EOS 5D Mark II seems to have grainy images?

[Betsywtaylor]

I bought this camera second hand from a friend who had barely used it. The images never seem to be in focus. When I crop them a little it seems to bring them into better focus... Is this normal? I have a 70D as well and it's images are so much sharper

[Peter]

Full size samples?

[Betsywtaylor]

I upload them into the photo app on my computer - honestly don't know if they are full size upon upload, I will check

Thanks

[TCampbell]

Did your friend fiddle with the AF micro-adjustment settings on the 5D II?  You may want to reset those.

[Betsywtaylor]

I don't know! That reset may be above my paygrade! I could take it int local camera shop

Thanks

[RobertTheFat]

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@Betsywtaylor wrote:

I don't know! That reset may be above my paygrade! I could take it int local camera shop

Thanks

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Not the right answer. You're now dealing with a fairly sophisticated camera. If you're going to use it successfully, you can't let yourself be stymied by a concept as simple as a reset. If you don't have a copy of the instruction manual, download it from Canon's Web site.

[Waddizzle]

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@Betsywtaylor wrote:

I don't know! That reset may be above my paygrade! I could take it int local camera shop

Thanks

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Do that.  Let a pair of professional eyeballs look it over.

[Avid1]

This post is old, but I am having the exact same issue on a used 5D Mk II that I bought  a month ago, with about 30,000 shutter counts. I am getting images that look out of focus blurry and have a strange noise pattern in midtones and shadows. The noise pattern kinda resembles that of halftone in photos that are scanned from glossy magazines. I have used both Canon and non Canon glass with adapter (which shouldn't matter anyway) with the same result.

I was surprised to see someone was having the same exact issue with a 5d Mk II, but I can't tell if they managed to fix it and how. The previous owner of the camera says he hasn't seen this problem with the camera. I haven't done any customization to the shooting modes. Here is a 100% crop of an image shot with this camera body and you can see the noise pattern I am talking about, as well as the soft focus, The image has a curve adjustment to bring out contrast and a little bit of sharpness in ACR RAW processor. The sand stone in the lower part of the image was roughly 10 to 15 feet away and I was stopped down to f/8 to deepen my depth of field:

[RobertTheFat]

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@Avid1 wrote:

This post is old, but I am having the exact same issue on a used 5D Mk II that I bought  a month ago, with about 30,000 shutter counts. I am getting images that looks like out of focus blurry and have a strange noise pattern in midtones and shadows. The noise pattern kinda resembles that of halftone in photos that are scanned from glossy magazines. I have used both Canon and non Canon glass with adapter (which shouldn't matter anyway) with the same result.

I was surprised to see someone was having the same exact issue with a 5d Mk II, but I can't tell if they managed to fix it and how. The previous owner of the camera says he hasn't seen this problem with the camera. I haven't done any customization to the shooting modes. Here is a 100% crop of an image shot on this bosy and you can see the noise pattern I am talking about, as well as the soft focus, The image has a curve adjustment to bring out contrast and nothing else. The sand stone in the lower part of the image was roughly 10 to 15 feet away and I was stopped down to f/8:

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What lens? What shutter speed? RAW or JPEG? If RAW, what photo editor was used to convert it to JPEG?

Are you sure the lens was set to AF? AF problems are usually more selective; i.e., not all of the picture is so consistently OOF. I'd suspect either a lens problem or motion blur.

It's hard to blame the artifacts on the sensor, as their orientation bears no obvious relationship to either axis of the sensor.

[Avid1]

Hi Bob, thanks for responding and trying to help.

This particular image was shot with a 28mm SMC Takumar (in M42 mount, no corrective glass in bewteen) at ISO 400, shutter speed 1/250 at f/8. Shot in manual focus mode, of course. At hyperfocal distance, stopped down optimally for deep focus and with a high enough shutter speed, I would expect a sharp output. This RAW image was processed with Phtoshop CC's ACR engine. Has a curve adjustment and sharpening of 42 inside of the ACR processor. This is what I do with images shot with other Canon bodies and get a certain result. The non Canon lens shouldn't be the cause of it. The halftone-like noise pattern is more disturbing than the soft focus at this point (it is still a concern, though). I don't know much about these sensors, but could it be somehow heating up or something and causing such anomaly?