7D Mark II - Soft Images?

[scarletti]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

Thanks again Mr Fox

o.k have you tuned it up via the hub i.e using C1 or C2 on the lens employed main focus point priority and dynamic o.s

Yes, I did, and to be honest, it made no difference.

if yes the only other answer could be in your p/p i have seen you mention lightroom ,but not photoshop ,these days i use a combo of lightroom and photoshop CC combined with nik efex colour to achieve the end result .

I did read that the 7Dii needs a lot of sharpening, which I've also tried. Granted, it does make a bit of a difference. Do you have a "standard" set of processing settings that I could try?

As a matter of interest, do you think the picture I posted above is soft?

[the black fox]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

i don't think i could explain my p/p as i don't fully understand it myself yet ,it was set up by my son i just follow the directions and only been using it a week .
now coming back to your picture ian ,i have looked at it closely on flickr and i really think your confusing sharpness with depth of field ,the bird is tack sharp on the eye where it matter ,the wing feathers and insects are both slightly forward of the eye so its the d.o.f thats causing an illusion of softness .i find you have to be quite careful of that with these long reach lenses on close birds the closer you are the more it shows up.
ah i was right just been back for a second look and it was shot at f6.3 i.e wide open theres your problem for definete its purely d.o.f with the 400mm f5.6 you could shoot wide open with little problems with this lens i find f8 to be the sweet spot

[scarletti]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

Thanks yet again Mr Fox, your input has been really helpful.

I understand what you are saying about DOF, so I'll try F8 as standard for a while.

I thought that even the eye was soft, but two people have now said it is sharp.

Time to put my reservations aside and just get on with using the darned thing!!

Really appreciate your time in looking at this for me.

[GORDH]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

As I said earlier re stopping down a bit to f8 and as Jeffs aluded to above, the depth of field on these long lenses doesnt make a huge difference ie front to back sharpness at any great distance but what it will/should do is sharpen around the focus point in your case the eye of the bird,its a learning curve with these lenses and like Jeff states he bins roughly 75% of his shots and you only get to see the best images which can skew your thinking, in that you and your camera are failing when you see the stunning images on here and other sites, believe me your not as I can confirm I have a similar bin rate esp bif, getting back to the shot you posted you should be happy with that

[scarletti]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

Thanks Gord

[El Sid]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

Are we talking about the avocet picture? If we are then yes it looks soft to me but probably about what I'd expect from a really long zoom wide open. By comparison the nuthatch is beautifully sharp even though the lens is again wide open - which is not unexpected from a prime L lens which is far less compromise of a design than even the best zoom can be. FWIW I have a 200-400mm f5.6 Tamron which is similarly soft wide open but sharpens up considerably even at f7.1 which isn't even the traditional whole stop down.

Incidentally are you working hand held or using a support such as a beanbag or tripod? 600mm on a crop frame camera is equivalent to nearly 1000mm on full frame and to be honest the famous 1/focal length guide to shutter speed rather drops off badly. At 50mm equivalent the rule works but at 20x that it's probably not valid at all and even the tiniest vibration could potentially blur a shot.

[scarletti]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

Thanks for your input, Nigel.

Yes, I was talking about the Avocet. That was taken while resting the lens on the frame of a bird hide, and at 1/2500s, I think I can pretty much rule out movement being the cause of the softness.

You're not the first to point out that the softness may be due to having the lens wide open. Next time I'm in a bird hide, I'll take some shots at a range of different apertures, and see how much difference it makes.

Having read other posts, I've also got a lot more "aggressive" with the post process sharpening, which has also helped a bit.

Hopefully, the combination of micro adjustment with Reikan Focal, stopping the lens down, and increased sharpening will finally lay my doubts to bed.

[ColytonJohn]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

< snip >
Next time I'm in a bird hide, I'll take some shots at a range of different apertures, and see how much difference it makes.
< snip >

Your tests really need to be performed in a consistent manner so I'd be inclined to make them away from the hide by setting up a 'target' with no variations to skew your results.

I'm following this with interest as I'm considering a 7D2 so good luck

Cheers,
John

[El Sid]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

Thanks for your input, Nigel.

Yes, I was talking about the Avocet. That was taken while resting the lens on the frame of a bird hide, and at 1/2500s, I think I can pretty much rule out movement being the cause of the softness.

Might be worth investing in a good bean bag as these help suppress vibrations. Even vibrations transmitted to the lens by contact with hard surface can be detrimental to absolute sharpness. One NH photography lecturer who came to my club said he preferred bean bags where possible to tripods as he got sharper images thanks to the support and vibration absorbency they offer.

[paul linton]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

There's an awful lot of advice here so i won't add anymore, But looking on your flickr at the butterflies they look pin sharp so not sure it's the 7D mkII that's the problem.

Paul

[scarletti]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

John... point taken about setting up something more scientific.

Nigel... I hadn't thought about using a bean bag when resting on the frame of a bird hide, so I'll give that a go next time as well. More weight to carry about!!

Paul... The butterfly shots were all manual focus, and virtually filled the frame. Bird photos that have similarly filled the frame have also been sharp. My main concern was that shots that partially filled the frame didn't seem sharp anywhere.

I managed to fire off a few frames today in less than perfect conditions. I stuck to f8 and used a Lightroom setting of 70 (instead of the default 25) for sharpening. They won't win any prizes, and I'll probably delete them, but they certainly seem a lot better than some of my earlier attempts. I've also re-processed some of my earlier attempts with much more sharpening, and they also look much better.

I'm beginning to realise that there is much more of a learning curve than I had expected with the 7D Mk ii (having upgraded from a 50D).

Thanks again to all who took the time to offer their thoughts and advice.

[Treff]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

I've been following this thread with interest. A few things you may try and may already know. In LR when sharpening turn off the detail
slider completely. That's in sharpening, noise reduction and colour. If you have PS use the unsharp tool has well. I think you will get better sharpness
without introducing to much noise. Good luck

[Treff]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

I've been following this thread with interest. A few things you may try and may already know. In LR when sharpening turn off the detail
slider completely. That's in sharpening, noise reduction and colour. If you have PS use the unsharp tool has well. I think you will get better sharpness
without introducing to much noise. This is of course after using fastest speed possible and anything above f8. Good luck

[scarletti]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

A few things you may try and may already know. In LR when sharpening turn off the detail
slider completely.

Hmmm, thanks Treff, another thing I hadn't considered. I just assumed that Adobe would have got things more or less correct with the defaults.

I've just tried that with one of today's shots, and for the same sharpening amount (70), setting detail to zero seems to produce a picture that appears to be slightly less sharp, but has WAY less noise. Increasing the amount to 80, with detail at its default value of 25, looked obviously oversharpened. Increasing the amount to 80, but reducing detail back to zero takes away the oversharpened look.

Just when I thought I had Lightroom tamed!!

[the black fox]

Re: 7D Mark II - Soft Images?

Another couple of points raised in here that need commenting on ,as long as I have been doing wildlife the rule of thumb has been exposure = focal length plus crop factor so a 400mm lens should be a minimum of 1/600th sec ,with the advent of these super sensors and there higher iso limits they reckon it should now be x 2 plus crop so with my 600mm I am looking for over 1/1600th sec for sharp shots .

The next thing I have seen mentioned is mushy shots when p.p in Lightroom apparently the same shots p.p in DPP initially are far better?? This has come from the very top of stream of wildlife toggers