Is my lense too soft or what am I doing wrong?

[Beyond Rational]

The sigma 10-20mm. I expected distortion and softness, especially around the edges, but I am slightly concerned that I am getting too much?

Apologies if this is a silly question, I'd just like a few opinions.


Original:


100% Crop:


Camera Make: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Image Date: 2008:10:03 16:05:44
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 10.0mm
CCD Width: 4.58mm
Exposure Time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO equiv: 400
White Balance: Manual
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)

Edited by Beyond Rational on Tuesday 21st October 21:58

Edited by Beyond Rational on Tuesday 21st October 22:00

[KenP]

Difficult to make a judgement without having a similar crop of the centre and centre bottom, because the softness could be a focussing issue. I would expect better from a prime lens, but your crop is a double extreme ie extreme of zoom range and extreme of edge.

[RobDickinson]

Why did you shoot at f5.6 (& 1/1000th)?

[Stevorocket]

Its a Sigma - they are good but a nice 10.5mm Nikor would be more satisfying IMHO.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

RobDickinson said:

Why did you shoot at f5.6 (& 1/1000th)?

+1 and ISO 400. Try around F8 and see if it's any better. To be honest it's not that bad. 10mm is superwide.

[RobDickinson]

isnt the 10.5mm a fisheye hardly usefull for architectural shots that you want rectaliniar.

keep the sigma level and distortion is minimised.

But shooting f5.6 and ISO 400 and having the focus point on the house I doubt the background or foreground will be sharp.

[Scho]

i used to use the 12-24mm on my old 10D. it was a bit softer than my 24-70 EX GD but something you could live with. However, stuck on my 5D it really showed the lens up so i ended up selling.

you're first pic doesn't look unusual to me, i used to have to sharped my images from that lens quite a bit. However you're not helping yourself by shooting at 5.6 get a tripod and stop it down to at least f11 and you should see an improvement in sharpness. most lenses will give you thier best optical performance somewhere in the middle of their f stop range.

[4hero]

Stevorocket said:

Its a Sigma - they are good but a nice 10.5mm Nikor would be more satisfying IMHO.

don't think that'll work on a canon somehow..

[toastboy]

For what it's worth, the Canon 10-22mm seems a bit soft at 10mm and gives a small amount of distortion at the edges.

[...Mole...]

toastboy said:

For what it's worth, the Canon 10-22mm seems a bit soft at 10mm and gives a small amount of distortion at the edges.

bit off-topic but thats a great photo

[RobDickinson]

Sigma 10-20 is at its sharpest at f8.

Use MLU on a tripod , ISO 100 f8.