asking for advice on EOS 6D settings

[Michellehope]

First of all, thanks to everyone who responded to my first post on this forum. I took your advice 🙂 

I'm using a Canon 6D 24-70mm lens (2nd version) and I'm still finding that my settings are leaving me with soft images. Can someone look at one of my photos and the settings I used to see what I could have done differently? 

The day was a bit smokey/overcast. 

ISO 200 F-Stop 3.5 1/1250 

ISO 200 f/3.5 1/1250

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Are you shooting in "M" manual and focusing yourself?

[Michellehope]

Yep…Raw and I single point focused 

[Waddizzle]

Hmm.  Not the best of lighting conditions.  Are you using a lens filter?

The image seems uniformly OOF.  Has it been cropped?  The resolution is 666 x 999.

[Michellehope]

Not cropped, but I did save it as a jpeg largest size 

[rs-eos]

I don't see any major issues, though in looking at the ground and surrounding foliage, I do wonder if you're experiencing a tad of back focusing?

As an experiment, if you have a calibration aid such as Datacolor's SpyderLensCal (or making your own setup), you can see if your camera/lens combo is leading to that issue.   I know when I owned the first gen EOS 6D, I had to perform micro-adjustments for my EF 50mm f/1.2.  Something I later didn't have to do at all with that same exact lens on my 5D IV.

To make your own setup, take a ruler and prop it up so as to make an approximate 45º angle.  Place your camera on either a solid surface or tripod.  Aim at a particular point on the ruler (say the 6-inch mark) at various focal lengths and see if the 6-inch mark is in focus, or if the part of the ruler in focus is a bit below or above the 6-inch mark.

Definitely check out some YouTube videos about this as it's difficult to write in words here what this setup is and how best to go about measuring.  I know for zoom lenses, you'll need to check various focal lengths.  In terms of distance from camera to the ruler or calibration device, try to pick an average distance that you'd be capturing your subjects at.

[Waddizzle]

“ I don't see any major issues, though in looking at the ground and surrounding foliage, I do wonder if you're experiencing a tad of back focusing? “

That was my first thought, too.  But, the image is uniformly OOF and shutter speed is in the right ball park.  I do not see any area of the image that is in sharp focus.

The problem is the image seems like it has either been severely cropped or down sized to be able to upload to the forum.

[Michellehope]

Nothing was cropped, but I did save it to jpeg to post here. How do I go about posting the RAW file here?

[Michellehope]

I actually have done a test from a blog post using batteries and there doesn’t seem to be a focus issue. With the shutter speed as high, along with the other settings, could that have contributed to the soft image? 

[deebatman316 · Accepted solution]

What kind of batteries are you using Canon or 3rd Party LP-E6 series batteries. What were the settings that you used in the other picture. That you mentioned in your blog post. A high shutter speed would reduce image blur and camera shake. A wide open aperture would cause soft pictures. Try stopping down to something like F/5.6 or F/8 and see if the pictures aren't soft anymore. F/3.5 is close to wide open and will increase bokeh.