Tripod, Cable Release, Timer, Still blur........

[Michele]

I am frustrated and don't know why this is.

I know that if I don't use my cable release and or timer on a tripod, that I will have more blurred images than not from pushing down on the shutter and causing some movement. So this weekend, I went out shooting and I used my tripod with cable release and wasn't even touching my tripod when it took the photo nor was it windy. Some photos still came out blurry. Then I went back out this morning and I thought I would try to take a few photos with my camera on tripod and use the self timer to see if that makes a difference, and same thing.

I use a Bogen 3021? (something along that line) and use Bogen 3265 tripod head and am using Canon 20D.

So if I can't take good photos with pushing the shutter myself, using a cable release, using self timer, then what? We are talking shutter speeds between 1/6th and 1/80th second.

Any advice, suggestions, etc would be very much appreciated!! I need all I can get.

Thank you.........
Michele

[Rokcet Scientist]

OOF! Sounds like bad news, Michelle. Not funny.* * I'd theorize this is a software issue. Can you reset the camera from the ground up, as in re-initiating and re-installing the firmware? I'd try that first. Then test if it made a difference (prepare a reference setup, shoot 'before resetting' benchmark photos). If not I'd get the camera out for service.

Good luck.

[Michele]

Thank you....*
I don't have a clue on how to do the re-setting, etc.*

Michele

[scoundrel1728]

Have you examined the image carefully to determine that the problem is in fact blur from camera motion and not some other cause? Blur from camera motion, especially when the camera is mounted on a tripod, will be directional in nature: vertical lines will be blurred but horizontal ones will be sharp or vice versa. Specular highlights will be elongated into lines rather than circles or polygons. And this blur will be uniform across the whole image. If the blur pattern does not have these attributes, it is time to suspect some other cause, such as focusing errors. Judging by the model of your tripod and what you have already tried, it doesn't sound like camera movement is causing your porblem.

There is one other check that you can try: lock up the mirror, use a lens of relatively short focal length, and use a cable release, remote trigger, or the self-timer. In other words, make sure you aren't touching the camera while the exposure is being made and mirror recoil isn't causing the camera to move either. A telephoto lens will magnify the effect of camera movement along with the image, hence the short focal length.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Valid points, scoundrel.

Michelle, resetting procedures oughta be covered in the manual(s). You could also trawl the WWW for some more info.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by scoundrel1728

Have you examined the image carefully to determine that the problem is in fact blur from camera motion and not some other cause? Blur from camera motion, especially when the camera is mounted on a tripod, will be directional in nature: vertical lines will be blurred but horizontal ones will be sharp or vice versa. Specular highlights will be elongated into lines rather than circles or polygons. And this blur will be uniform across the whole image. If the blur pattern does not have these attributes, it is time to suspect some other cause, such as focusing errors. Judging by the model of your tripod and what you have already tried, it doesn't sound like camera movement is causing your porblem.

There is one other check that you can try: lock up the mirror, use a lens of relatively short focal length, and use a cable release, remote trigger, or the self-timer. In other words, make sure you aren't touching the camera while the exposure is being made and mirror recoil isn't causing the camera to move either. A telephoto lens will magnify the effect of camera movement along with the image, hence the short focal length.


-------------------------------
First off, I have had this tripod and head since day one, so its been a while and always wondered if I needed to use a different one when I got the 20D since its heavier than what I have used in the past.*

Today when taking the photos and some of yesterdays was using the Canon 28-135mm lens.* Never touched the tripod after focusing and setting up composition.* I always make sure that I see it being focused before stepping back and taking the photo.* Yesterday, a few photos were taken with the Canon L IS 70-200mm lens and same issues.* However, the few photos that I took handholding, they were sharper, but yes some did show camera shake due to my lack of being able to handhold even with IS and a faster shutter speed, so that was expected.*

In my opinion, when the camera takes the photo, its loud and i seem to be able to follow the shutter noise as it takes more so than I noticed on my 300D and TI.*

Per your comment on examining the photo, I will have to see what all I can examine as I am not very good or knowledgeable at this kind of depth.* I know for the most part when my photos are definitely sharp or if there is some blur due to camera shake, lack of depth, but other than that, I never experienced much else.* Let me go examine them.

Thank you for your help. I am not making any decisions just yet till I see what everyone has to say and what kind of conclusion I come to after thoroughly examining.*

Michele

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Rokcet Scientist

Valid points, scoundrel.

Michelle, resetting procedures oughta be covered in the manual(s). You could also trawl the WWW for some more info.

There isn't a way to really mess things up, right? I am always so afraid of messing something up when doing things like this. Thank you!!

[Michele]

Both nights after shooting, I downloaded images to the laptop and went through and picked out the decent, possibly good, and good photos to keep and tossed almost all the other bad ones away but still have the two cards I shot with today that I haven't touched in deleting any of them yet. Over the ones that I shot yesterday which was about 600 images, I have just gone through about 200 of them to do final pickings and organzing, etc and alot of them that I had held were good and better than the tripod ones. So, I am now thinking that its not the camera but something else? Do I need a new tripod and head? Is the one I have not sturdy enough? I am going to do the settings and firmware as per Rocket Scientist suggestions and I am going to figure out how to do Mirror Lockup and try that in the next day or two and go from there as well.

Thanks..

[scoundrel1728]

You might also try posting a sample pixel-for-pixel crop of one of the offending images, possibly along with a reduced version of the whole image. I have done a fair amount of this kind of analysis to figure out how to improve my own shots. If that is inconclusive, you might post the whole of an offending image somewhere online, or perhaps PM me so we can set up a transfer of a whole JPEG image with intact EXIF header.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Michelle, even a 39 bucks tripod would be 'rocksteady' during exposures, long or short, on a windless day and using the selftimer like you described you did. If the prob is movement, something else is doing the moving! Not the tripod.

And what scoundrel say sounds good: post some samples, or send them, and let others have a look at them. Could reveal a lot.

With http://www.yousendit.com/ you can – how'd you guess? – send huge files. For me, on OSX.3.9, it works best in FireFox.

[Mr. Pickles]

Mirror lock-up. It is your problem. It can be your friend.

[ohenry]

Is this with one lens or all of your lenses?

I recently suspected that I was having problems with focus and tested all of my lenses, similar to your setup (I used mirror lockup, though). All of the shots were not focused well. I ended up sending in my camera to be recalibrated.

[scoundrel1728]

Sample of image with motion blur. In this instance, general direction of camera motion is along diagonal running from lower left to upper right. This is a particularly bad instance and I would normally discard an image of this quality if I had anything better, but I forgot to cull this particular image. Full image (D0437s) shows that the background as well as the subject is blurred by about the same amount. Although this is California, no earthquake in progress at the time and the walls and the pulpit weren't moving. The crop (D0437ks) shows this blur in more detail. The curlicue traces of the specular highlights on the eyeglasses trace the actual path of combined relative motion of both camera and subject. The microphone stand coming into the cropped image from the lower left is fairly parallel with the direction of motion and is rendered relatively sharp, while the one coming from lower right is across the direction of motion and is thus very blurred. The area of the eyeglass frames at about 5 o'clock are also rendered fairly sharp, while the other parts of the frames are blurred.

If this were defocusing blur, the specular highlights would be round or polygonal instead of this curlicue shape and the general directional quality of the blur would be absent or nearly so.

[Michele]

Both my lenses, but more so with the Canon USM IS 28-135mm lens than the Canon L IS 70-200mm lens. *

Ohenry: was it inconsistent? *This last weekend, I shot a lot of wildlife handheld and did landscapes on tripod. *I have some really good photos from both subject, but more bad on when I used my tripod than what I think I should of had. *Shouldn't you be able to get the same good results with cable release, timer, and mirror lockup? *I never had to use mirror lockup and very seldom used cable release with my 300D and got great photos and never had this problem and with the same lenses as mentioned up above and that is why this is so frustrating. *

Thank you...

Mr. Pickles.... *Thank you.. I am going to learn it and give it a try in the next two days...

[SensorDust]

Michele

There is ongoing debate about the usefulness of IS (Image Stabilization) in a shorter focal length zoom lens. My personal opinion is that it is great. If your subject is not moving, you can shoot handheld in much less light than without IS - or at a lower ISO setting. Keep in mind that the version of IS on this lens, 28-135mm IS, needs to be turned off when tripod-mounted. The 28-135mm IS is second generation. It does not shut off automatically when on a tripod. Not doing so may cause the image stabilizer to act erratically (feedback).

Please try shooting with the IS off and you should see an improvement...

[Michele]

Thank you JRS for your comment and very useful info and very accurate. However, I do shoot all the time with the IS off when on a tripod. I can not hand hold very well at all and still have camera shake quite a bit with IS lenses and that is why I have to chose wisely on what I handhold and what I don't. I try to leave wildlife and equestrian to handholding and everything else to tripod or I am very unhappy with the results. I wish I could say that I didn't turn it off and go back out and shoot with it off and have this whole mess be done with, but I can't.

Thanks again..

[Michele]

Here is one. I cropped out a portion of the 100% image and hope this works.

Michele

[Michele]

Here is another one. Portion of photo at 100% cropped and then full re-sized photo...

[Michele]

Here is the full version photo just resized.