sharpness test with 100-400

[chrisduval]

Canon 20D and 100-400 IS.

Any thoughts on sharpness? I just want to make sure my poor pictures of birds are me and not the lens! :) They were taken on a tripod at 1/60th, ISO 800, self-timer, F8, 400mm, IS turned off. Added some brightness and sharpness in PS 5.0.

I couldn't see a way to upload anything bigger than 800x800 so it's resized but uncropped. The original image was 3000 x 2000 or so....

Thanks,

Chris

[rjb25073]

Canon 20D and 100-400 IS.

Any thoughts on sharpness? I just want to make sure my poor pictures of birds are me and not the lens! :) They were taken on a tripod at 1/60th, ISO 800, self-timer, F8, 400mm, IS turned off. Added some brightness and sharpness in PS 5.0.

I couldn't see a way to upload anything bigger than 800x800 so it's resized but uncropped. The original image was 3000 x 2000 or so....

Thanks,

Chris

Hi Chris,
they look fine but it can be difficult to tell with a full frame shot, there certainly isn't a major issue. In PS go to 100 % view and crop to a selection of just under 800x600, this is a 100 % crop and will not need resizing although you'll have to compress slightly. I don't have a dollar bill but have attached a 100 % crop of a real world shot taken earlier today (20d, 100-400, 1/320, f5.6 iso 400, 400mm. handheld at about 9 feet). It also shows the dof issues at this distance/focal length combination.

cheers,
Richard

[Keith Reeder]

It would be better if you crop a section of the full image at 100% and post it up, Chris - it's hard to say much from significantly downsized/compressed shots like this.

Also - find some more light from somewhere and get the ISO down as far as you can -to do objective sharpness testing you want to keep ISO low, because good as the Canon is, 800 ISO will mean noise, and that costs detail: generally not enough to hurt a "real world" picture, but not what you want for this job.

Don't get too bound up in testing the lens though: your hummingbirds were fine, and that's what really counts. I'm coming to believe that my 100-400mm isn't one of the sharpest at 100% but it still does what I want it to do, and that's all I'm bothered about.

Added: Unsharpened 100% crop from my lens.

Not the sharpest? Maybe.

Sharp enough for me? Yep.

If I need 100% crops, they'll rarely be of birds this close up (usually they'll be distant record shots that are never going to be brilliant); if I do need a 100% crop it'll sharpen up anyway; if it doesn't look good, that's life; and much more of the time I downsize the pictures I take.

It's really just photographers that are impressed by razor-sharpness!

;)

[tirc83]

Canon 20D and 100-400 IS.

Any thoughts on sharpness? I just want to make sure my poor pictures of birds are me and not the lens! :) They were taken on a tripod at 1/60th, ISO 800, self-timer, F8, 400mm, IS turned off. Added some brightness and sharpness in PS 5.0.

Chris

I think using a shutter speed as slow as 1/60s (despite the use of a tripod) is a bad choice for test of sharpness. In the field you are quite likely to be using at least 1/400s so why not test under those conditions?

[chrisduval]

I think using a shutter speed as slow as 1/60s (despite the use of a tripod) is a bad choice for test of sharpness. In the field you are quite likely to be using at least 1/400s so why not test under those conditions?

Thank you for your replies - is this any better? From your response, it appears that my lens is probably fine but if you wouldn't mind taking a look at this, I'd appreciate it. I think it's a better sample for you to examine though I'm still not sure if it's a 100% crop. I played around with cropping it and got it to around 100% I believe. There hasn't been any resizing only sharpening. Also, it was a bit of a crumpled dollar bill so I wasn't able to get it perfectly flat.

ISO 200, F8, 400mm, tripod, 1/1000, self-timer.

Thanks,

Chris

[Keith Reeder]

Looks like a that's a pretty sharp lens, Chris - you can see the texture of the paper, so it's resolving fine detail well enough.

How far were you shooting from?

[chrisduval]

Looks like a that's a pretty sharp lens, Chris - you can see the texture of the paper, so it's resolving fine detail well enough.

How far were you shooting from?

I guess I was about 9-10 feet away. Good to hear that you think the lens is ok and the softness of some recent pic's is me... This equipment is all fairly expensive for me so I have perhaps been a bit paranoid... :eek!:

[rjb25073]

Thank you for your replies - is this any better? From your response, it appears that my lens is probably fine but if you wouldn't mind taking a look at this, I'd appreciate it. I think it's a better sample for you to examine though I'm still not sure if it's a 100% crop. I played around with cropping it and got it to around 100% I believe. There hasn't been any resizing only sharpening. Also, it was a bit of a crumpled dollar bill so I wasn't able to get it perfectly flat.

ISO 200, F8, 400mm, tripod, 1/1000, self-timer.

Thanks,

Chris

Hi Chris,
I agree with Keith they look spot-on. Hopefully you can sleep more soundly now !

In practice I'd definitely try using AI focus rather than AI servo and see if that makes a difference. Focus, take 3-4 shots, re-focus etc etc I noticed a big improvement in keepers doing this.

Good luck,
Richard

[nigelblake]

These are exceptionally sharp images, Dollar bills are possibly not a good subject for sharpness testing, neither are any other on paper printed subjects as there will be ink bleed into the paper, these pix even show that>

[tjsimonsen]

I guess I was about 9-10 feet away. Good to hear that you think the lens is ok and the softness of some recent pic's is me... This equipment is all fairly expensive for me so I have perhaps been a bit paranoid... :eek!:
Hi Chris,
Your lens is more than "ok" - it's as sharp as it could be!
I bought the same lens a month ago and immidiatly joined the ranks of the paranoids as well B (:
After testing and using it in a lot of different circumstances, I reached the conclusion that it's a pretty sharp lens. At 400/f8 it's sharper than my 100/2.8 macro stopped down f5.6! And I have always considered the macro to be very sharp between f5.6 and f11.
I have attached a 100% crop of a butterfly shot at 400/f8, it's converted from RAW but hasn't otherwise been post processed.
The 100-400 is a very powerfull tool, but you have to learn how to use it to get the most out of it. I find the learning curve to be pretty steep despite having ten years of experience with 400mm primes on film SLRs.

Enjoy our lens, you have a very good copy!

Cheers,
/Thomas