7D producing soft image

[Wendo]

Hi I have been having trouble for some time with soft images from my 7D.  Any ideas welcome 

Wendy. <removed per guidelines>

[ScottyP]

Super general. Could be literally anything.

Please post example images.

[ebiggs1]

Wendy,

OK first off, the 7D can make superb photos.  But you need to seperate the three items.  The camera and the lens and you.  So which is it that is doing the poor job?

Reset the camera to factory.  Remove both batteries for a day or overnight.  There are two batteries!  Remove both.

That fixes the camera as long as it is not faulty.

I need to know what lens?

Now for the last part.  You!  Just exactly how are you using it?  Conditions? Settings?

[amfoto1]

In addition to the above...

It could be the lens... do you have an unnecessary "protection" filter on it?

I agree... what lens are you using? If you have more than one lens, is it the same with all of them?  Have you Micro Adjusted the lens(es)? If the lens or camera is slightly out of calibration and missing focus, images can appear soft. Micro Adjustment can help with smaller adjustments, but bigger ones might mean sending the camera & lens in for professional calibration.

Also could be the camera's sensor needs cleaning, too. That can make a surprising amount of difference. A lot of dust built up on a sensor robs a great deal of resolution from images.

Or, using really small apertures results in diffraction, which robs a lot of fine detail from images. (But it also usually causes any dirt on the sensor to show up more clearly.)

7D uses a fairly strong anti-alias filter, so images definitely need sharpening in post-processing. Especialy if you shoot RAW and keep the camera's sharpening set to minimal or off.

But, all we can do is guess at this point. If we could see some sample images, preferrably with the EXIF data still attached, we might be able to narrow it down a bit for you.

***********

Alan Myers
San Jose, Calif., USA
"Walk softly and carry a big lens."
GEAR: 5DII, 7D(x2), 50D(x3), some other cameras, various lenses & accessories
FLICKR & EXPOSUREMANAGER