Should my 70-200mm L really be this soft?

[Gary]

Since i dropped it, it doesnt seem to be performing as well as it did. Lots of shots look soft to me.. Maybe its just my imagination?

200mm @ f2.8 no PP

focus point is where the 2nd horizontal beam up meets the first vertical beam from the left.

http://www.xynamic.co.uk/temp/IMG_4081.jpg

[RichardtheSane]

Looks like it is too soft - have you don some more controlled tests? That doesn't look like a nice place for AF to be working and it would be good to rule that out.

The dreaded focus chart?

[Mike Hoyer]

I dropped mine once and it was soft between f2.8 and f4.5. Was about a £300 repair.

[Gary]

Was about a £300 repair.

i'll stick it on ebay then ;)

[digitalfailure]

Is that taken through glass?

[canonrebel]

Is that taken through glass?

YES..........................A 70-200........:D.........sorry Ill get me coat.

[Moos3h]

What about claiming on insurance? Gotta be worth it in this instance?

[rgrebby]

i'll stick it on ebay then ;)

please say you are joking?


Looks like its shot through a window, which could be your problem.

[CT]

i'll stick it on ebay then ;)

Gary questions like this are almost impossible to answer - there are too many other factors possibly responsible for this admittedly soft looking image before you start blaming the lens.

Did you sharpen the image when you reduced the size for web viewing - that will cause any image to look softer. If you did sharpen it, then is it the lens at fault or your sharpening technique/ judgement? If you didn't sharpen it - why not? ;)

Here's a sharpened version with the contrast boosted a bit...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3350/3445403650_3a8ddbb460_o.jpg

We really need to see a 1:1 crop (assuming this isn't one) at 800 pixels which will eliminate the softening due to reducing the image size. Even then though, we need to know whether it's a jpeg or RAW image and what sharpening settings are applied either in the camera or in your RAW software.

Many people disable sharpening in camera altogether, prefering to deal with sharpening in processing. A slightly soft image which will sharpen well in editing is preferable to one starting out over-sharpened due to excessive in-camera or RAW settings.

And I agree - it looks like you shot through glass - the bottom of a Guinness bottle by the look of it! :D

[Gary]

Is that taken through glass?

fresh air (well as fresh as it gets in london)

[Gary]

What about claiming on insurance? Gotta be worth it in this instance?

i dont have household insurance, but i dropped it in spain, so maybe i should check my travel insurance.. worth a try!

[Gary]

good point CT.

heres a 1:1 crop around the focal point

http://www.xynamic.co.uk/temp/balcony.jpg

its shot in RAW with no additional sharpening other than the RAW conversion

[dcash29]

Thankgoodness i dont buy anything on ebay

[Mike Hoyer]

good point CT.

heres a 1:1 crop around the focal point

http://www.xynamic.co.uk/temp/balcony.jpg

its shot in RAW with no additional sharpening other than the RAW conversion

Definitely looks like what went wrong with mine, although mine was a bit more extreme.

[Fragglerock]

Do a test

http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/focus-chart

[who?]

I do thik that that is a lousey place to test. You've got all that mesh/bars/funiture and the line across near you. Have you got a shot of something less busy but with decent contrast?

[CT]

good point CT.

heres a 1:1 crop around the focal point

http://www.xynamic.co.uk/temp/balcony.jpg

its shot in RAW with no additional sharpening other than the RAW conversion

An image looking that soft at 1:1 wouldn't worry me unduly as long as it responded well to sharpening in editing, which at this size it actually doesn't. It's not unusual of course for an image to look a lot sharper at reduced size than it does at 1:1.

It doesn't look good Gary, but still not really conclusive on the strength of this one shot, and at 1:1 I'm not sure we're not seeing just the tiniest evidence of camera shake at 1/200th?

Don't do anything rash anyway, but this shot is showing an alarming lack of contrast which is a bit more perturbing.

[CT]

That AF point isn't the best choice either really Gary - black and a bit lacking in contrast for a good postive lock.

[OutLore]

Do you have a RAW file from before the dropping incident that you could repeat the composition and see the difference?

[Blapto]

Were you using a tripod in the test? You can still get soft images at 1/200th shutter speed at 200mm.

[StewartR]

I agree it's not a good test.

[alexisonfire]

Looks about right for the 2.8 IS imo. The focus point is tiny, so of course its not going to be very sharp at f/2.8. The canon 2.8 IS isn't exactly renowned for being the sharpest lens either.