Bad Bokeh on new 100-400mm (or not?)

[cab1024]

I got my Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L lens on Friday and took these shots on Saturday. First off I'm blown away by this lens. The detail and clarity is amazing, as is the the color saturation and vividness.

But, I was shocked by some of the unexpectedly weird effects I saw in the bokeh. It was very distracting, not at all buttery, and just plain weird. I found a technical explanation on DPreview (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=26712458) that makes sense, but I'm wondering if other people have noticed it, or if you find it as aesthetically unpleasing as I do.

From what I saw on my first day of use was that this mostly occurs with grass, or any long hard-edged thing in the background. Anyway. Here are a few samples. What do you think? Have you seen this before? Does it bother you in your own photos? What can I do to minimize it? And what do you think of the explanation from DPreview?

[cab1024]

Here's one more "bad bokeh" as well as my first BOF shot with this lens. Needles to say, I'm overall very pleased with my purchase.

Also, it was described as a doubled ghosting effect elsewhere. But to me, it seems like the hard edges of the grass are showing up as hard edges in the blurred image....

[tjsimonsen]

What aperture have you been shooting at?
The bokeh on my 1-4 can be fairly harsh in tricky situations. But it helps considerably to shoot wide open or at f6.3. But generally it's not that bad at f7.1 or 8.0 either. Beyond f8.0 it's often quite bad.

Thomas

[cab1024]

Thomas,

All of them (I just checked) were taken wide open at f/5.6.

Unfortunately I can't find the shot tat looks most dramatic. (One small problem of shooting so many images...)

-chuck

[cab1024]

Two more links on this topic. This is the OP of the thread I linked to in my OP:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=26278988

This one hints at the issue from an unrelated postwith a humorous sideswipe at it:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/783445/0#7193382

I'm interested in this because it is completely new to me. I had no expectation or recall ever reading anything about it, until I saw it widespread in my first day's shots. And the other reason is that the most common background in my primary birding location is tall grass and reeds, so I'm going to be dealing with/seeing this a lot.

[HokkaidoStu]

Like others said on DPreview reeds, sticks and branches don't produce good bokeh on a lens like this.

Grass or green bushes do OK though....it also helps if the bird in focus is nice and close and the bokeh 'subject' is some distance behind.....

Here are some examples with the 100-400.......not great pics as such but i think they have nice bokeh at least.

The Nuthatch was F8 but the others were F5.6.

[JohnZ]

That is what you get with the 100-400 and to a degree the 400mm prime as well. I suspect that you may have to get closer to the bird to get the best out of your lens.

[Cashie]

Are you using a filter at all? I use to get poor background when using a UV filer, and when I took it off it was like using a different lens.

[Nikon Kid]

Are you using a filter at all? I use to get poor background when using a UV filer, and when I took it off it was like using a different lens.

Yes I was thinking filter too, but maybe take a few shots of a bird close up at f5.6 without reeds in it maybe just sky or water or grass and see what happens.

[RJL2005]

I have seen the same effect with my 100-400.

But it also happens with my Sigma 500 4.5 when the background is as described (close to subject and has sharp edges) This was taken with the bird in among branches:

http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/244574/ppuser/37514

1/250 f5.6 iso250.

This one with a clearer background:

http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/244645/ppuser/37514

1/350 f5.6 iso250

It is not a question of getting closer to your subject, these were taken from a hide, using a beanbag (the lens has no IS) and at a distance of between 15 and 30ft. It appears to me to be a function of the sharp edged BG and the lens aperture. I imagine if you could open up wider than f5.6 it would be greatly lessened, along with the bank balance:-)

[JohnZ]

RJL2005, Unless the two very nice shots from your gallery are not cropped at all then I will have to stick by notion that the nearer you get to the birds the better the lens will perform. I am not suggesting that you get on top of them but by the same token as the minimum focussing distance of a 100-400 is, I believe, less than the prime lens it would not hurt to get a touch closer.
I currently use a 40D and 400mm lens and have had similar problems to those demonstrated by cab1024 but not quite as bad.

Edit : The minimum close focussing on a 100-400 is 1.8m as opposed to the prime at 3.5m

[cab1024]

No filter on the lens. The lens hood will have to handle all of the protection (which admirably shielded a dog shaking off this morning at the lagoon).

Thanks for all the input. I think it was the "perfect storm" of events to create the ugly bokeh. Just happened to occur on my first day out, and therefore threw me for a loop.

Since there seems to be no way to correct it, other than putting birds in locations they are not or greatly lessenigng the bank balance to open wider, I think I'll just have to live with it. And if it really bothers me in an otherwise perfect photo, I guess I'll have to blur it further in PP.

Now, to just get an otherwise perfect photo...

FWIW, I started shooting RAW this morning, with a plan for actually reviewing and culling after outings. I have no experience getting RAW files to look as I would expect a properly exposed jpeg to. But that is for another thread...on Aperture software...

[cab1024]

Oh, and great photos, Stu. The crispness and beuty of your shots made me totally reevaluate which shots to upload last night, although right after I did the PP. Suddenly my three best didn't look so good!

[a.dancy]

The light in the pics appears harsh and your lens will be magnifying wobbly air. With high shutter speeds turn off IS ...not always easy to remember.

[RJL2005]

RJL2005, Unless the two very nice shots from your gallery are not cropped at all then I will have to stick by notion that the nearer you get to the birds the better the lens will perform. I am not suggesting that you get on top of them but by the same token as the minimum focussing distance of a 100-400 is, I believe, less than the prime lens it would not hurt to get a touch closer.
I currently use a 40D and 400mm lens and have had similar problems to those demonstrated by cab1024 but not quite as bad.

Edit : The minimum close focussing on a 100-400 is 1.8m as opposed to the prime at 3.5m

John

The female Bullfinch showing the 'problem' is not cropped at all.
The male Bullfinch showing the better BG is slightly cropped (~15MP to ~11MP). Whilst in general I agree that getting closer is a good thing I do not think reducing the distance for the female bullfinch shot from ~30ft to ~15ft would have shown any improvement. I still feel that the BG is the problem in this case.

Rhod

[shoshone]

John

The female Bullfinch showing the 'problem' is not cropped at all.
The male Bullfinch showing the better BG is slightly cropped (~15MP to ~11MP). Whilst in general I agree that getting closer is a good thing I do not think reducing the distance for the female bullfinch shot from ~30ft to ~15ft would have shown any improvement. I still feel that the BG is the problem in this case.

Rhod

Lots of 100-400 owners on POTN (Canon) have observed that it takes quite some time to get used to using this lens. I sort of agree with this.

I believe our own Keith Reeder posted lots of advice in this regard and he managed to 'learn' how to get the best from his (as if he needs to learn anything ;). However it does take time so give it a chance Chuck.

Regarding getting closer as has been mentioned a lot, I'd rather emphasise trying to get more distance behind subject/bird from it's background However far away the subject is and yes as wide open as you can get away with. This should give the lens a chance to produce a better bokeh rather than the harsh grasses and reeds which Chuck is experiencing.

Personally I think Chuck made the right decision and just has to learn how better to exploit the lens he bought. I moved from a 70-200 bog standard F4 to the 100-400 and never looked back. Yes I'd love to have a 300 F2.8 and stick my 1.4 TC on it, or even a 2 x TC but that is dreamland for me.

In addition, I always felt disappointed sticking a 1.4 on the 1-4 until I put it on my 1DIII and changed my mind. Enough ramblings though.

Jamie

[bobthebirder]

Regarding getting closer as has been mentioned a lot, I'd rather emphasise trying to get more distance behind subject/bird from it's background
What he said. I don't claim to be any sort of expert, but what what I've read and my own experience, the crucial factor in getting good bokeh is not so much how close you are to the bird as the distance between the bird and the background you want blurred. The further the separation the better. The closer together they are then the shallower depth of field you are going to have to set (i.e. wider aperture) to keep the background blurred.

[cab1024]

Thanks for the advice folks. I'm loving this lens regardless. I'm using the 100mm side quite a bit getting shots of my daughter as I'm looking for birds. The quality of the shots is like like an extra boost of adrenaline compared to the vividness and clarity of my other lenses, and I'm shooting it all wide open. I'm almost paying more attention to the blur than the subjects!

[JohnZ]

I am probably 100% wrong here but I imagined that the reason cab1024 was getting bad backgrounds was because there is too much room behind the subject ?
A 100% crop of a Marsh Tit may help with my theory.

[RJL2005]

Sorry John but that can't be right. The more distance between subject and BG esp. with a wide aperture (shallow DOF) means the the BG will be out of focus and lead to the nice blurred BG.

These two Stonechat pics were both taken with the 100-400. In the first the BG was way behind the subject, in the second the BG was very close.

Cheers
Rhod

[JohnZ]

I fear that we are going to have to beg to differ on this RJL. I still maintain that the closer you can get to the subject the better off you will be.
I have posted a couple more shots that, hopefully, demonstrate that you can still get some sort of bokeh even if it is not the best possible. The Wagtail shot was taken at Elmley and the grass behind the bird was less than 4 feet away. The Golden plover shot was just a continuation of the grass. The Redshank shot is possibly the worst example but still shows a bokeh of sorts.
I should also add that all of the shots were taken with the Canon 400mm prime lens.

[tjsimonsen]

Obviously it helps to be closer to the subject. If the distance from subject to BG is say 5m, and you are 5m from the subject, the relative distance between the subject and BG is greater than if you were 15m from the subject. Plus you get a much smaller portion of BG in the first picture. However, I agree that the distance from the subject to BG is probably more important.

cab1024, I'm sorry it took me some time to get back to this. My 1-4L can produce fairly harsh background in strongly lit situations as well, especially in back lit situations. But the aperture means a lot too.
This was shot w/ f10 (the camera was accidentally on auto mode):
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/193563/ppuser/38764

While this was shot with f6.3:
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/195514/ppuser/38764

The birds were on the same locality, and in almost exactly the same spot, certainly same distance to BG. Only on different days.

Thomas

[mrmarklin]

Like others said on DPreview reeds, sticks and branches don't produce good bokeh on a lens like this.

Grass or green bushes do OK though....it also helps if the bird in focus is nice and close and the bokeh 'subject' is some distance behind.....

Here are some examples with the 100-400.......not great pics as such but i think they have nice bokeh at least.

The Nuthatch was F8 but the others were F5.6.

Actually those are pretty good pix!!!:t:

Great bokeh.

Any bokeh is certainly dependent on DOF and distance between subject and background. In addition there is a bigger DOF on a 1.6 crop camera than in FF so it is another factor to deal with. There are some examples of good bokeh in the photos that have been submitted on this thread.