Quote Originally Posted by civic99shaved
pics look good man, but i agree, they do look a little soft. not sure if those were the stock lense or not, but ditch that, for your own good. i shot the 20d now, with the 17-40 2.8 L lense instead and i highly recommend it. it costs some money, but your pics will be light years sharper. I wanted the 16-35, but that was just a little too much money for me. great job at keeping the eyes sharp, my only pet-peeve is when there is foreground out of focus, recommend against that, but all and all, they look really good
How do I sharpen them up?

They're not the stock lenses. One is a Tamron and the othe is a Sigma. One's a DG and the other is an EF or EG (can't remember). Like I said, they're not the fastest lenses in the world, one is 3.5 and the other is 4, but I liked their construction and number of elements each had, plus the price was more than right. The stocker 18-55 does suck. It will do for a couple of shots, but it's really only good because of the wide angle part. I may never use it again now though.

I want a fixed 50 that goes to 1.8 for portrait type shots. I may go with something like that 17-40 you have which may be a little more flexible and I may be able to get away with only one lens instead of two.

You're right. Like I said, I find something wrong in every single pic. I was having a hard time because my viewfinder is so small, that it was getting difficult for me to predict where the butterflies would land just using the viewfinder. That's why I was saying that I was rushing a lot of the shots and some of them I'm sure I didn't have to. I just kept thinking that if I didn't take it quick, they'd move on me again. I probably should of also shot them with a longer f stop too, to give them a little more depth. I personally like shallow pics when you are shooting a single subject, but you're right the flowers could of benefited from a longer stop.