I currently own a Canon EOS 750D (Rebel T6i), which I mostly use with a Sigma 17-50/2.8 and a Hoya circular polarizing filter. However, I can't help but feel disappointed when in looking at my pictures. Fine details are often noisy and with landscape images they just don't have that relaxing feeling when you're looking at them. And I feel like there isn't a nice wide angle that costs you a kidney.
Either the 10-18 which in my mind will always be a budget lens, and the 10-22 which is old by today's terms and doesn't really offer that much more than the 10-18. Of course most answers you're going to get is to get a full frame, and I'm open to that but that does impact the weight and size of my gear quite a bit.
Any people here that recognize what I'm feeling? What's your point of view on this? Why is it I'm getting these what I consider to be sub-par results?
Shot with the aforementioned combo at ISO 400, 17mm f/10 1/250sec. This image isn't as bad, but I wouldn't consider it to be printing quality. Check the top ridges of the mountains and the sky. Also, the trees in the distance, although that is a bit pixel peeping.
Also shot with the aforementioned combo at ISO 100, 25mm f/9.0 1/40sec. especially notice the trees how grainy they look. The darker trees on the right side of the image, I consider to be a problem area. I have noticed there is a very slight bit of motion induced softness in the image when checking the mountain ridges, which begs me to question the lens' IS.
No sharpening or noise reduction was done. Only a little bit of tweaking done in Lightroom: +25 on the contrast, -40 on the highlights and +30 on the shadows. I've done more than that in the past and still had better results with it.
I always shoot full sized raw 6000x4000. When limiting myself to the summer image, sharpening was set to 70, radius to 2, details to 25 and the masking to 80. No noise reduction was applied just to be extra sure it wasn't that.