New 400mm f5.6 lens
 

Yet to get a sharp shot out of this lens - think I might have bought a 'Lemon'. This is the nearest I have came to a half decent shot but it still looks mighty soft to me. what do you think and how is the best way to test the lens to see if it is duff.

What shutter speed and aperture are you using?

Stephen, This one was 1/500 at f8 (ISO 200) - thought i would try f8 as I have had no luck with the lens wide open.

Roy have you taken any with a tripod, that should rule out any camera shake.

As this shot shows 2 highlights in the eye I think there is a bit of shake. I always use a tripod these days.

Christine, Here is a shot I just took with a tripod - 1/320 at f8 (ISO200). Just a little shadows and highlight tweak plus a bit of smart sharpen. Focus point was on the red brickes.

It does look a little soft on the left and right of the roof apex but the brick don't look to bad the chimney may have a little shake. It is very hard to tell.

I have just blown it up to 300%, there does seem to be very slight shake or it could be the halo's from shapening.

Roy

This a 400 x 400 crop from frame. Only adjustment is to reduce the brightness a bit.

1/500 sec f8 ISO400 Canon 300mm IS f4 tripod.

Your lens should give as good if not a tad better than this.

Hi Rob, From what I have seen so far, my lens is light years away from anything this good. The 400mm f5.6 certainly does not seem anywhere near as sharp as my 70-200 f4 zoom - even when I add the 1.4x tc to the zoom it is still a lot sharper than the 400 prime.
Perhaps I am expecting to much from the lens. How do people hand hold this lens and get great flight shots?

With a great deal of practice and experience at long lens technique is the answer to that one.

Even with a tripod, you should be bumping up the shutter speed to get pin sharp shots. With the digital crop factor of your camera, you will see every little bit of vibration on a 400mm lens. From what I can see, it's not the lens that's the problem, you just need to practice.

Duncan

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I will keep trying with the lens. My main concern was that I had a duff lens but thankfully no body has suggested that.
There is obviously a bigger difference between 70-200 + 1.4tc (effective 448mm) and the effective 640mm of the prime than I realised.

Roy,keep practising.I have this lens,and I have taken some very sharp images.I have not,as yet,used a tripod,I am waiting until I use the converters.I have found it takes sharper images than the 300F4 and much better than the Sigma300F2,so keep going and and I am sure that you will be be happy with it.All my shots have been taken handholding and I am not the steadiest of people.

Roy, I think you have three problems: shutter speed, shutter speed, and shutter speed. I forget what camera you have .. no, by looking at your EXIF I see it's a 350D. As I understand it, the 350D sensor is similar to those in my 20Ds: in other words, you have plenty of room to increase your shutter speeds up by increasing your ISO. With my Canon 100-400 and 500 f/4, I use these numbers as a rough guide:

100 ISO: have never, ever used it with these lenses

200 ISO: use only when the light is really, really bright (e.g., I'm getting something like a 4000th or a 6000th at ISO 400). (Depends on desired depth of field also: sometimes I'd rather shoot wide open and drop the ISO because I want to blur the background.)

400 ISO: Use this unless there is a good reason to use something else. Around 80-90% of my 400 and 500mm shots are at ISO 400

800 ISO: don't be afraid to go to 800 if you need it. If I am getting less than about a 750th on my image stabilised lenses, I go to 800. Slip over to Bird Forum and have a look at my Australian Owlet-Nightjar - http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/500/page/1 -which was taken in dying light at 800. Notice that what blur there is is depth of field, not motion. I took other shots of the same bird in the same light at 400 ISO and a 350th instead of a 750th, but the 800 ISO shots are clearly the best ones.

1600 ISO: Use it if pushed to it. 800 is better if you can.

Remember that I'm talking about image stabilised lenses here: with the 400 f/5.6 you should probably be using even higher ISOs than I use. Shutter speed is king.

With my 100-400 I like to stop down a half-stop to f/6.7 as routine to improve the optics (but open it up if need be), with the 500 prime I don't bother: it is superb even wide open, so I use it that way. I've never used a 400 f/5.6 but everything I have read about it says that it's just like my 500 - every bit as good wide open as it is at f/8.

Hope this helps!

I have studied the picture and there is a twig in front of the bird and there is movement there soi think there was movement with the bird slightly,also the bird image looks soft to me,i belong to another site and i see shots taken with Canon 350 d camerasof animals and the shots are alway have a soft look about them for some reason so it could be the camera softness problem,i have the canon 300 is f4 which is out of this world and this lens should be as good they get next to top marks for them,chech the write up on them at this site- www. fredmiranda.com and you will see what is said about the 400 mm ! what i would do is set your camera on a tripod and focus on the bark of a tree some distance away and that will give you a very good idea of its sharpness,and i nearly always take my photos raw i find that is better than letting the camera do it ! check that site out Roy,cheer.Tony.

Thanks for this Tannin - good practical stuff. Must admit that I tend to use the old shutter speed = focal length rule (e.g. 1/500 will be ok). Sun's shinning today so will try some high shutter speed shots.

Thanks for that Tony, It is not the Camera as I have had lots of really sharp shots from my 70-200 f4. Also I always shoot in RAW. One of the reasons why I bought thie 400mm f5.6 prime was because of the excellent reviews on Fred Miranda.
Roy

I have got this site from the Fredmiranda site i gave you take a look at these photos taken with the same lens as yours !
http://www.pbase.com/paulyoly/
they are a proof of a good lens ! you will have to look for the one's take with the 400 mm !

Roy you should be able to resolve a bar code on a washing up liquid bottle from 30 feet without any problem. To be on the safe side I would never let the shutter speed fall below 1/1000 sec when hand held.

Hi Rob, This is a barcode from approx 30ft,(100% crop) handheld at 1/2000. Guess this rules out a duff lens?.

Thanks Roy

See you just have to have faith in Canon L lens :D :D :cool:

Roy just out of interest try that shot again on a rock solid support and very ginger on the shutter release.

Or use the timer to reduce camera shake.

RobW

Rob, used tripod + remote release for this one. Looks about the same has the hand held. Must say that my tripod and head are not the best - notice the lens bouncing as the shutter fired.

It looks like a spot of movement on it still. Have you got a heavy cushion you could as a damper ? stick on top of the lens.

Looks like next project could be a better tripod ? :D

Notice the fun we can have spending somebody elses money :rolleyes:

Dont forget Roy it can be a lens fualt ! it has happened before ! cheers.Tony.

Given that Roy has said he can see the end of the lens bouncing as the shutter fires I think that is fairly damning evidence of the problem, camera shake, not a faulty lens.

Duncan

I've just noticed that we are looking at a medium quality jpeg so the original before crop maybe better than we think.

Went out this afternoon - fantastic light. Took 40 or so shots all at ISO 400 and speeds of between 1/1000 and 1/2500 (handheld at f5.6) The attached was about the best of the bunch.Most of the shots were still soft

Can you explain what's going on with the out of focus area behind the gull. It appears to have some sort of diagonal banding/streaking. This area also seems to have quite a few jpeg artefacts and noise creeping in too. What sort of post processing have you given the shot?

Coverted to TIFF. A bit of a 'Shadows and highlights' tweak - resize -plus a touch of smart sharpen -, and then save as to med jpeg.

Maybe then the Shad/Highlight tool is creating too much noise and the sharpening is overdone. Whilst I understand to get sharp images from your new lens, sharpening must be subtle. I personally dont go in for long lenses ;) but using my 70-200 f2.8L I rarely need to give any sharpening at all,even at 2.8

Roy

It is very hard to gauge what the problem is with this gull image. As Stephen has indicated your Post processing is doing so much damage to the gull image. Med jpeg is really hammering the detail with artefacts. I very rarely go below level 10 High jpeg quality if I can help it when posting for web.

Lets focus on a smaller crop area saved at best quaility to start with.

Ok Rob, Here is a crop straight from the Raw file with no processing whatsoever. Saved as a max quality jpeg.

Roy it just does not look in focus.

Was the eye the point of focus ?
Do you have the camera setup with the one central focus point only ?
What focusing mode is the camera setup in ?

Roy, sorry to be a pain, but I'd like the see all of the original image, un-touched by anything except jpg conversion. (Can we ask the mods to relax the rules just this once to allow an over-size file? Or email it to me and I'll host it on my server for a few days while we all ponder it.

The reason I ask is that I'm starting to wonder if you have a focus problem - I'm wondering if the focal point isn't maybe a bit in front of the bird, in which case you may have a problem with the lens. (Damn it, if you weren't half a world away, I'd say let's slip out after work tomorrow and swap lenses for a half hour. See what your lens produces on my 20D and my 100-400 does on your 350D. That would tell us a lot.)

Or maybe a crop of the sand area to the left of the body. That looks like it could be in focus.

Ha, Robski and I cross-posted with the exact same thought.

A couple of other points. This image looks worse than it might because of two things: (1) the gull's plumage is blown out on the throat and head (very difficult not to do this with a brilliant white bird, of course - egrets are always hard work, exposue-wise), and (2) the horizontal surface of the beach is only a little further away than the bird is, so you are in that tricky situation where you can't get the background nice and sharp (not enough DOF is available for that, except maybe at f/16 or f/22), and you can't get the background properly blurred out either (it's not far enough away from the bird at f/5.6, you'd need something like f/2.8 - priced a 400mm f/2.8 lately?).

The reason I mention these two things is that we need to be aware of them before we start drawing conclusions about the image and the lens. By taking note of them, we can mentally discount them (this is supposed to be a test shot, not a competition entry after all) and come to a more balanced view of the image quality, and thus what is going on with your lens.

Having done that, I can only say that something is screwy!

Yup. But why the sand to the left of the bird? That was my thought too - look at the stick. I also thought that the bird's shoulder is a little sharper than it's head, which fits with a focus problem. But it looks as though Roy is shooting through a coke bottle, not a Canon L.

Maybe that's the answer? Roy, do you by any chance have a filter on the 400? (To protect the lens from scratches?) If so, what happens when you take the filter off? Your bird reminds me of the weird and horrible results I got when I bought a set of cheap Hoya closeup lenses as a poor man's macro rig. Used them once, never touched them since.

Tannin,Rob . Yes I have a filter on. Thought I would a) Take the filter off and b) shot the bar code again - on a tripod with my beanbag (full of rice so weighs a ton) on top as a damper. what do you think, is this a good test?
Roy

Here is the tripod shot with damper and no filter taken from about 25 feet,ISO200, 1/1000 at f8. Saved to jpeg straight from RAW. What do you think?