canon 17-85mm lens....Need crisper image...
by edr
on
Aug 17, 2005 at 6:21:07 pm
I am an graphic designer. I know a little bit about photography. I just bought a canon eos rebel XT with a 15-55mm lens. The shots I have taken with the camera are great but every picture I have taken are a little soft. Even when the lighting is great. I am looking at the 17-85mm b/c it has a image stabilizer. I am thinking some of the softness is from me not having a steady hand. I just want my images to come out crisper. 90% of my pictures will be of portraits, and product/location shoots. Will this lens give me a crisper image?
Re: canon 17-85mm lens....Need crisper image... by R. Hewitt on Aug 19, 2005 at 11:48:41 am
One of the issues with digital SLR cameras is apparent softness of the image. The compact digital cameras have a lot of sharpening added during processing but most digital SLRs have this is turned down alot.
On the EOS-10 and 20 the sharpness can be adjusted by the user. I'm not sure if this is an option on your camera. Failing that you could use the 'Unsharp Mask' in Photoshop or the superb Nik Sharpener Pro plugin for photoshop.
I've produced images where the sharpness when printed is staggering and closely matches medium format as a print.
Re: canon 17-85mm lens....Need crisper image... by edr on Aug 19, 2005 at 1:41:25 pm
I downloaded the nik sharpener pro demo. I have only played around with it for a day. The results do make the image sharper, but it seems like it enhances the grain in the image. I just want to get the sharpest image possible. I have more experience in photoshop then taking pictures. I depend on photoshop more than I do my photography skills. Whatever I can get to make my images as sharp as possible is what I need.
Re: canon 17-85mm lens....Need crisper image... by R. Hewitt on Aug 19, 2005 at 2:24:54 pm
Nik Sharpener is what most of the Pros are using. You need to tailor the sharpness to your output format. Print can withstand more sharpening. You can also add sharpening to a Photoshop selection so if you want to sharpen the face or just the eyes in a portrait and leave the rest as is, it's easy to do.
Nik also do a plugin to reduce grain and colour noise for digital cameras inclusing a profile built for each digital SLR call DFine. Again this can be used selectively.
Re: canon 17-85mm lens....Need crisper image... by Richard Davis on Aug 20, 2005 at 2:11:26 am
I haven't used it but I have seen a lot of posts over at DPreview on the Canon forum about the 17-85 IS being soft, too. I was once considering a Canon camera but the fact this lens was soft is probably why I stuck with Nikon. From what I read Canon has a problem with this range of lenses.
Frankly I can't understand why Canon would put IS on a lens that is already soft...
