Compare photos - Is lack of sharpness because of camera or lens?

[Brad]

Since I've had my 6d (about 2 years) I've said the photos were not that sharp. On a recent trip, comparing photos from my 6d with 24-105L, and my friend's 5D mk3 with 24-70L 2.8 it was once again really obvious.

My question is, are my photos less sharp than his because his camera is better? Or is it that the 24-70 2.8 is that much sharper of a lens? Or is it maybe that my camera or lens has something out of adjustment? I've experimented with every setting I can think of on my camera and it doesn't help.

It seems to me that the IQ of both cameras should be pretty similar, and from what I read the 2 lenses don't have any appreciable difference in sharpness, so I am just not sure why my photos are consistently less sharp and "real" looking than his.

My shot with the 6d and 24-105L

His shot with the 5d mk 3 and 24-70L 2.8

I really notice the difference on the deails of the fabric of my black jacket.

His photos are taken in L fine size jpg and mine are M fine jpg (sharpness set to max.) Yes the file sizes are different but I wouldn't expect that to affect the IQ. Another note, (I had to crop his photo in photoshop to get under the 5mb file upload size and that seems to have reduced its IQ a bit.)

Thanks for any ideas anyone might have!

[TCampbell]

Hi Brad! On the RAW thing... when you shoot landscapes, the scene tends to want a lot of dynamic range. JPEG is 8 bit... but RAW is 14 bit. This means the camera can grab more detail in the data... but mostly it can capture very subtle differences that a JPEG would flatten. The way JPEG saves space is by finding pixels with values which are so similar that your eye probably wouldn't notice the difference... and then it normalizes them to the same value so that compression works better. This means that if you've got some dark shadowy areas in your landscape (or bright highlights), JPEG will tend to flatten the pixel values to a tone very near black... when you brighten that up on your computer software, you just get a muddy gray, the detail doesn't recover. But if you use RAW, the subtle differences are retained (at a cost of a larger file size) but it actually recovers a surprising amount of detail as you adjust the image.

JPEG is great as a final output format. RAW is better for anything you may want to manipulate. Software such as Adobe Lightroom makes it pretty easy to manipulate your RAW images. Canon's DPP is great too... but DPP requires that you open your images one at a time... whereas Lightroom is much faster and easier to flip through your images (it opens the whole library... not just a single image at a time.)

Incidentally, the way I noticed the focus points is because Apple Aperture software (but don't buy that because Apple has already announced that they don't intend to continue development on it) has a mode which reads Canon's meta-data and will overlay the focus points and show you what the camera used. Canon's DPP has exactly that same feature. If you open the image in Canon DPP (Digital Photo Professional software... it was included with your camera) you can right click on your image and turn on the AF points and see the same overlay. It's a great way to find out what the camera picked as a focus point (as long you don't "focus and recompose the frame").

Don't be intimidated by RAW... it's no harder to adjust a RAW than it is to adjust a JPEG (actually it's easier because you don't have problems with detail recovery on RAW like you have with JPEG). Commercial apps like Lightroom use a camera "profile" and auto-apply the most common adjustments *just* because you imported the image. I mentioned I use Aperture... it auto applies roughly the same level of noise reduction, edge sharpening, etc. that would have been performed on a JPEG and this happens automatically at import time (but you can override it if you don't like what it wants to do.)

[Brad]

Thanks Tim. I got lightroom about 3 weeks ago and did some shadow, highlight, and color work on a few jpegs that I wanted to blow up and hang on the wall. It made an amazing difference.

I tried lightroom once with a couple of RAW images and they just looked terrible. I fiddled around a bit but obviously I didn't know what I was doing. When I get back from this trip I'll have to spend some time learning how to work with LR and RAW. 

Do you happen to know of any good books or instructions on how to work with RAW and LR? (Or even LR in general.)

[ebiggs1]

The thing to take from all this is, like I said earlier it is P-Mpix on subject.  It doesn't matter whether it is the 24-105mm vs the 24-70mm or AI-focus vs One shot or even jpg vs RAW.  He is simply putting more P-Mpix on subject.

When you do that, too, you will be happy with the results with your 6D.

[Brad]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

The thing to take from all this is, like I said earlier it is P-Mpix on subject.  It doesn't matter whether it is the 24-105mm vs the 24-70mm or AI-focus vs One shot or even jpg vs RAW.  He is simply putting more P-Mpix on subject.

When you do that, too, you will be happy with the results with your 6D.

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Got it. I set my jpeg to large fine (I assume that's what you meant by "He is simply putting more P-Mpix on subject") and some of the other suggestions so I will see how much that helps. I appreciate all of your suggestions and comments to help me out.

[ebiggs1]

Great! Have a safe trip.  Take lot's of pictures and have a very happy holiday season.  

[TCampbell]

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@Brad wrote:

Do you happen to know of any good books or instructions on how to work with RAW and LR? (Or even LR in general.)

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I'm still on Aperture (Lightroom's competitor) but Apple announced that they no longer intend to further development of Aperture, so I'll have to swtich.  But that also means I'm not a good person to ask for book or tutorial recommendations becuase I'm not a regular Lightroom user.

In general, Lightroom does have a "left to right" and "top to bottom" user interface in terms of how they lay out the adjustments.  In other words, when you are in their "develop" module (that's the module that allows you to apply all the sorts of adjustments you might do in a real darkroom working with film and prints... exposure, saturation, dodge & burn, etc. etc.)  they suggest you apply your changes in a top-to-bottom order.  

You could use *any* order (the software will let you) but they caution that some adjustments will affect the look of others.  For example, you wouldn't want to fuss with specific color adjustments until AFTER you've white-balanced the image... white balancing after adjusting other colors would throw off the accuracy of the color adjustments and you'd have to go back and re-work the color.    For this reason, they lay out the order of the adjustments so that if you work from top to bottom, then you're less likely to have to go back and re-work anything you've already done.

JPEG processing will apply white balance, edge-detection and sharpening, de-noising, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting about.  The camera profile will apply some things as a default (e.g. the amount of color saturation they think will probably be required based on the camera you use, etc.)  In camera JPEG would also apply color profiles.

Since just about every RAW needs to have these applied.

Apple's camera profiles include things like sharpening and other image-quality adjustments.  I noticed that Adobe's profiles seem to be mostly about the color interpretation.  Oddly... while I mentioned the top-to-bottom workflow, I noticed Adobe puts the camera profile at the bottom.  I think it really belongs at the top... the very top.  You should probably start by making sure the profile for your specific camera is applied as a baseline and then start adjusting from there.

[Brad]

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@TCampbell wrote:

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@Brad wrote:

Do you happen to know of any good books or instructions on how to work with RAW and LR? (Or even LR in general.)

---

I'm still on Aperture (Lightroom's competitor) but Apple announced that they no longer intend to further development of Aperture, so I'll have to swtich.  But that also means I'm not a good person to ask for book or tutorial recommendations becuase I'm not a regular Lightroom user.

In general, Lightroom does have a "left to right" and "top to bottom" user interface in terms of how they lay out the adjustments.  In other words, when you are in their "develop" module (that's the module that allows you to apply all the sorts of adjustments you might do in a real darkroom working with film and prints... exposure, saturation, dodge & burn, etc. etc.)  they suggest you apply your changes in a top-to-bottom order.  

You could use *any* order (the software will let you) but they caution that some adjustments will affect the look of others.  For example, you wouldn't want to fuss with specific color adjustments until AFTER you've white-balanced the image... white balancing after adjusting other colors would throw off the accuracy of the color adjustments and you'd have to go back and re-work the color.    For this reason, they lay out the order of the adjustments so that if you work from top to bottom, then you're less likely to have to go back and re-work anything you've already done.

JPEG processing will apply white balance, edge-detection and sharpening, de-noising, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting about.  The camera profile will apply some things as a default (e.g. the amount of color saturation they think will probably be required based on the camera you use, etc.)  In camera JPEG would also apply color profiles.

Since just about every RAW needs to have these applied.

Apple's camera profiles include things like sharpening and other image-quality adjustments.  I noticed that Adobe's profiles seem to be mostly about the color interpretation.  Oddly... while I mentioned the top-to-bottom workflow, I noticed Adobe puts the camera profile at the bottom.  I think it really belongs at the top... the very top.  You should probably start by making sure the profile for your specific camera is applied as a baseline and then start adjusting from there.

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Good stuff. I have a lot to learn about digital photo processing I guess. I've been pretty happy with what I've been able to accomplish with jpegs in lightroom so I'll have to learn how to work with RAW too. Thanks for your help Tim.

[ScottyP]

The 24-70 mk 2 will be a better lens but the 24-105 is reviewed well. Most reviewers had a hard time picking between it and the old mk 1 version of the 24-70 and the difference wasn't IQ but rather it was the IS and better focal range on one vs the wider aperture of the other. The new 24-70 is considerably better but the 24-105 is not suddenly garbage.

I think an upgrade someday might be good but maybe not necessarily your first upgrade priority. Instead of replacing not standard zoom with another one, do consider whether you might do better picking up a fast prime. (35 or 50mm) or maybe a stellar mid range zoom like the 70-200 f/2.8 mk 2. They will blow you away in iq and low light performance, color rendering, bokeh, etc. and you would be adding versatility to your lens collection by getting a different lens in there. Not saying that is the answer for you personally, just saying it is something to think about before laying out the cash.

One other thing you can do to add contrast/color (pop) to shots with sun reflection or glare in them is to always use the lens hood. Perhaps you already do.

[Brad]

Probably the first thing I should say is that perhaps "sharpness" was the wrong word to use judging by all the comments saything that the 24-105's image is very sharp. Sharpness is the word that comes to my mind as being a big difference but maybe there are different, more precise words (that I'm not using) to describe what it is I see as a difference.

That being said, there is some quality that I consistently like in my buddy's photos with his 5d m3 & 24-70 2.8L that I don't see in my photos with my 6d & 24-105 f4L (having compared hundreds of our photos over 2 years.) Obviously I don't know how to put it into words though. To me, his look more realistic and mine look softer and more subdued.

One thing I thought of...does the 5d m3 have a better jpg processor than the 6d does? Maybe that could be a part of it?

I shoot in RAW and jpeg and I have photoshop and lightroom, but I have never had success getting my RAW photos to look as good as the jpegs straight from my camera. Obviously I could use some lessons in lightrooom and photoshop.

And also, I shoot 5000+ vacation and travel photos a year I can't see spending dozens of hours processing photos in RAW to get them into a good-looking and usable jpeg format, so for that reason I use the jpeg out of the camera or manipulate a few jpegs with lightroom/photoshop if I'm going to blow them up to 20x30 or something. And again, my buddy's jpegs straight from his 5d m3 look good enough for me without the hassle of RAW processing--so that is my benchmark at this point.

***Does anyone happen to know if the 24-70 f4.0L w/ IS has an equal or very similar IQ to the 24-70 2.8L?

IS is more important to me than the extra stop, as I take a lot of handheld travel photos as night/low light.

I think that I'm going to rent another 24-105L and compare it to my 24-105L. That will hopefully tell me if there's an issue with my lens. Then I'll likely also rent the two 24-70s and see if either of them give me the qualities that I'm looking for. If that doesn't do it I might send in my camera to canon to make sure all is well with it, and if that still doesn't give me what I'm looking for I guess I'll have to upgrade to the 5d M3.

[ebiggs1]

Please don't take this wrong but I really see no use for the 6D except as a place filler in the Canon line.  I think Canon woke up one day and said we have no entry in the FF field before three grand.  Some people don't want to spend that kind of money.  We are missing a lot of camera sales, so let's make a 6D.

Don't get me wrong, it is a very nice camera but it is the entry level FF from Canon.  It has to be made less.

The 6D has a lesser AF system, it has two Creative modes, it has one memory card slot and a few other smaller differences. Other than that they have essentially the same shutter, sensor, color control, resolution plus ISO range. I am not trying to say there are no differences as there is some minor differences in the sensor and shutter.  Frame rate is a little faster on a 5D.  View finder shows 100%.  Plus the build is more robust on a 5D.  It is just a better camera.

In that same vein is where I see the EF 24-70mm f4 L.   Canon saw a hole in the price line and saw a need for something to fill that gap.  I tried one and was not really impressed as it reminded me of a 24-105mm that couldn't go past 70mm.  I don't buy a lens because it has IS.  It is good to have but not a requirement.

You have to keep in mind Canon does not produce any camera/lens that isn't pretty darn good.  You are just trying to get the best results possible in your photos and don't have the top of the line stuff. I bet had you not compared your photos to your friends photos, you would be completely satisified.

I have been borrowing a friend's G15 for a week or so.  It takes amazing pictures.  Are they 1D MkIV with my 24-70mm f2.8? Well you already know that answer.

As far as RAW goes, you must use RAW.  You simply must shoot RAW.  You have LR.  With LR the conversion is totally automatic whether it is 5 or 5000 photos.  With a jpg, you are throwing away about 50% of your photo info.  With LR you can add adjustments to one or all the photos with just a simple click.  RAW vs his jpg can level the playing field.  IMHO, I would prefer to use your camera/lens and shoot RAW than use his 5D Mk III and lens combo and shoot jpg.  LR makes RAW so easy, there is no reason not to use it.

This is my .02 and worth every penny.