A thought about 5dMK3 "softness"

[@!ex]

I'm new to canon and along with my new 5Dmk3 I am also breaking in some awesome new L glass.  I will agree that I was a bit disappointed with what seemed to be soft images at first, but I quickly realized that the focus was a bit off on both lenses.  I just did a little micro adjust and it made a HUGE difference.  I bought the SpyderLensCal a while back and I know that it is way overpriced and I could easly build one for next to nothing, but the convenience of it almost mitigates the annoyance of micro adjusting.  Just shoot, review, adjust and bang your done.  I think this may be the cause of the discrepancy of so many different people either saying they are getting sharp images or not and then attributing it to the camera body, DPP or JPEG engine and saying maybe I just got a bad unit.  If the camera was back focusing by just a little it would be really hard to tell it was not just a soft image because you wouldn't see the sharp in focus region.  Anyway, try checking for focus adjustments I've noticed a lot of the people getting good results on other forums are noticing this as well.  Nice thing is you can also enter in the serial number after you adjust a lens and it can store up to 40 individual lenses, so hopefully once you get one dialed it will be go for a long time.

if your curious about the lens cal thingamajig here is a link to a vid of how easy it is to use, or it will give you a good idea of how to make one yourself.

http://spyder.datacolor.com/learn_videos_spyderlenscal1.php

[prayharder]

I'm new to canon and along with my new 5Dmk3 I am also breaking in some awesome new L glass.  I will agree that I was a bit disappointed with what seemed to be soft images at first, but I quickly realized that the focus was a bit off on both lenses.  I just did a little micro adjust and it made a HUGE difference.  I bought the SpyderLensCal a while back and I know that it is way overpriced and I could easly build one for next to nothing, but the convenience of it almost mitigates the annoyance of micro adjusting.  Just shoot, review, adjust and bang your done.  I think this may be the cause of the discrepancy of so many different people either saying they are getting sharp images or not and then attributing it to the camera body, DPP or JPEG engine and saying maybe I just got a bad unit.  If the camera was back focusing by just a little it would be really hard to tell it was not just a soft image because you wouldn't see the sharp in focus region.  Anyway, try checking for focus adjustments I've noticed a lot of the people getting good results on other forums are noticing this as well.  Nice thing is you can also enter in the serial number after you adjust a lens and it can store up to 40 individual lenses, so hopefully once you get one dialed it will be go for a long time.

+1

[wickidwombat]

i'm very familiar with the micro adjust, however I've noticed if i set it for a particular range, then it goes wildly off in other ranges i found myself changing from between -5 to -13 through out shooting I though i was going crazy, doesnt help that the jpeg files are so mushed you cant properly check sharpness on the screen either. My other cameras I do a calibration of lens and body and thats it focus is great all over.
I might take mine back today and see what the shop has to say... glad you guys got copies you are happy with though.
Life on the bleeding edge....

[THX723]

i'm very familiar with the micro adjust, however I've noticed if i set it for a particular range, then it goes wildly off in other ranges i found myself changing from between -5 to -13 through out shooting I though i was going crazy, doesnt help that the jpeg files are so mushed you cant properly check sharpness on the screen either. My other cameras I do a calibration of lens and body and thats it focus is great all over.

5D Mk3 has micro adjustment provisions for both the wide- and tele-end for zoom lenses, so be sure you calibrate both, if you haven't already done so.

[wickidwombat]

i'm very familiar with the micro adjust, however I've noticed if i set it for a particular range, then it goes wildly off in other ranges i found myself changing from between -5 to -13 through out shooting I though i was going crazy, doesnt help that the jpeg files are so mushed you cant properly check sharpness on the screen either. My other cameras I do a calibration of lens and body and thats it focus is great all over.

5D Mk3 has micro adjustment provisions for both the wide- and tele-end for zoom lenses, so be sure you calibrate both, if you haven't already done so.

yep done that (it doesn't have that feature for primes though maybe i got a dud )

but sarcasm aside its not the zoom its the distance to subject where the micro adjust is all screwy
you can set it for a close subject and get it sharp (well as sharp as you can tell from the screen which is not reliable as images i thought were sharp on the screen were not when looked at on the computer)
then shoot a subject far away and the focus is way off

[@!ex]

An interesting development tonight.  I have been working at +6 all day on  my 50 1.2 and been pretty happy, thought I might see a bit of front focus this evening, set back to 0 and everything is totally spot on.  Will check tomorrow once the sun comes up if it is the lighting or if it just needed a bit of working in as the lens and body are brand new (makes no sense, I know). 

[wickidwombat]

An interesting development tonight.  I have been working at +6 all day on  my 50 1.2 and been pretty happy, thought I might see a bit of front focus this evening, set back to 0 and everything is totally spot on.  Will check tomorrow once the sun comes up if it is the lighting or if it just needed a bit of working in as the lens and body are brand new (makes no sense, I know).

yes its wierd but this is my feeling that the AF is all over the place i had some lenses at -15 to plus 10 and back to 0
on my other cameras i performa astandard MF adjust once and thats it its bang on all the time

[mrmarks]

An interesting development tonight.  I have been working at +6 all day on  my 50 1.2 and been pretty happy, thought I might see a bit of front focus this evening, set back to 0 and everything is totally spot on.  Will check tomorrow once the sun comes up if it is the lighting or if it just needed a bit of working in as the lens and body are brand new (makes no sense, I know).

What procedure did you use the determine the microadjustment amount? Did you use a tripod?

[darryl]

You can see the camera/photographer in the pupils.... creepy

[te4o]

Wickid, you are a very experienced user, when is it time to decide you got a dud and ask for another copy. I am concerned about your trip coming closer.
If anyone else reports similar loss of sharpness then it is a real issue!
You mentioned you have a MF lens. What do you see there? AF adjustments are done only on AF lenses do you get sharp images over LV?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I just checked my new 5D MK III body for sharpness.  I removed most variables by tethering it to my pc and shooting carefully exposed images with my macro lens,  They are all razor sharp with the sharpness slider at zero and no NR.  Then I used the advanced release of Adobe DNG converter.  I couldn't ask for better.
 
Now that I've established that the body takes razor sharp images, I'll want to AFMA all my lenses (14 + 2TC), but that is a painstaking job, and I'd prefer to wait until FoCal gets updated if I can.  From what I see, most of the lenses are very good, but not perfect at autofocus accuracy.  Each body is slightly different.
 
I may just adjust the most commonly used ones for now.