Help - soft focus with Canon 7D and 7D II

[Kand]

Hi all, I am new here. I have been in photography for several years. I came upon this site because I am in NEED of HELP!!!! Quickly.

I am in my Senior Portrait season and getting ready to fly South to shoot a wedding in a month. I have been shooting with a Canon 7D for a few years and LOVED it. I recently purchased an upgrade- Canon 7D Mark ii. I am having issues with SOFT focus across the whole frame.

I at first was having this with just my new Mark ii- I actually thought it might be the lens (Canon 24X105) which I use on both cameras. NOW- I am ready to pull my hair out and scream, because I am getting soft focus on both cameras and all lenses. I have put them on a tripod and still issues. I am unsure of what setting I may have changed that could have done this, but I NEED HELP- ASAP.

I don't know what to do. I can fix some in post production (lightroom 5.7), but some are just way too gone. My other lenses are Canon 50mm, Canon 18X135, Canon 70X200, Sigma 17X50. Many pictures are okay if viewed 1:1 (100%), but 2:1 (200%) is aweful. I can't send work out like this.

I also have two new Altura Professional Series APC-958X Speedlite Flashes- Could they be the issue?? I have them on ETTL so they should work in sync with the camera or maybe I need to do something to sync them? They aren't working the best not giving enough fill light or way over exposed at times.

My photos previous to this were tack sharp all the way through the lenses- except- not sure about the Sigma as I just bought that when I thought my 24X105 was the issue. I don't know what to do, I can't do the many many shoots I have to do with not knowing if I am going to get anything worth saving- never mind the Wedding issue!!!

Someone PLEASE HELP!!!!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi,

I have copied this from the intro thread to a new thread here as far more will see it and possibly be able to help.

Warm welcome to the CiC forums from me.

Could you do me a favour please?
Could you click Settings (right at the top),
then Edit Profile (on left)
and put your first name in the Real Name field
and where you are (roughly) in the Location field,
then click the Save Changes button below and to right,
this helps everyone give you more personal and relevant answers - thanks in advance.

Cheers, Dave

[george013]

Hi all, I am new here. I have been in photography for several years. I came upon this site because I am in NEED of HELP!!!! Quickly.

I am in my Senior Portrait season and getting ready to fly South to shoot a wedding in a month. I have been shooting with a Canon 7D for a few years and LOVED it. I recently purchased an upgrade- Canon 7D Mark ii. I am having issues with SOFT focus across the whole frame.

I at first was having this with just my new Mark ii- I actually thought it might be the lens (Canon 24X105) which I use on both cameras. NOW- I am ready to pull my hair out and scream, because I am getting soft focus on both cameras and all lenses. I have put them on a tripod and still issues. I am unsure of what setting I may have changed that could have done this, but I NEED HELP- ASAP.

I don't know what to do. I can fix some in post production (lightroom 5.7), but some are just way too gone. My other lenses are Canon 50mm, Canon 18X135, Canon 70X200, Sigma 17X50. Many pictures are okay if viewed 1:1 (100%), but 2:1 (200%) is aweful. I can't send work out like this.

I also have two new Altura Professional Series APC-958X Speedlite Flashes- Could they be the issue?? I have them on ETTL so they should work in sync with the camera or maybe I need to do something to sync them? They aren't working the best not giving enough fill light or way over exposed at times.

My photos previous to this were tack sharp all the way through the lenses- except- not sure about the Sigma as I just bought that when I thought my 24X105 was the issue. I don't know what to do, I can't do the many many shoots I have to do with not knowing if I am going to get anything worth saving- never mind the Wedding issue!!!

Someone PLEASE HELP!!!!

What do you want more as being ok when viewed at 100%?????

George

[Stagecoach]

Welcome to CiC Kand.

I would suggest first that you post an image that you have concerns about the 'soft focus' and the settings it was shot at.

Is the 'Soft Focus' noticed on both the RAW and JPG files?

Is the 'Soft Focus' problem a concern when the image is downsized for screen viewing?

[DanK]

Many pictures are okay if viewed 1:1 (100%), but 2:1 (200%) is aweful.

This doesn't make sense to me. Errors in focusing should be more apparent as you enlarge, not less.

Can you post examples?

The flash should have nothing to do with this.

[inkista]

How have you got your autofocus set? Mode, zone, back-button, etc. etc. etc.

How do you know it's a focus issue and not noise, diffusion, blur, softness, etc?

[Kand]

How have you got your autofocus set? Mode, zone, back-button, etc. etc. etc.

How do you know it's a focus issue and not noise, diffusion, blur, softness, etc?

I do realize it is a focus issue!! After looking through a shoot, I notice That everything is tack sharp if I don't use the new flash. I believe it has to be a sync issue??? I am trying to find a hotline number for Altura now so that someone can hopefully walk me through flash setup. My old flash was not at all sophisticated, but blew on a shoot.

Can anyone help me with setting up and syncing my flash properly?

[Kand]

Sharp crisp photos.

[Geoff F]

I can understand problems with the 24-105 lens. I have never had reliable results from mine; but the 70-200 should be very sharp.

So if it is a number of lenses on two bodies I wonder if it is actually a processing fault. Any changes with your software, including recent updates?

What is your workflow? Downloaded as Raw?

Or could it be that two flashes from certain angles are producing an effect where sharp edges are appearing soft because you are losing any contrast on the edge?

[Kand]

The focus looks better as you step down in size. My photography use to be tack sharp at 200%, but now soft, no definition across the whole photo. You can tell where the focus was since I am shooting mostly portraits with brokeh.

[Kand]

I do realize it is a focus issue!! After looking through a shoot, I notice That everything is tack sharp if I don't use the new flash. I believe it has to be a sync issue??? I am trying to find a hotline number for Altura now so that someone can hopefully walk me through flash setup. My old flash was not at all sophisticated, but blew on a shoot.

Can anyone help me with setting up and syncing my flash properly?

[Kand]

My auto focus is on Manual- Single point AF

[Kand]

I will check into uploading a picture. I shoot in RAW only. I will shoot in both this afternoon and check to see if there is a difference. I am not sure about the soft focus when downsized for screen viewing. I alway edit in large format, but will check on this as well.

I just looked through some photos and at 50mm and the closer I get to subject, the better the focus. My 50 mm lense seems to be working pretty good- sometimes it gives a total soft unusable picture, but most at pretty sharp. My zoom lenses seem to be better (Not tack sharp, but better) at 50mm or less and closer to the subject. ALL distance photos are awefull!!!! I don't know how to get a full length photo right now.

Also, if I add people to the scene- the focus person is much better than the others. Shot 2 person photo at F5.6, ISO 400, 1/160 s, 35mm - focus person okay, second person total soft.

It seems to be basically to my zoom lense focus?

[Manfred M]

My auto focus is on Manual- Single point AF

Which means your autofocus is turned off? Try turning it back to auto.

With respect to your flash, it should not affect focus at all. If it uses e-ttl metering, all it will do is use the camera's light metering system to cut off the flash when the image has been properly exposed. If you are shooting at or below synch speed, this should be handled automatically. I don't know if this unit has HSS capabilities.

Unfortunately, Altura is not a brand of flash I have ever heard of before.

[Dave Humphries]

Kand, is the flash mounted on camera?

I ask because I think Geoff may be on to something with his last paragraph.

[Stagecoach]

Shutter speed at 1/200 or 1/250s with old flash and the new ones setting and syncing at 1/60s?

Should be able to confirm from the Exif.

[george013]

I do realize it is a focus issue!! After looking through a shoot, I notice That everything is tack sharp if I don't use the new flash. I believe it has to be a sync issue??? I am trying to find a hotline number for Altura now so that someone can hopefully walk me through flash setup. My old flash was not at all sophisticated, but blew on a shoot.

Can anyone help me with setting up and syncing my flash properly?

I don't understand you. How can something be tack sharp at 200%? Pixels are added that aren't there.
Are you having issues only with the new flash? And not without the flash?
You're not very clear about your problem.

George

[Kand]

I was incorrect about without the flash. I will get back to you more clearly - I have a meeting right now. I am meaning that the pictures are clear very sharp good quality at 200% usually- but not now. Very soft and try to use sharpening and lumin Lightroom to compensate. Many pictures are unusable at 100% and much worse as I zoom in at 200% to work on. If my image is sharp at 200%, I usually know that it is tack sharp at 100%. I work on close up photos to edit any marks. I will upload some photos later today for examples. Thank you for helping and sorry I am not clear.

[Stagecoach]

I don't understand you. How can something be tack sharp at 200%? Pixels are added that aren't there.
Are you having issues only with the new flash? And not without the flash?
You're not very clear about your problem.

George

George, I think there is a terminology confusion here with respect to what the 'problem' is seen as.

Kandie has mentioned 'Soft Focus', 'Focus Issue', a 'DoF' issue in post 13 and also 'Sharpness'.

The reference to 'tack sharp at 200%' is probably meaning that at 200% now they are not as sharp as what he was used to seeing at 200% before prior to this problem .

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Kandie,

Just a thought; have you tried shooting and importing a RAW from the original 7D to see if it is still as you expect?

I am beginning to suspect that maybe something has changed in your LightRoom (saved) defaults since you started using the 7D II.

I say this because as (I believe) you shoot RAW, unless you have/had? some pretty aggressive sharpening occurring (by default) in LR, there is no way that a RAW image, viewed at "200%" (i.e. one camera pixel shared between 4 monitor pixels) is, or was ever, going to be describable as "tack sharp". It just doesn't seem right to me that, for an image enlarged so big (in pure pixel terms, not any contrived length measurement), could be described so.

You are (we assume) shooting 5472 x 3648 pixels on the 7D II (vs 5184 x 3456 pixels on 7D), I don't know what resolution 'size' you monitor is, but let's assume 1920 x 1080, so by my understanding of "200%", that should mean your image is now 10,368 x 7,296 and take over 5 screen widths to get from one side to the other - does that sound like what you believe happens when you're in 200%?


Either there's something going on we don't understand* or there's a terminology mis-match between what you're doing and saying and what we think you have done.

* e.g. were you using one of the lower resolution RAW settings on the old camera?

Perplexed, Dave