24-70 L USM & 70-200 IS USM mk1, do these copies have problems?

[Grisa]

Hello,

I follow this forum now about half a year. Finally, I joined today
I'm 20 and live in swiss (just by the way, to excuse my "faulty" english)

I started to photograph when I was about 8. That time, I used the equipment of my father (I think it was an EOS 300). I really restarted to photograph in 2009 when I bought my 500D, which I still own.
In those days I had the possibility to use the 24-70 L USM & 70-200 IS USM mk1 from my uncle. (I didn't even know what a L-Lens was, I just liked the lenses, because they were big, heavy and looked professional )

Time has passed and today I would like to have those lenses back.
I asked my uncle, because he stopped to photograph anyway, if he would give them to me. Now he thinks about it (he will do it )


Buuuuut,
the last days I took a look at the pictures I had taken with these Lenses and I noticed that they were all (but one, and that isn't as sharp as my Tamron 17-50 VC) not sharp at all and blurred. And now I don't know, what the problem with them is. Front/Back - focus, or are they both decentered (I don't know, if it is the right word)., or maybe I was just too stupid to use them properly.

I've selected a few pictures to show them to you. Maybe you have some ideas.

regards
Grisa

 

[Kernuak]

First off, did you shoot in JPEG or RAW and did you have high ISO noise reduction on or off?. The first image is taken at ISO 1600, which is pretty high for the 500D, the noise doesn't look that bad for such an ISO, so I suspect there has been some noise reduction, which will soften the image. Also, there appears to be some motion blur if you look closely and I would say that is partly down to camera movement, as the pews have a double image. Certainly, the shutter speed is marginal at 1/60th at 59mm.
The second image - it's difficult to say where the point of focus was, but again there may be some movement, although the shutter spped should be high enough, provided the subjects weren't moving too much. However, at 24mm, the 24-70 is probably at it's weakest if it's anything like the 24-105. Certainly, there is visible fringing, which will affect image quality.
The third image looks ok to me, the depth of field is very narrow, but otherwise there are some very sharp areas and the eyes look acceptably sharp too.
The shutter speed on the final image is also marginal, although it should be fine for still subjects, provided you keep the camera steady and I can't see any sign of movement. However, the focus is off, which focus point did you choose? The centre point wouldn't have anything to focus on, so I'm assuming you must have used one of the off centre ones (unless you manually focused). It could be that there wasn't enough contrast in the hair fo rhte AF to be accurate, although the lighting appears to be good, so it shouldn't be an issue. Did you have the IS on or off?

 

[Loswr]

I can't be sure there is even a problem...

Shot 1, definitely motion blur.

Shot 2, can't tell what you're focusoing on.

Shot 3, looks quite sharp, although the DoF is very thin as you'd expect at f/2.8 with a close subject.

Shot 4, might be a bit of front/back focus there, if IS was off, might be camera shake.

 

[branden]

Agree with Neuroanatomist, for the most part. Here's my interpretation:

1: This is motion blur. It's always better to increase ISO than to have motion blur. Grainy photos are workable, blurry photos are not.
2: Castle wall is in focus, there's just motion blur. Increase ISO to 200 and decrease shutter to 1/120 and you'll see better results.
3. Both the girl's eyes are in sharp focus -- not sure what the issue is.
4. Lens is slightly focused behind the subjects -- were they moving away from you as you shot the photo?

Hopefully this info helps