EOS-M sharper than 6D?

[ND40]

First post, long time viewer.

I bought a EOS-M in the recently $299 B&H sale. So far I've just used it with my kit 22 f2 lens and am very pleased with the image quality if not the autofocus speed.

Today I tried it out with the EF lens adapter and some of my EF lenses. I was very surprised to find that the M takes sharper images than my 6D! I experimented with both my 24-105 f4 lens and 135 f2. I tried both autofucus and live view focus with the 6D and compared with Flexizone single AF on the M.

Attached are some 100% crops of the pictures I took. What do you think? Is there something wrong with my 6D?

The pictures are in this order, all taken with a 135mm f2 L lens:
EOS-M Flexizone single AF
EOS-6D Autofocus
EOS-6D Live View focus manual

 

[ND40]

I couldn't attach the 3rd picture for some reason.

Here is the 6D manual focus in live view image.

I took similar shots of some outdoor subjects in better light and the sharpness was similar - the M was much sharper.

 

[Loswr]

While there shouldn't be a huge difference in perceived sharpness (SQF) between the two in bright light, the M should not be markedly sharper, IMO.

Here's the TDP comparison between the 6D and M.

 

[RLPhoto]

My 5D3 is way sharper than my 7D. Must be a fluke...

 

[Loswr]

My 5D3 is way sharper than my 7D. Must be a fluke...

The EOS M is noticeably sharper than the 7D.

 

[RLPhoto]

My 5D3 is way sharper than my 7D. Must be a fluke...

The EOS M is noticeably sharper than the 7D.

Doesn't surprise me.

 

[ND40]

The comparisons at the Digital Picture don't show much of a difference. I wonder if my 6D is defective? I just bought it 5 weeks ago and haven't hand much time to spend with it until the last week or so. I thought the pictures from it were OK until I compared them with the EOS-M shots.

The 6D came out after the M and has a full frame sensor. I assumed it would have noticeably better IQ than anything with a year old APS-C sensor...

Here are three more shots. Notice the spider web visible in the M shot that you can't make out with the 6D. I took similar shots with my 24-105.

M
6D AF
6D MF live view

 

[tpatana]

That's interesting.

The 6D AF/Live -difference can be as simple as missed AFMA, but the live-view should be good anyway. Any chance that you have some setting "funny", e.g. saving as small-JPG?

 

[Deleted member 7828]

Wow, that is not my experience at ALL...

I have not done side-by-side comparisons between the M and the 6D, but I did compare the M (22 @ 22mm) with the 5D3 (24-105 @ 24mm) indoors in my place and while the M wasn't shabby by any means, there was no question that the 5D3 was far superior.

I find the 6D IQ amazing as well...used it this past weekend at a book signing and it is FAR better than the 60D I used to use at those types of events, even using the same 70-200mm 2.8 lens (!)...

The M has great IQ for its size. But my no means do I find it better than FF 6D or 5D3. At best there is little or no difference (outdoors, sunny day, landscape shots). For everything else FF pulls ahead, sometimes way ahead...

I'd check the focus on your 6D to see if something's up.

 

[ND40]

The 6D AF/Live -difference can be as simple as missed AFMA, but the live-view should be good anyway. Any chance that you have some setting "funny", e.g. saving as small-JPG?

I had both cameras set to the highest quality large JPG. I'm thinking now I need to send my 6D back to Canon to be evaluated.

 

[RLPhoto]

The 6D AF/Live -difference can be as simple as missed AFMA, but the live-view should be good anyway. Any chance that you have some setting "funny", e.g. saving as small-JPG?

I had both cameras set to the highest quality large JPG. I'm thinking now I need to send my 6D back to Canon to be evaluated.

You shot in JPG. That's the Error here.

 

[ND40]

You shot in JPG. That's the Error here.

I didn't realize RAW would make a difference for this type of test. I'll re-do it in RAW.

 

[Policar]

Are you accounting for the 1.6x crop factor? The M will be much sharper at a given focal length, but the 6D will have a wider field of view. At an equivalent FOV it should be similar.

 

[dadgummit]

Wow, that is not my experience at ALL...

I have not done side-by-side comparisons between the M and the 6D, but I did compare the M (22 @ 22mm) with the 5D3 (24-105 @ 24mm) indoors in my place and while the M wasn't shabby by any means, there was no question that the 5D3 was far superior.

I find the 6D IQ amazing as well...used it this past weekend at a book signing and it is FAR better than the 60D I used to use at those types of events, even using the same 70-200mm 2.8 lens (!)...

The M has great IQ for its size. But my no means do I find it better than FF 6D or 5D3. At best there is little or no difference (outdoors, sunny day, landscape shots). For everything else FF pulls ahead, sometimes way ahead...

I'd check the focus on your 6D to see if something's up.

Ditto

My EOS M +22mm is a very good little camera combo but it is not quite as good as the 5d3 +35L or 24-105 (don't have a 6d but asume the IQ at the sensor is similar). There is no way the 6d should be that soft unless something is up (User or hardware issues). You seem to know what you are doing so I would guess your camera needs to go in for an adjustment.

 

[Jay Khaos]

Are you accounting for the 1.6x crop factor? The M will be much sharper at a given focal length, but the 6D will have a wider field of view. At an equivalent FOV it should be similar.

Unless these photos were resized in addition to having been cropped, I think this would have already been taken into consideration... right?

 

[ND40]

You shot in JPG. That's the Error here.

OK, I repeated the pictures of the clock in RAW. I converted as a batch in DPP with all the default settings. There is less difference here.

(1) M, AF
(2) 6D, AF
(3) 6D, MF live view

 

[bholliman]

Surprising! I know the M takes great pictures, but mine is not as good as my 6D.

The last two 6D shots show that you might benefit from running AFMA on your 6D and lens, the live view manual focus is slightly sharper than the AF, but AF is not always dead-on. You would need to take more pictures to check both precision and accuracy of AF.

 

[tpatana]

Can you do following:

A: Confirm that you took everything on tripod with remote trigger, and/or using fast enough SS that it doesn't matter?

B: Tell the settings for all shots (SS, Aperture, ISO, focus mode)

C: Take shots at same equivalent distance/focal length/aperture, e.g. if you shoot M@22 (x1.5), then shoot both at the 33mm, and e.g. F8.0.

It does sound there might be something wrong with your 6D, but taking some more extra tests might be able to resolve what's going on in there.

 

[ND40]

A: Confirm that you took everything on tripod with remote trigger, and/or using fast enough SS that it doesn't matter?

B: Tell the settings for all shots (SS, Aperture, ISO, focus mode)

C: Take shots at same equivalent distance/focal length/aperture, e.g. if you shoot M@22 (x1.5), then shoot both at the 33mm, and e.g. F8.0.

It does sound there might be something wrong with your 6D, but taking some more extra tests might be able to resolve what's going on in there.

Thanks for the suggestions.

A. I did all these with a monopod, didn't have a tripod available. All at 1/250 or faster, so should be OK with a monopod. That said, I think I'll do more testing tomorrow on a tripod with a wireless trigger.

B. I kept this as much the same as I could. I don't have the values now as I won't be at home until tomorrow. But approximately 1600 ISO for the clock shots and ISO200 for the fire hydrant. 1/250 at f4.

C. I used the 135 f2 lens for all these comparisons, so FOV is different, but I wanted to keep the glass the same to take that out of the equation. I did similar test with my 24-105 f4 with similar results.

This is kind of upsetting as I paid nearly $2k for the 6D and have higher expectations for IQ than I do for my $299 M.

 

[BozillaNZ]

There is no point comparing two different format with different pixel density if you use the same lens and at same shooting distance: The denser sensor will give you more detail in the same real world area.

Now try to frame the same shot, by choosing a longer focal length on 6D and compare the results. M @ 24mm f4, vs 6D @ 38mm f6.3, Now who's sharper?