EFS 18-55 Lens Questions

[srd-software]

Hi All, 

I am still testing and experimenting with the "new" 80d I got. My question is, is this EFS 18-55 any good? It's the cheapie that came with the camera and the same one as I had on my 40d (the one with the 80d is much newer manufacture than the 40d lens though).

I can't seem to get images that are razor sharp no matter what I do: MF or AF, wide or telephoto or anything in between. I've taken a lot of test shots now and they are just never as sharp as I think they should be. They are usable, but when I zoom in on things like signs, wires, branches or leaves that I would think should be razor sharp, they are not.

If I'm expecting too much from that lens I can look into another one IF I could get the sharpness out of something else. I can't find many 17mm-only lenses. I don't care about telephoto range as I rarely use it. 

I'll add a couple of example images. First one was MF, 2nd was AF, both shot wide. They looked focused when I took both images, but if you enlarge it and look at the branches and leaves they appear soft to me. These are cropped from the original images as the originals were too big to upload. They may look OK below, but open them in a new tab to see them enlarged.

Maybe this is the limit of this level of DSLR, but I don't know. All I have to compare it to is the old 40d.

Thanks

[srd-software]

Example image was cropped (but not resized) to allow an upload of the example. 

I'll try some shots at 1/200 and 1/400 and see what I get.

OK, tried a couple of shots ISO 400, 1/200 at F16 (lighting changed from earlier). Those don't look too bad. MF shot is better than AF. 

Also tried one full auto. Looks OK but there's more light now than before.

I'll keep messing with it.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Waddizzle]

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@srd-software wrote:

Example image was cropped (but not resized) to allow an upload of the example. 

I'll try some shots at 1/200 and 1/400 and see what I get.

OK, tried a couple of shots ISO 400, 1/200 at F16 (lighting changed from earlier). Those don't look too bad. MF shot is better than AF. 

Thanks for the suggestions!

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I would have bumped up the shutter speed, instead of stopping down the aperture.  I think f/8 is probably too narrow for a shot of trees that are at least 100 feet away.

The more light that you can let into the camera, all the better.  A too narrow aperture introduces diffraction distortions.