5dsr lense sharpness

[orc73]

Hello

As reported few months ago, sharpness on the 5dsr is pretty random.
I come from shooting medium format hasselblad where i usualy nailed focus at 3.2 on the 150mm.

I usualy shoot with strobes, and i tryed tripod and monopod, i tryed stabilized lenses.
If i shoot at f8, sharpess is ok.
Everything below is random. I mean from super crazy sharp to just usable in low res to not usable by my customers.

So as flash is not save, i assume movement blur is not really the problem. As tripod is not save i assume its also not me changing distance from the subject.

Then there are shots with open apeture super sharp, even outside the center, and some are even unsharp in the center. So not sure if lense quality is the issue.
I own 135L, 24-70LII, 100mmL, 50mm sigma art. I bought the 100 mainly hoping to help with the stabilisation, no help at all. The only high potentials ones i did not try yet is th new 35Lii and the super heavy 70-200mm f2.8 ii is.

The fact that f8 usualy is ok leaves it open if it is focus or lense quality.
What did you guys experince?

[NancyP]

Shutter speed and level of ambient?

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

It sounds like you had a focusing problem. It would be helpful if you posted images. Could be a camera problem but also some issue with setting up your camera, there are plenty of options.

The best way is to approach the issue in a systematic way. Shooting straight on is a good starting point. Are center and corners sharp? Center sharp and corners unsharp would indicate a problem. Either bad lens, but all lenses cannot be bad. Bayonet can be skew. Systemetic work is the way to find out issues.

Best regards
Erik

Hello

As reported few months ago, sharpness on the 5dsr is pretty random.
I come from shooting medium format hasselblad where i usualy nailed focus at 3.2 on the 150mm.

I usualy shoot with strobes, and i tryed tripod and monopod, i tryed stabilized lenses.
If i shoot at f8, sharpess is ok.
Everything below is random. I mean from super crazy sharp to just usable in low res to not usable by my customers.

So as flash is not save, i assume movement blur is not really the problem. As tripod is not save i assume its also not me changing distance from the subject.

Then there are shots with open apeture super sharp, even outside the center, and some are even unsharp in the center. So not sure if lense quality is the issue.
I own 135L, 24-70LII, 100mmL, 50mm sigma art. I bought the 100 mainly hoping to help with the stabilisation, no help at all. The only high potentials ones i did not try yet is th new 35Lii and the super heavy 70-200mm f2.8 ii is.

The fact that f8 usualy is ok leaves it open if it is focus or lense quality.
What did you guys experince?

[lelouarn]

Have you done an AF micro-adjustment on each lens ? At this resolution, I suspect it's a must if you want to erly on AF.
Another thing would be to try to use live-view focusing, to see if your pictures end up better focused. Of course, live-view focusing is not very convenient, but could help debug the situation.

[Ken Bennett]

It does seem like the most likely culprit is the autofocus. It doesn't have to be off by much to look pretty bad, but when it nails the focus, even wide open the 24-70, for example, is quite sharp.

If it were me, I would test the camera on a rock solid tripod, using manual focus on the Live View LCD, zoomed in to check, and shoot at various apertures with various lenses. If they all look good, it's probably the AF. If not, you can start to narrow down the problem.

[orc73]

It is the autofocus. Even at f8 i can see it slightly off. Of course i did the micro adjustments furst thing i got the lenses.
As its even on the tripod and with all lenses i guess thats a general problem - the canon focus mechanism might not be good enough for this resolution.  Of course it only matters with people or animals, where you really want the eyes in focus. Landscape or street will not suffer from this slight errors.

I got the camera to canon with the 24-70mm. Problem is the focus hits randomly. Usualy when something works under some circumstances the item will be declared as "within the specifications". guess they will not find errors with test charts and return with no changes. Worth a try. If it's not something they can fix i will have to sell the canon gear.

[orc73]

Kind of good news. Canon does not consider this normal and will replace some module under warranty. The 24-70 will be adjusted for a fee of 20usd. let's see

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Kind of good news. Canon does not consider this normal and will replace some module under warranty. The 24-70 will be adjusted for a fee of 20usd. let's see

Hi,

That sounds like a plan. I am/was puzzled by your reported inconsistency of the AF (depending on how you had it set up, and how well the AF micro-adjustment was done), because my experience with it (on other EOS  bodies) is that it is quite accurate and reasonably consistent, and within only a very small margin it can vary a bit, which is caused by the step size of the AF motors. I must assume that for the 5DS it should be possible to get consistent AF performance under normal light conditions. Dark conditions, or fluorescent light, and/or very low contrast features, might cause issues, but otherwise it should function well.

Some extremely wide aperture lenses suffer from AF issues, because the AF system can become unreliable when much wider than f/2.8 is used (possibly also due to curvature of field).

Cheers,
Bart

[nemophoto]

I have the 5Ds and just yesterday had to use micro-adjustment with my 25-70/4 and 85/1.2. The 24-70 was back focusing and I actually found it very difficult to adjust because at 70mm at f4, it was hard to really see where the camera was focusing on the Len Align target scale. I finally had to use one my sons as a "target". Only by focusing on his eye and seeing it slightly soft and focused more on his ear could I really adjust the lens. My 85/1.2 was far easier to use on the scale and I found it was slightly front focusing.

You may need to do the same if trying to adjust on your own. Canon charges ridiculous amount to do that if you say "calibrate". I did that with my 1Dx and three lenses, and though I'm a Platinum CPS, I ended up with a $900 bill!!

I find that with the 5Ds, because it IS so high res, it's far less forgiving with focus errors or movement. The price we pay for high res.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I have the 5Ds and just yesterday had to use micro-adjustment with my 25-70/4 and 85/1.2. The 24-70 was back focusing and I actually found it very difficult to adjust because at 70mm at f4, it was hard to really see where the camera was focusing on the Len Align target scale.

Yes, at f/4 or narrower, and with shorter focal lengths, there will be ample DOF to confuse a pin-point accurate focus distance determination on the  Lens Align. There is a more accurate method for very good lenses, although it won't tell you in which direction the defocus is centered. My (by now almost 'ancient') AF micro-adjustment target will show a maximum of aliasing induced moiré at optimal focus, and it will show reduced moiré (due to blur) when defocused.

I find that with the 5Ds, because it IS so high res, it's far less forgiving with focus errors or movement. The price we pay for high res.

Yes, when pixel-peeping, the 5DS will show any amount of defocus as obvious blur. Of course, for most output scenarios, that will be harder to see at actual output magnification. But that doesn't mean we can get sloppy at image Capture time.

Cheers,
Bart


P.S. I've also added a copy of the AFMA target here, and an example of how the aliasing/moiré might manifest itself on a camera's LCD display.

[orc73]

There was a huge impovement after getting the lenses centered by Canon and replacement of the module in the Camera.

However the camera s extremly sensitive and still relatively high ratio of unsharp pictures. Really need to have a focus point directly on the eye, and work with f8 for commercial work. Makes working from a tripod difficult for portraits and fashion, depending on your framing.
Product/landscape/architecture may be less critical.

Putting out the pictures at 12mp will hide those problems, if your customer accept that.
In general I would say, if you need high mp, medium format is tthe solution. I had more keepers there with shallower dof.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

There was a huge impovement after getting the lenses centered by Canon and replacement of the module in the Camera.

However the camera s extremly sensitive and still relatively high ratio of unsharp pictures.

Hi,

Good to hear about the improvements after Canon service had a look at it.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of your "extremely sensitive" comment though. Sounds like it's accurate but one needs to place the focus points exactly on what needs to be in focus, and the DOF is limited. If so, then that makes sense.

The camera only knows where to focus on by the user pointing the focus point(s) there, and the high resolution will make it easier to detect optimal versus lesser focused detail, but the actual DOF zone is the same if the output is the same as for other cameras.

In general I would say, if you need high mp, medium format is tthe solution. I had more keepers there with shallower dof.

The DOF is shallower because the focal length and on-sensor magnification is larger. I do not see how that affects getting more keepers, focus wise.

Cheers,
Bart

[Jack Hogan]

In general I would say, if you need high mp, medium format is tthe solution. I had more keepers there with shallower dof.

Smaller pixels will give you more localized detail (spatial resolution in lp/mm) aotbe but will look softer when pixel peeping, by definition.  Neither is necessarily a feature/issue depending on how big you plan to display, because what counts then is spatial resolution in units of image height which you do not see when pixel peeping.  Have you tried comparing images from the two cameras at the same display size?

Jack

[Manoli]

Here you go, Jack ( no need for modesty  )
http://www.strollswithmydog.com/units-spatial-resolution/

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I see three potential issues that could affect the perceived sharpness.

1. The camera misses the focus that the focus point is aimed at.
2. The focusing is not repeatable.
3. The focused image doesn't look sharp (compared to X, Y, Z).

ad 1: It seems that issue 1 has be solved. I assume additional AF microadjustments are done well.
ad 2: It's unclear if issue 2 plays a role, or that things like camera handling or moving subjects interfere.
ad 3: If only people learned how to properly sharpen their images, lots of diffusion (and confusion) would be resolved.

This of course assumes equivalent angle of view the images were shot at, and similar output dimensions.

Cheers,
Bart
Cheers,
Bart

[John Koerner]

If it were me, I would test the camera on a rock solid tripod, using manual focus on the Live View LCD, zoomed in to check, and shoot at various apertures with various lenses. If they all look good, it's probably the AF. If not, you can start to narrow down the problem.

Ditto.

[orc73]

after longtime use I can describe the results now with confidence.
1. Some lenses just do not focus precise enough sometimes.
2. Most lenses have weak spots, over the image circle. Of course mostly off center.

50mp will show those issues much more, while it might be hard to notice on the 5dm3 or so.
Besides of course shutter speed must be choosen carefully and tripod is recommended, both to avoid blur due unstabilized position as well as movement influencing the focus distance.

It would be interesting to see if images from the film days could still live up to expectations, these days everybody can zoom into a photograph even on a mobile device and complain about sharpness.