This doesn't seem very sharp…is this normal?

Question

Body: T2i Lens: Kit, 18-55mm f3.5-5.6

I went to shoot a sunrise this morning at the beach and got some great pictures, but when I uploaded them to some light post-processing, I was slightly surprised by how unsharp it was, and the amount of noise there was when I zoomed in. Is this normal for this camera/lens? My settings for the photo attached were 1/25, f4.0, ISO 100, and focus was set on the chair. My assumption is that it has something to do with the amount of available light, but I've seen plenty of sunrise/sunset pictures that are almost impossibly sharp.

Full-size

Answer

The Canon EF-S 18-55mm Kit lens is not the sharpest lens known, not if you're judging the pic at 100%. But when you're using smaller version of the image, sharpness is acceptable. Your example image looks sharp enough to me in this size, for a kit lens, its a good result.

Now, the noise. Its a very complicated term. It depends on a lot of things, one of them is wavelength of the light, or you can say color of the light. Blue channel is the noisiest channel and green is the least. Your sky is mostly blue and looks like that's the cause of the noise you're seeing.

You did not mention if you shoot raw or jpeg. jpeg images converted from raw provides better sharpness comparing to in camera jpeg. Also, T2i has a very powerful sensor, it's image quality increases a lot more when you use it with a superior lens. So, if you're not happy with it, try getting a lens known for its sharpness (rent for a day or ask a friend), shoot with it and check if it makes you happy or not.

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