...create an action that uses NIK Sharpner with the settings you want...after that a few clicks using the Photoshop automate ...batch command and you can walk away while Photoshop does it's thing. Works great on my mac.

and it w

I just picked up the 10D last week. I shot a wedding with it this
weekend. After looking though the photos, looking at the images at
100% in photoshop, they're really soft. I had a Sony F707
previously, and have compared my 10D images to the sony images and
the sharpness of the sony dominates the 10D sharpness. I've tried
unsharpen mask in photoshop, with the 10D images and still can't
get the sharpness of the sony.

I've got a Tameron 24-135mm on there right now, but I've been into
camera store and taken a couple shots with a Canon L glass series
and it's still soft.

A little frustrated.. yeah.. after dropping $1500 for a camera body
that has had nothing but great reviews, one would think that it
would give sharper images than a consumer sony without spending
hours of editing time.

Any ideas?

My 10D indeed takes sharp images. Of course you can adjust images
to be what you want in Photoshop and I do use Photoshop quite a
bit. But consider these two totally unprocessed images straight
from the 10D as I shot them.

Canon 24-70 2.8L, 1/125, f/2.8, ISO 100, @153mm, Gitzo Tripod



Canon 70-200 2.8L IS, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 400, @170mm, Hand-held



--
Gary Coombs
My Profile contains my Equipment List
http://GaryCoombs.com/10D/New
http://GaryCoombs.com/10D/Test

--
'Most Lenses are Better Than Most Photographers' - Michael H.
Reichmann

 

[nick onken149343]

I guess so huh? The wedding was low budget. I was going to shoot film and charge them per roll and they decided to have the budget for only 3 rolls, which doesn't allow for much. So i ended up getting the 10D and figured it would that I could do a little more experimenting and shoot more shots along the way. For the most part, I don't think it will be noticable to the average joe. I don't mind taking the time to sharpen for the good shots....

That's sure brave, I would never do a paying job with a camera I
only had for a few days. Didn't you experiment with it first or
learn to calibrate for proper color and exposure? That should be
done whether it's digital or film.

It's very well known that all the Canon dslr's require some post
processing. Most of the P&S digitals I've seen look oversharpened,
I believe Canon wanted us to make that decision, not the camera.

It shouldn't be a big deal to create an action to do the sharpening
while you sleep.

Good Luck,
Bobby

 

[BobbyC]

I just noticed your other thread about how you didn't know how to make only the center focal point active, you think this may have played a role in your problems? If all 7 sensors were active, that would most likely be your problem. The picture will still likely be slightly softer than your P&S, as I referred to above. Again, this is the kind of thing that happens when you do a paying job with a camera that you did not fully know how to operate.

 

[nick onken149343]

What brand is the 50mm f/1.8 for $70? and where did you find it?

I've got a Tameron 24-135mm on there right now, but I've been into
camera store and taken a couple shots with a Canon L glass series
and it's still soft.

I would HIGHLY suggest picking up a 50mm f/1.8 for 70.00. The Prime
lenses are way way sharper than almost any zoom lens and the f/1.8
is faster than your Sony camera.

My 50mm 1.8 and my Sigma 105mm macro are my fav. 2 lesnes I own,
probably because they are not zooms.

I posted a note here about a free Photoshop action called DigiEdge
that I really like (URL in the message below) :
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=5993102

And Jouko posted a reply with a custom script that he made for
PHotoshop 7 (requires the Adobe Scripting enhancement update to
Photoshop 7 (link in below message) that is even better/sharper
than the DigiEdge actions and adds ZERO noize to parts of the image
that it doesn't sharpen. So get this update to Photoshop and try
out his script if you want amazing detail to come out of your
photos:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=5993957

Also, of course more sharpness will be evident with aperatures of
8 or f/11. Universally on almost every lens, f/8 is THE sweet spot
where images have best contrast and sharpness.

Hope this helps,
John Lehmkuhl

--
*********************************************************
I have no doubt that I will continue to make photographs till my last
breath - Ansel Adams
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples

 

[nick onken149343]

Dang.. that's the one for $300?

and it w

I just picked up the 10D last week. I shot a wedding with it this
weekend. After looking though the photos, looking at the images at
100% in photoshop, they're really soft. I had a Sony F707
previously, and have compared my 10D images to the sony images and
the sharpness of the sony dominates the 10D sharpness. I've tried
unsharpen mask in photoshop, with the 10D images and still can't
get the sharpness of the sony.

I've got a Tameron 24-135mm on there right now, but I've been into
camera store and taken a couple shots with a Canon L glass series
and it's still soft.

A little frustrated.. yeah.. after dropping $1500 for a camera body
that has had nothing but great reviews, one would think that it
would give sharper images than a consumer sony without spending
hours of editing time.

Any ideas?

My 10D indeed takes sharp images. Of course you can adjust images
to be what you want in Photoshop and I do use Photoshop quite a
bit. But consider these two totally unprocessed images straight
from the 10D as I shot them.

Canon 24-70 2.8L, 1/125, f/2.8, ISO 100, @153mm, Gitzo Tripod



Canon 70-200 2.8L IS, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 400, @170mm, Hand-held



--
Gary Coombs
My Profile contains my Equipment List
http://GaryCoombs.com/10D/New
http://GaryCoombs.com/10D/Test

--
'Most Lenses are Better Than Most Photographers' - Michael H.
Reichmann

 

[Kristian Salo101843]

What brand is the 50mm f/1.8 for $70? and where did you find it?

Canon 50mm/1.8

B&H

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home ;jsessionid=1WNrXkxOYN!-1694020175!67369938?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=12142&is=GREY

 

[nick onken149343]

The photos turned out well enough for the job and the budget. I was going to shoot film but they only wanted to do 3 rolls, so i opted for the digital so they could have more shots. For the most part they came out well for the situation. I'm more looking at the finite details for myself and future stuff. and was with a friend afterwards where we started really noticing it in detail.

I just noticed your other thread about how you didn't know how to
make only the center focal point active, you think this may have
played a role in your problems? If all 7 sensors were active, that
would most likely be your problem. The picture will still likely be
slightly softer than your P&S, as I referred to above. Again, this
is the kind of thing that happens when you do a paying job with a
camera that you did not fully know how to operate.

 

[Kristian Salo101843]

They are not the sharpest I have ever seen, but I still llike the quality...







--
Kristian Salo - Helsinki, Finland
---
IXUS -> IXUS V -> S40 -> G2 -> 10D -> ?
http://www.steelduck.com

 

[Juli Valley]

It seems to me that much of this stuff you are finding out now should have been done in the research for your camera. Spend some time reading around here. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=5418092

Do you have an external flash? If not, you are going to need one and that requires some research to use well, too.

Here's a basic article on editing. http://www.shortcourses.com/editing/index.htm

 

[tammons]

I dont want to start a war or anything, so flamers please dont dig in. I won't respond. These are just my personal opinions and if you like the 10D that is great. Actually I would have loved to keep my 10D as a nightshot camera, but could not justify it, so it got ebayed.

I have gone through 3 cameras over the last year. The last one was the 10D. Yep I bought into the lens argument, but wish I never had, because that was the softest camera I have owned yet. Notice past tense.

It is very soft and you have to sharpen photos almost to the point of halos to get them as sharp as I like. It helps a lot to use focal blade or nik pro. I was using a 28-135 lens and a couple of sharp manual lenses. I was so consistantly dissapointed that I ended up selling it after only 2 1/2 months. The 10D has such an aggresive AA filter that it kills all true sharpness. I am beginning to think they are holding back on their comsumer Dslr cameras to keep the pros out of them. The 10D is a really nice camera, great. Its a great body design and has great functions, its just a shame they did not put a weaker AA filter on it, but think about it, if the 10D was sharper than a 1D which would you buy. I know about the 45p autofocus and the fact that the 1d is a real pro camera but still.

At this point I dont think I will ever buy another canon camera again. I recently bought a 717 just as a p&s, and shot it next to my 10D and the 717 almost carries as much detail as the 10D! That was an eye opener. I am not very happy about the whole situation. I also had major major problems with overexposing highlights and bright contrasty objects. It needs a lot more headroom for sure. It was also the worst in that department by far.

So far I have owned the S2, 10D, SD9. The Fuji S2 in my opinion is much easier to shoot, great color, sharp and if you watch the histogram 95% of the pictures are almost perfect. It is a bit noiser than a 10D though. I have handheld S2 photos I have printed at 16x24 that were straight out of the camera and untouched. Very nice.

I originally sold my S2 so I could shoot manual lenses and for a mirror lock up, which the 10D has, but it is sold now. Too soft for me. I tried a SD9 about 3 months ago for 3 weeks and got a bad camera and returned it, but knew enough about them after that to keep me interested. I bit the bullet and bought another one off ebay, and I got a good one this time. Super super sharp.

The SD9 has a lot of problems though. Its terrible in low light or long exposures. Also the color is a little flaky and its noisy, but I would rather start off with a sharp, noisy image and adust the color then visa versa. You can only sharpen so much and it is a destructive process.

I look at it like this. 10D files are not absolutly noise free and if you do and aggressive sharpen on a file you will create some noise, so you are back to the noise problem again.

Also I res and dof tested my 10D and it was where it should have been.

After shooting the 10D next to the SD9, the Sd9 with the cheapest $100 lens sigma makes, shot at F8 would still be sharper out of the camera than the 10D with the 28-135. I know because I have a cheap left over lens from a Sa300.

So for the money, unless you want to go pro, it kindof breaks down like this, IMHO.

If you dont need to shoot low light and want absolute sharpness, the SD9 is my pick. I bought mine for $1100 with a 512cf and a 24-70EX lens. Thats pretty cheap. Thats less than a Canon 24-70L lens alone.

The S2 is the best balanced all around camera of the three and a lot of pros use them. The best for color and sharpness and it is easy to get great out of the camera photos with. Its sharp but not as sharp as the SD9, but it is miles ahead of the 10D. Just a note. If the S2 had a mirror lock up and could meter through a manula lens I would still be using it today.

If you want to shoot low light or high iso, especially with the IS lenses the 10D is a super camera. I just cant believe they did not build it at least as sharp as a S2.

Check out this thread I posted a month ago looking for people with your opinion about the 10D. You might find it interesting.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=5750024

I just picked up the 10D last week. I shot a wedding with it this
weekend. After looking though the photos, looking at the images at
100% in photoshop, they're really soft. I had a Sony F707
previously, and have compared my 10D images to the sony images and
the sharpness of the sony dominates the 10D sharpness. I've tried
unsharpen mask in photoshop, with the 10D images and still can't
get the sharpness of the sony.

I've got a Tameron 24-135mm on there right now, but I've been into
camera store and taken a couple shots with a Canon L glass series
and it's still soft.

A little frustrated.. yeah.. after dropping $1500 for a camera body
that has had nothing but great reviews, one would think that it
would give sharper images than a consumer sony without spending
hours of editing time.

Any ideas?

 

[David Kieltyka]

To me the image still isn't sharp. Look at the eye lashes - ear
ring - hair or teeth.

Apparently your definition of "sharp" is the excessively USM'd, artifacted grunge that most P&S cameras deliver by default. The Nikon D100 does more sharpening in-camera than the 10D. Too much IMO. But the 10D very slightly (too slight to really matter IMO) edges it out in terms of actual resolution. But, hey, if the oversharpened look is what you like then I suggest returning the 10D and getting a camera that delivers this.

-Dave-

 

[GBear]

ntxt

 

[BobbyC]

If you had to sharpen to the point of halos, then something was very wrong.

Have you compared any shots with film? I think most people are so caught up in this sharpness thing, that many are way oversharpening thier pics. All of my old film shots look softer than my digital files. Every high end scan I've had made of film, still needed some sharpneing before printing, and finally, as I think was said before in this thread, looking at a pic at 100% on the screen is not a good way to judge sharpness unless you print everything at that size (even then, the print will look better than the screen). The same would happen with a negative if you viewed it that magnified.

When I got my D30 a few years ago, I thought it was too soft too, until I started looking at prints instead of 100% screen shots, they were much cleaner and sharper than the majority of my film prints and the 10D is just as good. I've always used sharpening sparingly and get results that rival MF, in print that is, not on the monitor.

Not trying to argue, just adding my 2 cents.

 

[tammons]

I agree 100%, but after shooting a Fuji S2 that was so easy to get great photos out of I was very dissapointed. I just seems like if they are going to put that much effort into building a really super camera 10D body, they could have put a removable AA filter in it, or at least made it as sharp as the S2. Its probably just the nature of cmos.

One reason I returned my 1st SD9 and traded to a 10D was to have a more flexable camera that was IR sensative, but the 10D IR capability is just okay. My S2 was much better. That all changed when I bought my 717, which is a superior IR camera to anything I have used to date. The 717 jpeg artifacts are a PIA though. I modified it by replacing the internal hot mirror and I can shoot full IR handheld. Its really nice. Check out the picture below.

I shoot raw 95% of the time unless I am just documenting buildings etc, but I was having to spend so much time working my 10D images, I decided I would be better off starting with sharper images, so back into the SD9 I go. The only problem is now I am stuck without a good low light camera. Well I guess you cant have it all. I am interested to see how the 828 test photos look. I think they are going to blow a lot of people away.

Actually the whole 10D sharpness issue is overblown unless you are printing really big and yes, I would say they are sharper than a 35mm scan. I went that route for a while. It has its merits too, like full frame.

Thanks for the cordial reply !

Here is something thats pretty hard to do with a dslr. Infrared fisheye handheld. Its from my 717. Mind you I have to work these pretty hard and this one is a bit contrasty.

If you had to sharpen to the point of halos, then something was
very wrong.

Have you compared any shots with film? I think most people are so
caught up in this sharpness thing, that many are way oversharpening
thier pics. All of my old film shots look softer than my digital
files. Every high end scan I've had made of film, still needed some
sharpneing before printing, and finally, as I think was said before
in this thread, looking at a pic at 100% on the screen is not a
good way to judge sharpness unless you print everything at that
size (even then, the print will look better than the screen). The
same would happen with a negative if you viewed it that magnified.

When I got my D30 a few years ago, I thought it was too soft too,
until I started looking at prints instead of 100% screen shots,
they were much cleaner and sharper than the majority of my film
prints and the 10D is just as good. I've always used sharpening
sparingly and get results that rival MF, in print that is, not on
the monitor.

Not trying to argue, just adding my 2 cents.