Photos are too soft with my Canon 6D 85mm lens

[Michellehope]

 

 

I'm still very new to my camera in manual mode, so I'm needed some advice as to what I need to do to achieve sharp/crisp portraits. Here is a photo to reference. I was using my Canon 6D with an 85mm lens. I also have the same outcome with my 24-70mm (old version). Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

[rs-eos]

Which 85mm lens do you have? The f/1.2 or f/1.4?

Are you capturing images in RAW or JPEG?

Also helpful will be if you can provide the exposure settings for these images (especially f-stop and shutter speed)

[Michellehope]

Hello! I have the 1.4 and raw

[Michellehope]

The photo on steps:

85mm

shutter speed 200, 3.5 f-stop, ISO 200

Photo in alley: 

24-70mm

640 shutter speed, 2.8 f-stop ISO 200

[Michellehope]

Also, the photos were uploaded from my camera directly to my iPhone in original size, in case that makes a difference with how the photos come across on your end. Thank you! 

[Waddizzle]

---

@Michellehope wrote:

Also, the photos were uploaded from my camera directly to my iPhone in original size, in case that makes a difference with how the photos come across on your end. Thank you! 

---

If you are shooting RAW, then how are you converting the RAW files to JPG on your phone?

Be mindful of camera shake.  When an image is uniformly soft and OOF across the entire image, then camera shake is the most likely cause.  This assumes that you did not miss focus.  Had you missed focus, then there should be one area of the photo that would be in focus.

Have you checked for locked AF points in the images?  You can check in one of two ways that are free of charge.  Both methods require that you have an active and locked AF point when the shutter is fired.

One, the camera is able to display locked AF points during image playback.  The AF point display is disabled by default.  The second method is the Canon DPP application.  The AF point display is disabled by default.

[Michellehope]

Thanks for the reply. When transferring the photos from my camera to my phone it’s through the canon app. 

my entire image is soft. How can I prevent this? Usually I keep my shutter speed at 200 and up. 

[rs-eos]

Do you have access to a computer?

An iPhone will only allow for the transfer of JPEG images.   If you can capture RAW images and transfer them to a computer, it will become easier to troubleshoot what the issue may be.

It's possible you may need to do micro-adjustments.  I know with EOS 6D and a 50mm f/1.2 lens, I needed to apply microadjustments.  Though with that same lens and an EOS 5D IV, no adjustments were needed.  But before doing this, rule out other things first by doing the following:

In an extremely well-lit room (via outdoor light), or outdoors, set up your camera preferably on a tripod.  Set the aperture to f/4 and shutter to around 1/200 or higher.  Keep ISO as low as possible.   Focus on a non-moving object that would have a high amount of detail in it.   Capture the image in RAW.

Transfer the image to your computer and use a RAW converter (e.g. Canon's free DPP, Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.). 

Be sure to conduct this experiement with both of your lenses.

If images continue to be soft, reset the camera's settings and try again.   If still soft, we'll try to figure out the best next steps.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

It's can be challenging taking photos with an all while blown out background. Any camera will struggle when metering in this situation..  Typically I might drop the EV a stop or two then adjust in post.

Neither one of these images is in sharp focus, so there won't be much you can do in post in this case.  

[ebiggs1]

To me neither image is bad. My advice is to skip the iphone. You are using a  6D which is a pretty nice DSLR and can make nice photos. Why stick an inferior iphone in the mix?

First d/l DPP4 form Canon. It is free. Use it on your computer to do all your photo editing and transferring. In DPP4 you can make lots of adjustment especially when you use raw. It may take a bit of time to learn DPP4 but simple adjustment can be done easily and quickly. Use DPP4 to transfer the photos to your computer.

Now for analyzing these shots.

"85mm, shutter speed 200, 3.5 f-stop, ISO 200 ... Photo in alley: 24-70mm, 640 shutter speed, 2.8 f-stop ISO 200"

Your choice of aperture means you need to have critical focus. An aperture of f2.8 or even f3.5 has a very shallow DOF. This means focus must be spot on. Portraiture photos like these don't necessarily need open apertures.

"I'm still very new to my camera in manual mode,..."

Why manual mode? Again not necessary. Just because you can does not mean you should. Most of the time the camera is smarter than we are. So make use of its ability. If you feel you need to hold an aperture use Av mode. The same for SS, use Tv mode. Auto ISO is another good thing. You can set upper and lower limits and in this case perhaps 100 to 800 would be good. Now for AF, use One shot not Ai-servo, never, ever Ai-servo for this work. Put focus on the eye if possible. Hold the camera as still and firmly as you can.

U/l to DPP4 and make adjustments like adding some sharpening. Raw does not add sharpening like jpg does. However the image you see in DPP4 will be created form your camera settings. They are meaningless to DPP4 and raw. They are simply there to create the viewable image because you can not view a raw file. You can edit any and all settings in DPP4 far greater than jpg.