EOS 6D zoomed remote live view sharper??

[emitc2h]

Hi,

I've got this Canon Zoom lens EF 70-300mm on my EOS 6D, connected via EOS Remote Utility on my Macbook Pro running MacOS 10.9.1. Everything is working great, and I'm really impressed by the level of details I can achieve by zooming on the moon:

I thought, that looks really amazing! Imagine what the shot will look like when I snap the actual photo with these settings. And then I obtain this. This is a comparison of the screenshot from Live View-Zoom View (left) and the actual shot (right):

I tried changing the image quality (I tried RAW) to no avail. I don't know where the loss of details comes from, I was wondering if anyone here had any insight on this or ran into similar problems.

Thanks,

Michel

[hsbn]

what is your capture information (shutter speed, iso, etc.). Did you use tripod? how is the noise reduction setting?

[SGFFX]

I'm very interested in learning why this soft focus occurred. What comes to mind is that the camera's autofocus changed the focus as the shutter was snapped. So I'm going to focus on that. 8-) What was the Live-View image after the shot? Was it as clear as the pre-shot version? In other words if autofocus chagned the focus during the shot that should be the focus of the Live-View image after the shot. At least I think that would be the case.

I have had a 6D for about a month. There has been a lot of discussion online about this camera not having good autofocus performance. I have noticed that autofocus performance is poor in low light. Maybe this is an example of that.

I have had good success with manual focus using Live-View zoomed/magnified to X10.

It looks like the autofocus was in "quick mode". Does the EOS Utility support Flexizone AF? You could try that. Another thing to check is the AF point. Was your focus point set on the moon?

[emitc2h]

Thanks for the comments, here's some more information:

- I did use a tripod, it's a Fotopro C5-i,and it was standing on a balcony which is not known for vibrating.

- The capture information is all in the first screenshot: 1/1000 shutter speed, 40 aperture, 12800 ISO speed, autofocus has been turned off, but in EOS Utility, not on the lens itself. I have been adjusting the focus manually in Live View. I guess turning off AF on the lens is something to try.

- High ISO speed NR is set to standard and long exposure noise reduction is off.

- The image in Live View zoom stays clear, before and after taking the shot.

Thanks,

Michel

[SGFFX]

I'm going to try this at home. My problem at the moment is that I can't get the EOS Utility to pair with my camera. I have windows 8.1. I can get DLNA to work but not the EOS Utility. When I get that working I will try some test shots to see if I get the same results. I will let you know.

[SGFFX]

Michel,

I used a USB cable for remote shooting with the EOS utility to see if I noticed a difference in focus similar to what you saw. I tried manual focus, Flexi-point, and quick focus with manual selection of AF point. I was not shooting the moon but in any case I could not duplicate what you had.

[hsbn · Accepted solution]

Can you try and turn off High ISO NR? at ISO 12800, you can lose a lot of detail with NR. The moon is pretty bright, so you don't need that high of an ISO. And the moon should be sharp even at slower shutter speed. So try slower shutter speed, lower ISO, turn off NR. Your shot looks more like Over NR than out of focus or camera shake.

[emitc2h]

Thanks to you both! I have a clear sky tonight, I'll give it another shot avoiding these potential pitfalls. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[emitc2h]

Using a lower ISO, and/or disabling the High ISO NR did the trick! Here are the new comparison pictures:

where I used 100 ISO speed, 5.6 aperture, and 1/80 shutter speed, disabled high ISO NR.

Thanks again!

Michel

[SGFFX]

Michel,

Thanks for following through on this. I took your suggestion to turn off High ISO Noise Reduction. The difference is great. I see much more detail in the image. I zoomed in at approximately 350% and there is a lot more detail without HINR. These are both large RAW images so there are a lot of pixels in each. So my assessment is that there is some in-camera processing of RAW images or HINR changes a parameter that controls the CMOS sensor. I had ISO set to 1600 for both images. The noise in both images is similar so at ISO 1600 there is nothing to gain by turning on HINR and much to lose. Thanks again.

Steve