50 D Blurred Images

[FlashManAB]

Hi, a question from a newcomer to this forum and to digital SLR.
I bought a Canon 50D for portraits and landscape photos.
I took some photos at the beach yesterday and I am disappointed. (all taken on auto - all stored as RAW, ISO 100, 1/400th shutter, apperture =11, not zoomed using a EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens)
When I look at the photos at 100% in DPP, the left outlines of objects are surrounded by a pinkish halo and the right sides of objects have a blue halo. I can display the AF points but I can't actually find anywhere on the photo that is in focus, from the nearest part of the scene to the distant skyline. If I remove the automatic sharpness setting (3), the photos leave me feeling as though I need to put my glasses on.
I have taken a lot of shots with the camera and a lot of those are blurry. I used Bob's AF microadjustment scale but I have not improved things; only closeup non-zoomed photos have a sharp focus at some point in the resultant photos.
Is this likely to be the technique, the lens, the camera or a combination of other factors?
Should the camera be capable of taking photos that can be viewed at 100% without being fuzzy? At 200% they are pixelised; but I expect that is normal.


Andrew

[KeithB]

The dividing line between sharp and pixelated is fuzzy, so it is pretty normal to by fuzzy at 100%.  Remember, at 72 dpi - a typical monitor viewing size - the 4752 pixels on the long dimension will represent a photo 66 inches wide!  At 100% you are looking at a small fraction of the image.

The colored fringes are probably from the lens and might be correctable in DPP.

[Bob Atkins]

I agree that you are probably expecting too much. At 100%  viewing you are taxing any camera and lens. The real test is whether your prints look sharp, and as pointed out above, viewing at 100% is equivalent to looking a a very large print from close up.

The colored fringes are likely to be due to chromatic aberration. You'll see that with just about any lens if you look hard enough.  If you shoot RAW and use the DPP program which comes with the camera, you can correct the image to pretty much removal them.

In short I suspect what you are seeing is quite normal, and if you make prints rather than "pixel peep" at 100% on a monitor, your images will look great!

[FlashManAB]

Thanks for the replies. 66 inches! I won't be printing on that scale.
I can feel confident that the camera is not broken - and that is great news.
Bob, this is a great forum and a great web site. I have read a few articles already and will enjoy a few more.
Thanks again.
Andrew