Suckness battle: Me VS My gear !

[Brev00]

Mike,

To see the complete exif data on Flickr, click the three horizontal dots on the right and you will see the option to view exif info. Click on that and you will see quite a nice collection of exif data.

Raysha.

The images of Flickr seem too bright to me. I cannot make out the background lettering or textures on some. I would like to see what your kit could do without the added flash or, at least, with more -ev flash compensation. Also, you say you edited the raws in Lightroom but you did not say how much editing you did. Do you have a standard sharpness setting?

[inkista]

Mike,

To see the complete exif data on Flickr, click the three horizontal dots on the right and you will see the option to view exif info. Click on that and you will see quite a nice collection of exif data. ...

Or, alternatively, click on the Additional Info/Settings information (the iso/aperture/shutterspeed with the boxes around 'em), and you'll get there, too. The ... also leads to "View All Sizes" which is how all of us are pixel-peeping these images.

Raysha--if you don't want people to be able to download the full-size image from Flickr like that, you can change your settings to prevent it. Hover over your avatar, and select Settings, and go to the Privacy & Security tab, and change the Who can access your original image files? setting.

[Raysha]

In order to check your camera I would set it to green box mode on the dial and then go outside and shoot some images. Green box will/should completely control your camera and choose focus points etc and produce jpegs.....

You meant the intelligent mode I guess... I took a few shots while roaming around my house few hours ago : http://www.flickr.com/photos/113372983@N05/
(Upload will take 30-80 mins from now I think)

Mike,
... cannot make out the background lettering or textures on some. I would like to see what your kit could do without the added flash or, at least, with more -ev flash compensation. Also, you say you edited the raws in Lightroom but you did not say how much editing you did. Do you have a standard sharpness setting?

Only a single image was tweaked as mentioned before, because I edited it and the Org. Raw was overexposed with a lot of clipped highlights.

But the rest were only converted from CR2 to JPEG no additional adjustments were made by me (no output sharpening) , but flick itself did add an amount of sharpness to every single image i did upload.

_________

@Manfred: I am thinking of getting one or two Yongnou Speedlights with umbrellas for each one +for the speedlight I already have... But I am not sure if I want them yet, I wanna feel satisfied with results I get with what I have, learn to use them well... THEN I will buy more gear...

@Kathy: I see.. you saved me from spending like 10min-99mins trying to explore those matters.. thank u xD
This account is specially made for discussions with fellow photographers, No way I will show this to the public... its embarrassing y'know xD

[Stagecoach]

Redhwan,

Some very good advice already given.

When you have concerns regarding 'sharpness' and suspect it could be caused by camera or lens it's a good idea to place your camera on a tripod, select a subject with some good detail, use f11, base ISO and a reasonable speed and then study the image and undertake basic sharpening procedures.

If you can achieve acceptably sharp images this way any lack of equivalent sharpness with hand held images is due to the operator.

Grahame

[chauncey]

I assume that you're using AF on these images...does your camera allow micro-adjustments for your AF system?

[Raysha]

I assume that you're using AF on these images...does your camera allow micro-adjustments for your AF system?

Yep, I like to use AF most of the time.
I never passed any option that allows to tweak the AF system.

[Polar01]

Redhwan: I suggest strongly that you do not go anywhere near micro-adjustment of your AF system, this is sometimes done by those who spend more time reading about how to get an image sharp and wanting to look at an image at 100 to 200 percent, so they can say look at that tiny dot see how sharp it is. Well zoom out to see the whole image and you can not even find that dot.
You have more important things to do, learn DOF by doing, shoot then look real hard at the image, know where you focused then see what is and what is not in focus. I looked at you flickr account most of the images and I will assume you about the same age are of mid teens (at my age I would say kids), the shots are ok, Mike and Manfred gave some very good info on the images. You are at an age where most of the time you know everything, and how could it be my fault, however asking for help means you know that you do not know everything which is good so you are ahead of the game. Now we come to the "it must be the camera, how could it be me" part well it is you (or me) that is at fault as we forgot to adjust the ISO, or shutter speed, or f-stop, or incorrect AF tracking, or incorrect WB it is all about us making mistakes. We make mistakes, we correct them, learn then more on, if we do not correct, not learning from the mistake, then we will repeat that mistake over, and over. So you make a mistake, own it, correct for it and lets see some more shots, one or two at a time and learn how to post to this site as many like myself really hate having to go to another site to see some ones images that they want comments on.

Cheers: Allan

[Mike Buckley]

Redhwan: I suggest strongly that you do not go anywhere near micro-adjustment of your AF system...You have more important things to do, learn DOF by doing, shoot then look real hard at the image, know where you focused then see what is and what is not in focus.

Completely agreed and well worth repeating for emphasis.

[Inkanyezi]

Redhwan
The thread does have some good advice, although there may also be an AF issue with your camera. I was thinking particularly about image 4280, which is taken with the 50 mm stopped down to f/4, which is within the "sweet spot" of the lens (50 mm f/1.8). The sharpest part of the image is the closest eyebrow, although at f/4 some DOF would be expected. The right eye of your subject (the closest one, left in the picture) and eyelashes are not sharp. Even if the camera was focused on that eyebrow, the eye should be somewhat sharper at f/4. Probably the eyebrow is not in focus, but within DOF. My conclusion is that you might have a "front focus" issue.

Roger Cicala at Lens Rentals has covered a few of the AF issues in his blog:
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012...-canon-cameras

Just to be clear: it is not only Canon, but all "phase detection" AF systems not integrated on the chip and iterating; hence all DSLR cameras.

This can be tested, and there is some simple testing procedure that you can try to find out whether the lens/body focuses correct or not. You can do it by printing out a focus test chart and shooting it at an angle of 45°.
http://www.kscameraclub.org/docs/pdf...art_edited.pdf

To increase accuracy, you can make a target according to the image at http://foter.com/photo/focus-test-ch...y-tim-jackson/

Or perhaps even better, the target for accuracy could be a printout of the central part of a focusing pattern as for example this:
http://gear.benjacobsenphoto.com/wp-...cusadjust1.gif
Beware that it must be printed quite clearly, so you'd cut out a part of the pattern the size of the paper to print it on.

If you go to the trouble of micro-adjustment of focus, which can be worth the while for the f/1.8 lens, use instructions at:
http://travelthroughpictures.com/pho...-moire-reikan/

But - if there really is an issue with that camera body and all of your lenses, and you didn't have it before with another body, have the camera adjusted by Canon before going into micro-adjustment.

I am not shy of doing micro adjustment where such exists, and to my experience, most DSLR cameras do have focusing issues, back or front as well as hysteresis (not hitting the same focus each time it is actuated). But micro adjustment should not be done unless the body first is correctly calibrated.

[kintatsu]

I'm sorry if I didn't notice this in the replies. The one thing I would recommend is setting your camera to spot focus, and select a spot that most closely matches where you position your subject. Then when you recompose there is less room for error. This will give you greeater control of where you focus. Using the wider range of focus points or modes may be a contributing factor in the shallow DOF.