Not great images with new 6D. Please take a look and give me your thoughts

[Brad]

I'm going on a 2 week trip to Japan in 3 days so I'm hoping to figure this out before I leave.

I got my new 6d with 24-105 L lens kit, and also the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. It doesn't seem like any of the photos are that sharp without a very high contrast shot in full sunlight. Indoor shots or those with lower contrast (tree bark, leaves, something in the shade, etc.) seem pretty unsharp to me. I'm not sure if the AF just can't get a precise focus, or if the sensor just can't get good detail unless those conditions are met.

This is my first DSLR, although I've had film SLRs for 30+ years before that, and digital point and shoots for the last decade or so. I'm not sure if my expectations were too high or if there's something wrong with the camera, lenses, AF, or IS systems, or if I'm doing something wrong.

Some photos are below. I shot them all above the 1/focal length rule and some 2x or 3x or more above that, so in theory that would eliminate the camera shake issue, and also in theory the IS system should give you 2-3 stops so it doesn't seem to me that camera shake should be the issue. (I've also taken tripod shots and had the same issue so I don't think it's camera shake.)

All are large fine jpegs (20mb) straight from the camera, blown up to 100%.


santa1 Indoors daylight, no interior lights on, 24mm focal length, 1/30, ISO 1000

santa2 Indoors daylight, with interior lights on, 105mm focal length, 1/125, ISO 6400

santa3 Indoors daylight, with interior lights on, 300mm focal length, 1/320, ISO 10000

santa4 Indoors daylight, with interior lights on, 300mm focal length, 1/640, ISO 20000

wall1 outdoors, 105mm focal length, 1/500, ISO 100

wall2 outdoors, 270mm focal length, 1/500, ISO 100

treebark1 outdoors, 70mm focal length, 1/125, ISO 25600

treebark2 outdoors, 300mm focal length, 1/320, ISO 25600

license1 outdoors, 300mm focal length, 1/320, ISO 25600

leaves1 outdoors, 70mm focal length, 1/320, ISO 25600

leaves2 outdoors, 300mm focal length, 1/320, ISO 500

truck, 105mm focal length, 1/250, ISO 100

Other than the truck badge and maybe the wall photos (high contrast, full sunlight), most of them don't seem that sharp to me. What do you guys think? Most people are raving about how good the low light performance is on the 6d but I'm just not seeing it, not even in moderate light.

Here's a link to where someone compares a few different cameras one of them being the 6d. My images are not as sharp as them as far as I can tell.
http://www.etherpilot.com/photo/test/misc/6d_5d3_d600_colfix.jpg

Any thoughts or suggestions you can give are greatly appreciated! Thanks! 

[RoadRunner]

http://www.flickr.com/groups/eos6d/

It's the 6D group on Flickr. Now I think to be fair to yourself don't post 100% crops but there's more than a fair amount of very good shots there. Remember that you've bought a very good camera though it is an entry level and Canon's first entry into this levle of FF. Check your meter. Check your picture style. Adjust it if needed. Check the light/shade conditions. Is the subject moving or still? 

Look at the EXIF data from shots online u like and learn what they mean and adapt to the conditions. Just enjoy the process. I'm sure u'll like your results soon enuff!!

[ScottyP]

How was Japan, by the way?

[Brad]

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@RoadRunner wrote:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/eos6d/

It's the 6D group on Flickr. Now I think to be fair to yourself don't post 100% crops but there's more than a fair amount of very good shots there. Remember that you've bought a very good camera though it is an entry level and Canon's first entry into this levle of FF. Check your meter. Check your picture style. Adjust it if needed. Check the light/shade conditions. Is the subject moving or still? 

Look at the EXIF data from shots online u like and learn what they mean and adapt to the conditions. Just enjoy the process. I'm sure u'll like your results soon enuff!!

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Roadrunner...I'm not questioning whether or not the 6d in general takes good photos, I know that it does. What I'm saying is that my particular camera doesn't seem to be giving as good of results as I think it should. As I mentioned before, I've been shooting SLR for over 30 years so I'm pretty confident in my ability to take a good photo.  Not saying I'm perfect by any means, but I think the sharpness of my photos should be better than most of them are. That's why I'm asking for more opinions. I'm not sure if it's my computer monitor or if it's the camera or if it's my imagination. Just looking for input from folks who know more about how photos should look from this camera.

Thanks for the link to the flickr group. I'll check it out.

[Brad]

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@ScottyP wrote:

How was Japan, by the way?

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Hey Scott, It was a really good trip! This was my 4th time there and I like it more each time I go. We took about 2500 photos so I've got a ton to sort through!

Here's a fairly random assortment of photos. Honestly, IQ-wise, they still don't look that great when I look at them on either of my computers. Maybe that's one of the problems I'm having. When I look at them on the camera the colors look so good (but of course tiny so you can't tell sharpness and all that) but they don't look so hot on the computer monitors. I'll invest in a image worthy monitor here soon.

However, I will say that I am very impressed with the camera's low light photos. Most of them look good and saturated. And color of the photos overall seem very good to me.

I was in tourist/snapshot mode so I was not really taking an hour to frame the perfect shot and be all artistic (trying to be somewhat considerate of my wife's time 😉 I figured I could crop as I needed to if I found any potential great ones.

If you've got a minute let me know what you think of the output quality of the photos. They're jpeg straight out of the camera taken at M (fine) 8.9mb. (I shot full size RAW too.) Maybe they'll look better full size on your monitor.

[canonuser78]

wow... as far as I can see HRD function is pretty nice. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nfirebaughphoto/8377011422/

[NFirebaugh]

Thanks for checking out my HDR and yes I must say the Canon 6D seems to do HDR pretty well, I actually haven't used the in camera HDR function.  And I'm still using a Promote system to control the camera since I just recently upgraded from a T2i so I've gotten use to the remote... but it's a great camera. That pic was taken at ISO 50 using a 17-40mm F4L by the way.

[dbjsblack]

If you plan on simply using jpeg shots, one thing you can try is adjusting the default Shooting Style Mode settings. I would increase the sharpness setting of your shooting style. By defualt in the standard style mode, I belive the sharpness setting is at 3 by default.  You can increase this sharpness setting up to 7 if you prefer. Of course when you shoot Raw none of this matters because you will be doing post processing of the images. But if you plan to simply use jpeg, adjusting the default settings of the camera picture styles will give you a sharper jpeg picture. There several different picture styles and you can use and even create custom picture styles as well. Also increasing the contrast a bit will give you a clearer picture on jpegs. I played with these setting and for my Standard pic style, I increased my sharpness to  +6 and contrast to +2. I think canon by defualt keeps the level low because most people use post editing software to correct the pictures.  Here's a link to give you a better ideal of how adjusting the settings of the picture styles can help.

http://digital-photography-school.com/using-canons-picture-styles

[Brad]

dbjsblack. Thanks for the link. I'll check that out. I had increased the sharpness and a few other settings and overall I think I'm becoming more satisfied with the results of my 6d.

[MR]

I just returned from Costa Rica and was disappointed with a lot of my pictures not being sharp.  I googled my problem and was led to this forum.  Brad's problem is exactly what I experienced.  I was using the 24-105L and I rented a 70-200 2.8L.  I used center point focus 99% of the time.  I was with a photography workshop and we were photographing horses.  9 of 11 members of the workshop were using Nikons.  I looked at a lot of their pics and they were dead on for sharpness.  I have an indicator on on my back screen that shows where the focus point is.  The focus point was exactly accurate on 99% of my photos, so that doesn't seem to be the problem.  I shot at all iso s from 100-6400 ; mostly in TV.  We shot morning, mid day and evening.  I'm stumped.  I took 6000 pics and probably less than 100 were extremely sharp out of the camera.  Help anyone!!! I wonder how Brad did on his trip to Japan -- I see his post was Dec. 2012.

[NFirebaugh]

Hey MR a couple things were the horses moving? What focus mode are you using? I mainly shoot landscapes using a tripod but when shooting sports I use a higher iso and Ai servo focus. Are any of these examples you are speaking about posted anywhere?