Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

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badlydrawnboy
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p.1 #1 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

I've been testing out my new 24-70 (with my 5D3). At 24, 28, 35 & 50 it is sharp wide open. At 70mm, not so much.

Here's 50mm @f/2.8 and 1/640:

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Here's 70mm @f/2.8 and 1/160:

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What do you think?

Dec 28, 2012 at 05:29 AM

Lars Johnsson
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p.1 #2 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

I think Canon should check your camera. I have seen 10-15 posts from you similar to this one with other lenses also.
And I don't think your way of testing lenses (both this or your Sigma 35) for sharpness is good at all. Every test shot that I have seen is an extreme close up of a small child and often wide open like here! How do you know the child didn't move two cm when you where shooting? Take test shots at a more normal distance and with a still subject. Maybe use a tripod also. Because you will move a little bit when shooting.
I would do it in another way than you. But if every lens you test isn't sharp enough for you. Maybe you need Canon to adjust your 5D3

Dec 28, 2012 at 05:49 AM

saneproduction
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p.1 #3 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Mine is sharp everywhere

Dec 28, 2012 at 06:13 AM

pipspeak
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p.1 #4 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Agree with Lars... if you really want to test a lens (not that I'd encourage endless testing) then set up a more controlled situation with a static camera and a static subject. I've not done any testing with my new 24-70 II but I've not noticed any particular issues.

Also, have you made any lens microadjustments on your 5D3? It might be that the 70mm end needs some adjustment dialed in to nail focus

Dec 28, 2012 at 06:22 AM

AGeoJO
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p.1 #5 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Mine is also sharp at all FL settings; easily as good as my 70-200mm Mark II at the 70mm setting.

I believe Lars may be right; it is possible that either you or your target may have moved some. Depending on the lighting conditions, the resulting shutter speed may not be sufficient to minimize motion, either camera/lens combo motion or model motion. No offense and to be frank, the sample posted of the 50mm setting doesn't seem to be critically sharp either. Sharper alright but..... To check for sharpness, pure sharpness that is, I am afraid you have to use a static target and put your gear on a sturdy tripod.

Dec 28, 2012 at 06:28 AM

PhilDrinkwater
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p.1 #6 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Mine is sharp throughout.

Have you micro adjusted?

FoCal pro can tell you how sharp the lens is at different apertures and lengths. Makes you feel better to see some numbers

Dec 28, 2012 at 10:00 AM

PhilDrinkwater
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p.1 #7 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Actually I'm on my phone and just zoomed into the photo. The second one looks like motion blur, not a sharpness issue.

Dec 28, 2012 at 10:02 AM

Marco
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p.1 #8 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

PhilDrinkwater wrote:
Actually I'm on my phone and just zoomed into the photo. The second one looks like motion blur, not a sharpness issue.

Agreed with Phil.

IMHO the shot at 70mm is slightly motion-blurred, it doesn't seem to show any issue with your lens.

My 24-70 II is slightly softer indeed at 70mm but this is because up to 50mm it is unbelievably sharp while at the longest setting it is only wonderfully sharp

As Lars said try the lens on still subjects, preferably on tripod.

Dec 28, 2012 at 10:35 AM

jcolwell
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p.1 #9 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

saneproduction wrote:
Mine is sharp everywhere

Mine too.

Dec 28, 2012 at 01:31 PM

Invertalon
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p.1 #10 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Mine is sharper at 24mm, but still very sharp at 70mm. Very comparable to my 70-200 II at 70mm.

Dec 28, 2012 at 01:44 PM

badlydrawnboy
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p.1 #11 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

I should have been clear that I'm posting 100% crops. These aren't really extreme close-ups.

A shutter speed of 1/160 at 70mm should be enough to stop motion blur, should it not? I was under the impression that 1 / 2x focal length with a FF camera would be sufficient. And the first picture at 50mm is 1/640.

I have calibrated the 24-70 with FoCal, and it returned a zero adjustment at 24mm and a -1 at 70mm.

I agree that a tripod and static subject would be a more controlled test. But I'm also interested in seeing how a lens performs in my normal shooting conditions. My 50/1.4 is very sharp above f/1.8 in normal shooting using the same technique and settings I used for these pictures. The same is true for my 40/2.8. The lenses I've had issues with are the Sigma 35/1.4 (obviously front-focusing by a significant amount), Sigma 85/1.4 (erratic focus) and possibly the 24-70 II (*maybe* slightly soft wide open, especially at 70mm).

Today I will try a more controlled test and see what I can learn.

And yes, perhaps I should send the 5D3 into Canon — with the 24-70.

Dec 28, 2012 at 01:56 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #12 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Dof might be the issue. In the 24mm shot, everything is within DOF. In the 70mm shot DOF at f2.8 is very shallow. And it appears like the focus was closer to the front edge of the cap.

Dec 28, 2012 at 02:05 PM

jwp721
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p.1 #13 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

badlydrawnboy wrote:
........A shutter speed of 1/160 at 70mm should be enough to stop motion blur, should it not?

Not always and certainly not if you are going to be constantly looking at 100% crops......

Dec 28, 2012 at 02:13 PM

badlydrawnboy
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p.1 #14 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Okay, I did some testing with the LensAlign target and a sturdy tripod.

Here's the first shot with no adjustment. It seemed to be back focusing slightly, so I tried some MA.

These are 100% crops.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Here's the second shot with -1 AFMA. It seems to have resolved the back focus issue:

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Here's one at -2 AFMA for comparison. Focus seems to be pretty close:

This image is copyrighted by the owner

They all seem slightly soft to me wide open — even after MA.

What do you think?

Edited on Dec 28, 2012 at 07:55 PM · View previous versions

Dec 28, 2012 at 07:45 PM

corndog
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p.1 #15 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Are these 100% crops? Let's see a photo of something like grass where MA doesn't matter because there's always something in focus. Sharpness and MA are two very different issues that should be immediately divided.

Dec 28, 2012 at 07:53 PM

Monito
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p.1 #16 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

badlydrawnboy wrote: A shutter speed of 1/160 at 70mm should be enough to stop motion blur, should it not?

Nope.

Maybe for film for 8x10 prints if you are careful.

But not for 100% crops from 5D Mark III cameras examined up close and personal. Not even close.

Seriously, today's standards are much higher than the old days when the one-over-focal-length guideline was formulated.

Seriously, you must be joking if you think that handheld photos of a moving child constitute a proper "test" of a lens.

Dec 28, 2012 at 07:59 PM

badlydrawnboy
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p.1 #17 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

Okay, I shot some pictures of a tree in my backyard to try to separate the sharpness and MA issue.

Focus point was the knot in the red circle:

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Here are three successive shots at 70mm, f/2.8, ISO 100 on a sturdy tripod, along with 100% crops from each shot.

Does this help?

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Dec 28, 2012 at 08:10 PM

stempsons
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p.1 #18 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

are these shots manually focused (live view 10x)?

Dec 28, 2012 at 08:18 PM

corndog
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p.1 #19 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

badlydrawnboy wrote:
Okay, I shot some pictures of a tree in my backyard to try to separate the sharpness and MA issue.

One problem with focusing on the front of something is that if the focus is even further in front, you wouldn't know. This is why I suggested grass, because there will always be something in the foreground and the background. Nature's test chart.

Dec 28, 2012 at 08:22 PM

badlydrawnboy
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p.1 #20 · Is your 24-70 II a little soft at 70mm?

stempsons wrote:
are these shots manually focused (live view 10x)?

No, they are auto-focused.

Dec 28, 2012 at 08:31 PM

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