6D gave me really blurry photos?

[Sophós]

Hello everyone.

I'm posting here hoping to find someone who can help me.

I recently got a 6D mark 2 to shoot my videos and it was all fine. Last night I was asked to take some photos during a meeting but I immediatly saw the lack of quality in all of them. I can't explain this absence of details even in the darkest enviroment or with the slowest shutter...

[diverhank]

Not sure why you think those pictures you took were blurry.  They aren't.

I could be wrong  but it appears  in both pictures, you have cleaned up the noise in post.  Pictures become softer if you do this. 

The man appeared to be fairly animated (read: moving around) and if you shot at 300mm, your shutter speed was a bit lower than it should be (remember the rule of thumb 1/FL?)...the light wasn't that great either.  Your picture looks about right given the circumstances.

The second picture...your exposure was simply too dark...also you should have used exposure compensation to get the face exposure correctly.  Besides that, I thought the photo looked pretty darn good for this lens @ f/2.  1/160 is better than needed for a 50mm FL and it shows...this picture was sharper than the other one.

Both could use a bit of white balance adjustment too, according to my taste.  Other than that I think your pictures are pretty good under the circumstances (lousy lighting).

[ivasale]

It isn't about the settings, the photos look digitally smudged. There's something wrong with the camera in low-light settings that doesn't happen with other cameras...if you can't see it then i don't know what to say. It looks off, and i've had the same experience. 

[AndreaW]

This is the EXACT same problem I am having with my new Canon 6D Mark II camera.  I never had this issue with my Canon 6D camera, therefore, the issue is not the lenses I am using because I tried using 3 different lenses and, unfortunately, had the same result -- fuzzy-looking photos.  😞

Would this be a camera defect?

[diverhank]

f/1.8 and f/2 will do that everytime.  People pay big bucks to get this effect and you are complaining about it...I don't really know what to say.

[AndreaW]

I'm not talking depth of field.  I'm talking about the image looks FUZZY!  Clearly, you haven't experienced this issue.  Good for you.  But, unfortunately, there are several of us that are experiencing this problem with the 6D Mark II camera and it leaves the photo with zero image quality.

[Waddizzle]

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@AndreaW wrote:

I'm not talking depth of field.  I'm talking about the image looks FUZZY!  Clearly, you haven't experienced this issue.  Good for you.  But, unfortunately, there are several of us that are experiencing this problem with the 6D Mark II camera and it leaves the photo with zero image quality.

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Some early production models did seem to have a misaligned AF sensor.  Maybe you have one of those.  If your camera is under warranty, why don’t you just contact Canon, and have them check it out.

However, if you say your photos are almost just like the photos posted by the OP, then neither of those photos appear to have a focus problem.  What lens are you using that causes you problems?

When an entire photo is OOF, then the most common causes are camera shake and too slow of a shutter speed for the focal length.  Can you post a sample photo, which includes EXIF shooting data, that demonstrates your issues?

[AndreaW]

I am not a novice, I know what "camera shake" is.  🙂  The issue is that either the entire image or the edges of the image is fuzzy (not blurry) and sometimes the background is extremely fuzzy to where you can barely make out what is there -- just like the images the other guy posted.  I have used various lenses, so it is not a lens issue.  And yes, I use expensive ones (i.e., Canon 70-200 2.8 lens).  

I've never had this issue with the Canon 6D camera, only with the 6D Mark II.  And thank you for the suggestion.  Tomorrow I will contact Canon because I have only had the camera for 1-1/2 months which means I am still under warranty.

Thank you.

[TCampbell]

The background blur is the result of depth-of-field.  Every lens will do that.  Many photographers are coutning on the lens to do that becuase they like the effect (tack-sharp subject on a creamy-smooth blurred background helps a subject "pop" and is generally regarded as pleasing to the eye.)

If you want to evaluate a lens or camera for quality, then you have to eliminate all the things that could possibly go wrong which are not the fault of the camera or lens.

This means... camera must be on a solid tripod (no hand-holding when trying to evaluate camera or lens quality).

You have to use a legit focus test target (not an everyday photo).

You have to control the focus point and know that the focus point is positioned on your test target (don't let the camera auto-select the auto-focus point).

The camera sensor really has no opportunity to make something blurry.  If you set up video screen and video projector and the image on the screen is blurry... is that the screen's fault ... or the projectors fault (or the fault of the person responsible for focusing the image)?  The camera sensor works the same way ... with one exception.  The camera has a focus system, so it gets to control the focus on the lens.  It is possible the camera needs to have focus calibrated and is missing focus.  But you would only know that by using a legit focus test target (typically these targets have something that resembles a rule or yard-stick resting on an angle and placed adjacent to the flat surface of the focus-test target.  You can then inspect that scale to determine if the best focus point was next to the test target (focus was accurate) or farther back (back-focus) or closer forward (front-focus).

You can use a product such as the LensAlign test focus calibration tool or the DataColor LensCal focus calibration tool.

When you inspect candids you will struggle to make those determinations with any accuracy.

[AnaNera]

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@AndreaW wrote:

This is the EXACT same problem I am having with my new Canon 6D Mark II camera.  I never had this issue with my Canon 6D camera, therefore, the issue is not the lenses I am using because I tried using 3 different lenses and, unfortunately, had the same result -- fuzzy-looking photos.  😞

Would this be a camera defect?

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I have the same problem, photos end up looking horrible. This is one of the fuzzy photos I got.

[AndreaW]

Yes, that is the EXACT same issue I have when I use that camera.  Unless I take photos outside in bright sunlight, I get the same "fuzziness" at different parts of the image.

I contacted CANON about this issue however, at that time, they said they had never received complaints like this before.  I was starting to wonder if only MY camera was defective.  Clearly, not as you have showed the same issue as me.  I regret purchasing this camera because I cannot trust it on shoots.

Good luck.