10-22mm out of focus on 300d????

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

02/20/2006 08:39:19 PM · #1

I've had the lens for awhile now but haven't had a lot of time to play with it.. but I've taken a few hundred shots, and I'd say over 50% of them are out of focus and maybe 10% are really sharp. In comparison, I can't remember the last time I had an out of focus shot using my 50mm 1.8, and very few with the 28-105mm For example I took a few dozen shots last night (all on a tripod with mirror lockup and a remote cable release) so chances of camera shake are pretty much ZERO. Every shot with the 50 1.8 turned out perfect, there's one shot from the 10-22mm that is half acceptable. I'll include a 100% crop with each lens... different perspectives but you'll get the idea. (on the other had I have gotten a few shots with the 10-22mm that absolutely blow away the 50mm in terms of sharpness)

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

02/20/2006 08:59:43 PM · #2

What were the camera settings?

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

02/20/2006 09:07:08 PM · #3

for those two shots...
AV mode
F/9 (also had a few F/5.6) but same results
iso 100
22mm 10sec
50mm 15sec
raw
both lenses in autofocus mode

undieyatch

Olympus E-10

02/20/2006 09:25:04 PM · #4

Looks unusual.... might be a auto focus problem... did you try some manual focus to compare?

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

02/20/2006 09:29:07 PM · #5

ya, that 10-22 shot isn't even close to good...

02/20/2006 09:57:02 PM · #6

I think it has to do with camera shake...when you're shooting really wide, I know it doesn't make sense, but any movement is exagurated in a weird way...the 50 1.8 shot isn't exactly sharp either, I can see some movement in that one also...

If you're testing sharpness of a lens, why would you choose to shoot a 10-second shot? You should go out in the sun.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

02/20/2006 10:18:15 PM · #7

I wasn't testing for sharpness, I was taking pictures...
and it's unlikely that all the pictures with the 10-22mm had camera shake..

srdanz

Canon EOS-5D Mark IV

02/21/2006 12:26:58 AM · #8

I don't own a 10-22, but here is some food for thought:
Is it much heavier than 50 f/1.8? It ought to be, as 50mm is the lightest lens I've ever held in my hands.

What kind of tripod did you use - it is possible that the balance was just slightly off when 10-22 is attached to digreb body, and any vibration would show up more on the 10-22 shots than on the 50mm shots.

As someone else suggested, try shooting in the bright sunlight, so that your shutter speed does not go below 1/60... that should prove something.

my 0.02

-Serge

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

02/21/2006 12:31:56 AM · #9

Originally posted by srdanz:

I don't own a 10-22, but here is some food for thought:
Is it much heavier than 50 f/1.8? It ought to be, as 50mm is the lightest lens I've ever held in my hands.

-Serge

It's pretty hefty compared to the 50mm, yes. 13.6 oz vs 4.6 0z...

R.

tsheets

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

02/21/2006 11:55:42 AM · #10

Originally posted by deapee:

I know it's a little off topic for this thread, but I don't understand this. I thought it was actually the opposite. Can someone explain?

Creature

Nikon D70s

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED

02/21/2006 01:41:37 PM · #11

You might have a backfocus problem, where the path to the AF sensor is not exactly the same distance as the path to the CMOS sensor, so the AF sensor sets the focus a tiny bit off from what the image sensor will see. A simple way to test this is to have the camera autofocus on something relatively close (use an object with a sharp edge in good light and a tripod) and then switch it to manual focus, then move the tripod back about 1/4" or 1/2" at a time taking shots at each step along the way. If one of those subsequent shots comes out sharper, then you have backfocus. It can be typically be adjusted by the manufacturer, a local shop, or by you if you're brave. Or, if one lens is really sharp and the other is not, it might just be the lens itself that needs to be calibrated.

PhilipDyer

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

02/21/2006 02:06:09 PM · #12

I would be very surprised if the problem were not camera shake, even on all of the images you took that night. I agree that you should try shooting again with good light and fast shutter speeds. Please let us know when you do this because I'd love to find out if this problem persists on your camera. Thanks!

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

02/21/2006 02:16:15 PM · #13

Originally posted by tsheets:

Originally posted by deapee:
I think it has to do with camera shake...when you're shooting really wide, I know it doesn't make sense, but any movement is exagurated in a weird way...the 50 1.8 shot isn't exactly sharp either, I can see some movement in that one also...

I know it's a little off topic for this thread, but I don't understand this. I thought it was actually the opposite. Can someone explain?

You're correct. All other things being equal, a shorter focal length will allow a slower shutter with the same risk of visible shake. The ol' "one over focal length rule" implies this, and though some folks are steadier than others, for the same shooter, a wider focal lenght will almost invariably yield better results at the same shutter speed, or allow a longer shutter opening with the same results.
the length and mass of the lens can have an effect, since it's almost purely the angular shake (rotation of the camera & lens) that is visible. Normally, a longer, heavier lens is a bit easier to steady against angular shake, though there is a limit to that, and the opposite is normally true on a tripod.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

02/21/2006 02:32:07 PM · #14

BTW, I looked at both shots, and I assume they are 100% crops and unsharpened? The 10-22 shot does not look OOF to me. Look at the chain link fence, you can clearly see the uprights and top bar, and they are little more than a pixel or two wide.
In any case, at f/9 it's going to be near impossible to get an OOF shot with subject that far away. If you're focussed at infinity, you still will have everything from 11 feet out to infinity in focus at f/9, even at the 22mm end. At the 10mm end, make that 2.28 feet to infinity. Expressed another way, at 22mm & f/9, you can be focussed anywhere between 11 feet and infinity and you'll get results that basically are indistinguishable.
FWIW, I used the Dofmaster online calculator, and a custom-set CoC of 0.016mm, which gives a relatively conservative number for DoF.

Mr_Pants

SiPix Blink

02/21/2006 03:20:10 PM · #15

The 10-22 shot sharpens up nicely with a little USM (granted it's a small file). Even so, for a 100% crop it's not too bad IMO. How stable is your tripod. For instance, could it be suffering from vibration from an external source?

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

02/21/2006 04:19:55 PM · #16

Originally posted by tsheets:

Working with extreme wide angle and very fine detail, we actually have detail too small for the sensor to resolve, and quite a lot of it. So just the tiniest bit of shake/vibration can muddy these minute details uo beyond repair, and this really shows up when you magnify way into the image. I've found it's vital to use the pripod for really crisp extreme WA shots with my 10-22mm; many of mine are not even close to critical acuity even though they are shot at like 1/125 in bright daylight, handheld.

These extreme WA lenses often "disappoint" by appearing to be not-sharp, but curiously the more you zoom in on them in photoshop, up to a point, the sharper they appear; the opposite of what you get with telephotos, really. A 10mm shot of a complex, detailed landscape simply cannot be made to look "sharp at 640 pixels, the details are smaller than the pixel resolution can capture. The only solution is to USM the heck out of them, and this leads many people to cry "oversharpening", very frustrating.

A good example is this one; at 11x14 it positively SCREAMS with luminosity, it's sharp as a tack... But to even approximate that crispness, I had to way oversharpen it at 640 pixels, and many commented upon this. I'm still seeking a solution to this problem.

Robt.

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

02/21/2006 04:42:39 PM · #17

Originally posted by tsheets:

Basically, it is the opposite -- the longer the focal length, the worse the camera shake, the shorter the shutter speed you need, etc...

Like I said though, working with an ultra wide (10mm or 12mm or so) it just throws everything off -- because in certain spots of the image, a tenth of a degree of movement will cause the subject to move across the sensor faster than say a 50mm would...like I said, it's weird though and goes against what we have all been taught -- you almost have to experience it to understand.

tsheets

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

02/21/2006 04:56:50 PM · #18

Interesting.... 1/focal length shutter speed unless you're ultra-wide. :-)

Really, thanks for the responces Kirbic/Bear. Makes sense, now.

Great shot, as well, Bear! Very unique cloud orientation.

02/21/2006 05:07:02 PM · #19

Originally posted by tsheets:

Really, thanks for the responces Kirbic/Bear. Makes sense, now.

You're welcome that I went out of my way also to answer a question for you. Glad it helped.

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

02/21/2006 05:07:55 PM · #20

And it's not necessarily 1/focal length unless you're ultra wide -- I can shoot easily at 1/10 of a second at 10mm, but it's just that any shake is sort of magnified.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

02/21/2006 05:09:31 PM · #21

Originally posted by tsheets:

Interesting.... 1/focal length shutter speed unless you're ultra-wide. :-)

Really, thanks for the responces Kirbic/Bear. Makes sense, now.

Great shot, as well, Bear! Very unique cloud orientation.

What Deapee is referring to is the fact that for VERY wide rectilinear lenses, objects are perceptibly stretched near the edges of the frame, thus, a subject that occupies one degree will appear larger at the periphery than at the center. The implication of this is that shake will affect the periphery more than the center. We're talking about an effect of a magnitude less than 2x, and localized to the frame edges. The increase in shake susceptibility due to this is less than the decrease due to the smaller focal length, but the bottom line is that the gain in allowable shutter speed is partly offset by this effect, at least at the periphery.
FWIW, this is not true for fisheye lenses, where the angle per mm of image on the sensor is constant.

tsheets

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

02/21/2006 06:46:41 PM · #22

Originally posted by deapee:

Originally posted by tsheets:

Really, thanks for the responces Kirbic/Bear. Makes sense, now.

You're welcome that I went out of my way also to answer a question for you. Glad it helped.

Sorry about that, deapee. I was responding from work and got distracted by what I was *supposed* to be doing. :-) Your's wasn't yet in the chain when I hit the reply button, but was by the time I hit 'post'.

I *do* appreciate everyone's explanations. Learn something every day!

02/21/2006 07:31:59 PM · #23

Thanks for all the input everyone.. I'm going to have to check the backfocus problem, as camera shake is hard to believe on every shot.
I have manfrotto 055 legs (3021 in the USA) and 141 3way head (center column not extended) using a wired remote and mirror lockup.
I have taken some daytime good lighting handheld shots and it was probably 50/50 on in focus/out of focus shots.. with only about 10% being sharper than my 50mm 1.8
I really do love the lens, when it's sharp it's VERY sharp, when it's not it looks worse than daughters 2mp 5 year old canon.

02/21/2006 07:35:59 PM · #24

Originally posted by rwaudio:

You do what you gotta do, but you do realize that even if your camera is backfocusing, you're still going to be focused to infinity at 10mm f/9 pretty much anywhere you point it.