I misread the post above... forgive me... I was going to say, if somebody gets that sharp of a picture as a 100% crop, then something is SERIOUSLY wrong with my lens, and it's going back where it came from...
first file is full image taken from about 100 metres from the yellow helicopter on a recent trip trip to Franz Joseph glacier in New Zealand actually it was probably about 150 metres away. Taken with 24-105 and 20D all basically unedited accept for some sharpening as was a RAW file.
Call me a lens snob... a pixel peeper... or just too picky, but I like to pay more for my lenses than my first car (which was $900), and the whole idea of shelling out so much is to have the finest glass in it's class (within reason) so that I can give my clients the very best for their money.
I ordered some prints (4x6's, 5x7's, and 8x10's) of some of the sample shots I took with the lens, because I want to see what it's going to look like on paper.
If anybody here has some sharp 100% crops, please post... if I do see something significantly sharper than mine, I will definitely want to get it replaced. Otherwise, I hate to waste Amazon's time/money when I have a perfectly good copy.
Below is a full sized and original picture. This is 100% strait out of the camera (zero adjustments or processing)... I do set the camera to one notch sharper (as I always do for all my lenses)...
http://i37./25zjdyc.jpg
If you look at the rocks and wooden & metal rails, it just seems a little bit fuzzy or soft to me. Maybe it's just me.
I did do a side-by-side test against my 85/1.8, and the prime doesn't have that fuzziness or softness in the picture... but then again, maybe it's not fair to compare one of the world's finest primes to a zoom...
If that's the best this lens can do, I'm still very happy with it. If not, I would like to have it corrected. I just bought it, and still within the timeframe to have an exchange made hassle-free.
The 24-105mm I use is very soft, really awful to use... those look a little better than it; but still softer than what I've *heard* it can produce. When yearbook season is over, hopefully it can get a good calibration.
First of all, why is it garbage? Maybe if we had your infinite wisdom here, the OP would be all set with one post.
The horse shot, for you info, was a 100% crop of the original, it was not enlarged in any manner, so get your facts straight. When you view the image at 100% and take just a piece of it, typically that piece is very small portion of the original, maybe just 2.1325%. What the heck are you complaining about? It's just a screen shot of exactly what is on my monitor when viewing the image full size. I posted the whole image for comparison, as well as a version of the 100% crop if the image were down-sized to 10mp.
For your information, I've been shooting for 12 years and have a Bachelors in Imaging & Photo Tech from RIT. So just back up.
We are trying to determine the limits of a piece of optics. It has nothing to do with sharpening. You can sharpen alot of crappy images to make them look good. That is not the point of this thread. You introduce posting sharpened images and then you open a whole other can of worms and variables.
How sharp a RAW file is totally irrelevant. A RAW file can be as sharp or as soft as the piece of equipment taking it.
The whole point of a 100% crop is so that we DON'T have to post the original to see the image up close, you post just a portion of it. J****S C**** yourself.
-J
darryn patch wrote:
j***s c**** this place is going down hill with garbage posts like this.
Is my lens sharp? you then post cropped files. Where's the original to compare.
Look at the horse shot. The poster has cropped 97.8675% of the file and enlarge the remaining 2.1325% and then complains about sharpness.
Of course anything severely cropped and enlarged will look like dirt.
Now someones asking for 100% crops of unedited unsharpened files?
I seriously suggest you read some information on digital images and processing. With a statement requesting unedited files to determine sharpness shows you know nothing about digital.
your taking an extremally small portion of the full frame and enlarging to 100% of course it will look terrible. There is simply not enough pixels in the crop to produce a sharp image.
I bet if you took a 100% crop of a shot like that cat it would still be sharp.
Distance from subject effects the sharpness of the enlarged portion here is an example
This is full frame taken from about 3 metres away
crop
Now tell me that is not sharp
Distance effects sharpness maybe they need to teach that in photography courses.
I don't claim to be the smartest photog on here I'll leave that title to the tech geeks talking about pixel pitch and gapless pixels and all that other stuff I call rubbish. What I have is real world experience shooting, for years it was on a daily basis.
Too many people post, is my lens sharp does it front focus or back focus etc.
99% of peoples problems with cameras other than the MkIII owners issues are pilot error. But because the world trend is "its not my fault I am useless it must be the gear".
No poorly focused photo is ever the photographers fault. I bought a 10K camera it must be faulty. Couldn't be the user now could it?
darryn patch wrote:
your taking an extremally small portion of the full frame and enlarging to 100% of course it will look terrible. There is simply not enough pixels in the crop to produce a sharp image.
Distance effects sharpness maybe they need to teach that in photography courses.
I'm confused by the first statement. Why is there not enough pixels? The original image was 21mp from the 1DsIII. There is no more or less pixels in that crop than your 100% crop.
I alluded to that second fact with the photo of the goat. The closer the photo, the more detailed it appears. Thus, it is difficult to compare close up shots to landscape type shots for sharpness. Agreed.
There's really no call for rudeness here. The OP is just trying to determine if it's worth his while to try a different copy of his lens or send it for calibration. He should look at these images and decide for himself.
Regarding the goat picture, if you load the full-rez image and zoom into the white hairs on his nose, you can actually see pixel structure. That says to me that the lens is outresolving the 5D sensor. I agree that landscapes are more difficult, but there are a lot more variables there. Atmospheric scattering, high dynamic range, probably use of additional filters (polarizer, ND, etc.), where is the focus, where is the zoom, etc. all conspire to complicate the issue, making it impossible to know what's the fault of the lens and what's being caused by something else.
In any case, here's a landscape I recently shot and a crop. This is handheld from a 5D, F/8, 1/100, ISO-100. It's certainly not as sharp as the goat or cat, but those trees are 10,000 ft down on a hazy day. I used a cheap polarizer (probably a mistake) and there is a LOT of atmospheric scattering happening.
Hey Pal, there's no rudeness. Really, with this level of gear if YOU'RE not happy with it,
then nothing anyone can say or display for the web will give you closure. Send it in.
The rudness comment wasn't directed at you, trenchmonkey. I was referring to some of the earlier posts where things looked like they were heating up. Sorry for the confusion.
Ubunoir wrote:
The rudness comment wasn't directed at you, trenchmonkey. I was referring to some of the earlier posts where things looked like they were heating up. Sorry for the confusion.
No prob! Sure didn't want to start my morning looking like a bonehead...I've got all day to work on that.
Robert, if there's any doubt at all just send it in.
Really, with this level of gear if YOU'RE not happy with it,