One other thing, I have a Cannon 50D I get sharp images, even in RAW, but I use adobe lightroom Because I shoot everything in RAW, RAW like the neg, and I always have RAW but here is something you can do if you don't want to spend time adjusting your images,, and yes I shoot RAW but some times I shoot in both at the same time, you can have your camera set to save your pictures you take in both RAW and JPEG... the JPEG will have better contrast and so on, so you don't have to go and adjust that later, I always adjust my images to my liking not let the camera do everything for me. I do some times save both in RAW & JPEG because some times I really want 1 or 2 of them pictures really quick with out having to go edit them..
The Cannon 50D takes sharp images, you probably should have your Lens checked out and maybe the camera body too, maybe it needs a good cleaning?
maybe there is a reason your getting slight soft pictures could be a lot of reason you didn't realize could be there was wind that interacted with your shot,. so here is another thing you can try,
Cannon has a great feature to eliminate the need for a mechanical first shutter curtain by using “a unique high-speed scanning and electronic reset system that accurately mimics the... high-speed mechanical shutter operation.
It synchronizes with the mechanical 2nd-curtain shutter to obtain a slit exposure.”
In addition, the way live-view has been incorporated in these camera bodies the exposure can be initiated while in “live-view” without any mirror motion.
As a result, an exposure can begin with absolutely no mechanical movement at all, and thus no vibration.
The exposure is concluded by the closing of the mechanical second shutter curtain.
After the exposure there will be some mechanical movement in the camera but this obviously can not effect the exposure (with the possible exception of a continuous “burst” of successive pictures).
When you taking a picture like that mountain use the LIVE VIEW for this reason to get best possible steady shot you can get.
With a shot like that you need to take advantage of everything you can to get the best possible picture.
And when taking a shot like that I try to do it on a day with the least wind, wind is a natural enemy of landscape photography with slow shutter speeds, it can destroy your shots with movement and shifts, they can be crazy amounts of movement that you cant see or notice even looking at your camera up close, what I do is I zoom into an object far away like that mountain, then turn on LIVE VIEW, then I use the live view screen zoom, this is not the zoon for the lens it's a zoom for your live view screen, it has 2 zooms the first one is 5X the distance then the next is 10X the distance, when you got it zoomed in all the way look at the screen see if the picture on the screen is moving, while zoomed like this the slightest hair movement will show up before your eyes, I once found out a problem with my tripod failing by doing this the dam picture was shifting back and forth as if some one was slightly moving the camera a micro or 2 left to right and up and down. and I was about 2 feet away from the camera nothing touching it.
check your tripod, make sure it's not allowing your camera to move so slightly As if I was on a boat, this type of movement can ruin a good distance shot,
the mount head on your tripod could be failing.
get a real good tripod one that is all metal no plastic mounts plastic moves the camera never sits 100% on the tripod and can cause movement,
this is a good way to test to see if you got camera movement, if you getting movement on the tripod try putting it on a solid taple and be on a sturdy floor so there is not movement then see if your still getting any movement off the tripod on a solid object like a table or brick wall or something where there should be no possible movement..
Cheers
Donny
As if I was on a boat, this type of movement can ruin a good distance shot,