300mm F/4L IS vs 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6L IS for bird photos - HELP!

See below:

Tannin said:

Gus, I feel your pain. I agree with Romy and a couple of other
posters that there is a pretty clear focus problem in your bird
shots, especially with the 300mm, but I think a little with the
100-400 too. Maybe you would do better with a 30D - they are
supposed to have better AF than the 350D (not sure about the 400D).
But that's only hearsay, I've only used my 20Ds, so I can't say
from my own experience.

Click to expand...

My brother has the 100-400mm lens with a 30D and his shots are fantastic. So you are probably right. I just ordered the 400D/XTi which supposedly have the autofocus system similar to the 30D. I'm anxious to try it out on both of my lenses before I return the 300f4.

Tannin said:

1. 1 problem: focus.

But I think there is a second problem there too, though it's hard
to tell when the focus is out. I think you are getting movement
problems. What shutter speeds are you using for bird shots? (In
those composite images you made, very helpful though they are,
there isn't any useful EXIF info, of course.)

Click to expand...

Yes, I agree, these small birds rarely sit still, so fast shutter speeds are necessary. However, I have countless shots of birds on a fence post with nothing in the background to cause any problems and they are still OOF. I was up in Colorado last summer and spotted a Burrowing Owl sitting on a fence post. I stopped my car, rested my elbow on the arm rest and took nearly 100 shots of the owl, which did NOT move at all. EVERY one of the shots was OOF, so bad they were basically no good. That was my first 100-400mm lens, I now have a 2nd one.

You make some VERY good points here. Definitely could be the case here. I have had MUCH better success with cardinals and blue jays, for one, they don't look so much like the ground, and two, they are larger birds. So my challenge is these smaller birds. Thanks for this info!

Tannin said:

It's quite noticable that pretty much all of the bird shots you
posted are either low contrast shots (I mean that the bird is more
or less the same colour as the background) or part-obscured shots
(in the sense that the background is very "busy", meaning that the
poor AF system has a difficult task if it's going to figure out
that you want the bird in focus, not the grass in front of it or
the sticks behind it).

In short, these are situations where I wouldn't be all that
confident of getting a good shot because more than likely the focus
will be only vaguely correct - and remember that I'm using a 20D
(probably better at AF than a 350D) and either a 100-400 or a 500
f/4 - both very good lenses indeed.

Adding to the difficulties, the busy background makes for a
difficult choice when you are thinking about depth of field:
doesn't much matter what you do, if you stop down you sacrifice
shutter speed (=clarity) and get the background only vaguely in
focus, and if you open up wide you risk getting parts of the bird
OOF and yet not really blurring the background enough. Worse yet,
you need to apply some sharpening to lift the bird and give it
visual impact, but the more you sharpen, the worse the background
gets! Do you really want to spend all your evenings for the next
month buggerising around in Photoshop cutting out the birds and
blurring just the backgrounds?

Bottom line: shots of birds smaller than about duck size on the
ground almost never work, unless the ground is bare earth or
something similarly plain.

OK, I know I've ventured a long way away from lenses here, but I
hope it is of some help. Don't stop trying! If it wasn't hard, we
wouldn't love working to improve our mastery of the art. Stick with
it.

Click to expand...

I'm switching from KM. I was all set to buy the 30D, 300/f4 and 1.4tc since I'm not thrilled with the push/pull thing and thought the prime would have better IQ. Then I see this thread. Thanks for making me rethink this purchase again. It appears by your test that the 100-400 may be better. Nothing is easy. I wish there was one simple answer...
Nice test.

Pat

Hi Gus,

I agree with Liquidstone and Tannin that your bird shots are showing significant focus as well as probably movement problems. If you have shot any of these from a tripod (or some other support that fully locks out lens movement, having IS on will induce motion blur on the 100-400 as well as the 300/4, I believe. These lenses have an older IS unit that doesn't work when the lens is dead steady. You are meant to turn the IS off in those situations. This may explain what's happening with the beer bottles. Also, Tannin has pointed out that you should keep your shutter speed up (ideally 1/1000 and above) if you want very sharp handheld shots at these focal lengths.

Looking at the bird shots, it seems that you may also have front-focus, as Liquidstone suggests. However, the non-IS shots of the beer bottle looked OK to me. DOF is actually quite shallow at these focal lengths, and these are small subjects, so you may be quite close, compounding the problem. It's also possible that, if you are using One Shot, you are not actually focusing immediately prior to pressing the shutter fully. You might move a bit forward or back between focusing and taking the shot, and throwing the subject OOF.

My guesses about the cause of the problems may be wrong, but I feel quite sure that you'd benefit from sorting out the AF problems first. There may be differences between particular copies of the 100-400 and 300/4 that are visible in 100% crops of subjects like these, but if everything else is spot on, these differences would be subtle, and vary around the excellent mark. In your bird shots, all the lens combos are way off their expected level. There are thousands of images taken with these lenses (of similar subjects and in similar conditions) that will knock everybody's socks off. You can't decide between these lenses while your results with them are so far off their usual level.

--
Suvo Mitra
http://suvomitra.smugmug.com

Hi Pat,

First, what's KM? Second, I'm not sure about anything at the moment. I have ordered a new 400D/XTi which will arrive Friday. I plan to do some extensive testing over the weekend to try to find out what is going on. I just went out with the 300f4 and my XT and just took some very simple photos of a dead branch against the blue sky. It clearly did not focus correctly. Then another shot from a distance of a tree in fall colors. No good, OOF. Something is terribly wrong, but I don't know what yet.

There are quite a few people who will say that your combo would be a winner, so don't finalize your decision against it because of my thread, because I'm confused at this point.

But I look at the wildlife photos of the week here on DPR and I get very jealous. That's the kind of quality I want!! And there were great shots from both 300f4s and also 100-400s.

Gus

Pat Trev said:

I'm switching from KM. I was all set to buy the 30D, 300/f4 and
1.4tc since I'm not thrilled with the push/pull thing and thought
the prime would have better IQ. Then I see this thread. Thanks
for making me rethink this purchase again. It appears by your test
that the 100-400 may be better. Nothing is easy. I wish there was
one simple answer...
Nice test.

Pat

Click to expand...

Gus,

KM is Konica Minolta. I'm switching systems. I await your further reviews and test. Thanks.

Pat

Hi, and thanks for your comments. See below:

SuvoMitra said:

Hi Gus,

I agree with Liquidstone and Tannin that your bird shots are
showing significant focus as well as probably movement problems. If
you have shot any of these from a tripod (or some other support
that fully locks out lens movement, having IS on will induce motion
blur on the 100-400 as well as the 300/4, I believe. These lenses
have an older IS unit that doesn't work when the lens is dead
steady. You are meant to turn the IS off in those situations. This
may explain what's happening with the beer bottles. Also, Tannin
has pointed out that you should keep your shutter speed up (ideally
1/1000 and above) if you want very sharp handheld shots at these
focal lengths.

Click to expand...

In regard to leaving IS on when on a tripod, I have experimented with that before and have never been able to see any difference. Yes, I understand about keeping the shutter speed high. There was one example in the photos I posted where the shutter speed was 1/1600 and it is one of the poorer focused shots. That's good advice, but I don't think that is my problem, it's something more serious than that to yield essentially consistent OOF shots no matter what I do.

SuvoMitra said:

Looking at the bird shots, it seems that you may also have
front-focus, as Liquidstone suggests. However, the non-IS shots of
the beer bottle looked OK to me. DOF is actually quite shallow at
these focal lengths, and these are small subjects, so you may be
quite close, compounding the problem. It's also possible that, if
you are using One Shot, you are not actually focusing immediately
prior to pressing the shutter fully. You might move a bit forward
or back between focusing and taking the shot, and throwing the
subject OOF.

Click to expand...

All of the bird shots were taken hand-held with IS on from my car. I held the camera solidly and rested my left elbow on the door arm rest. So the camera was held very steady and there would NOT have been any movement back or forth between focus lock and shutter press.

SuvoMitra said:

My guesses about the cause of the problems may be wrong, but I feel
quite sure that you'd benefit from sorting out the AF problems
first.

Click to expand...

Yes, you are absolutely right about that!

SuvoMitra said:

There may be differences between particular copies of the
100-400 and 300/4 that are visible in 100% crops of subjects like
these, but if everything else is spot on, these differences would
be subtle, and vary around the excellent mark. In your bird shots,
all the lens combos are way off their expected level.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with you on that! That is why I am so deeply disappointed!

SuvoMitra said:

There are
thousands of images taken with these lenses (of similar subjects
and in similar conditions) that will knock everybody's socks off.

Click to expand...

Yes, I just took a look at this weeks Wildlife shots, and they DO knock my socks off! But that's the IQ I want to have!

SuvoMitra said:

You can't decide between these lenses while your results with them
are so far off their usual level.

Click to expand...

That's a very good point! I should not have said that I'm definitely going to send the 300f4 back. It may be a perfectly good lens. I'm beginning to think it is my camera. I understand there IS an adjustment internally that Canon repair can make to correct any front or back exposure. I'm leaning toward that at the moment. I will have my new 400D/XTi here on Friday and I plan to spend the weekend testing it with both of my lenses.

Thanks again for your comments.

Gus

SuvoMitra said:

--
Suvo Mitra
http://suvomitra.smugmug.com

Click to expand...

Just want to get the record straight. I’m sure there can be copy variation and operator error but 300/4 +1.4 TC is very sharp. By most accounts it is even sharper than 100-400 at the long end. Here are a few samples of 300/4 with 1.4TC.

carlk, thanks for sharing your photos. Those are great, and what I expected to see with my lens. I'm leaning toward the problem being with my camera at the moment, and not blaming the lens. New XTi arriving on Friday, so I'll find out.

carlk said:

Just want to get the record straight. I’m sure there can be copy
variation and operator error but 300/4 +1.4 TC is very sharp. By
most accounts it is even sharper than 100-400 at the long end.
Here are a few samples of 300/4 with 1.4TC.

Click to expand...

I don't know what the deal is with your 300 but I must say that I am envious of your sparrow collection!

Greg

--



http://www.pbase.com/dadas115/

compared to my 100~400. One difference is my 300 is not the IS version which did perform better in Photodo's test than the IS lens but that is only one test. There is a lot of variance in different samples of a lens which may be what you are seeing. The 100~400 is a good lens at 300mm but not stellar or up to the IQ of a good prime.
--
http://www.pbase.com/rwbaron
My PBASE page is new and growing so please be patient.

Like Pat I am currently looking at both of these lenses and am sitting squarely on the fence. I like the flexibility of the 100-400, but most of what I have read suggests the 300 F4 is sharper, even with the 1.4TC. I will be eagerly looking forward to your results with the new camera. Thanks for sharing your experience and I hope that the new camera solves your problem.

Elton
--
http://www.pbase.com/elton2

Thanks, Greg! Well, it's the other way around for me, I'm very envious of your sparrow photos on pbase! Those are outstanding photos! In fact, my goal is to get to your level of IQ!

Gus

PeaceFrog said:

I don't know what the deal is with your 300 but I must say that I
am envious of your sparrow collection!

Greg

--



http://www.pbase.com/dadas115/

Click to expand...

Someone please talk me out of the 100-400mm I am purchasing one shortly and I only see comments about getting a "good copy". All the Canon lenses I have purchased have been very good to date, but now I am rethinking the purchase of the above lens!!

Any comments either way???

Fred

I will get my new XTi on Friday, and I have both the 100-400mm and the 300f4L so I'm planning on doing some comparison shots with my new camera. I'll post some comments after those tests - probably on a new thread.

Gus

digital_photog said:

Someone please talk me out of the 100-400mm I am purchasing one
shortly and I only see comments about getting a "good copy". All
the Canon lenses I have purchased have been very good to date, but
now I am rethinking the purchase of the above lens!!

Any comments either way???

Fred

Click to expand...

Gus Stangeland said:

I will get my new XTi on Friday, and I have both the 100-400mm and
the 300f4L so I'm planning on doing some comparison shots with my
new camera. I'll post some comments after those tests - probably on
a new thread.

Click to expand...

One suggestion I would make is to shoot a close focus test as you did originally and also a test at infinity with a lot of fine detail such as a distant city scene. The infinity test will help to eliminate the variable of focusing errors in the camera.

http://www.pbase.com/rwbaron
My PBASE page is new and growing so please be patient.

Gus

Do you use imagebrowser to review your shots after download and to check for where focus actually took place? This might give you a clue as to how the lens, tc and camera combo is performing.
Bill
http://bjames.smugmug.com

No, I haven't done that. That's a very good tip, I will do that.
Gus

bjames said:

Gus
Do you use imagebrowser to review your shots after download and to
check for where focus actually took place? This might give you a
clue as to how the lens, tc and camera combo is performing.
Bill
http://bjames.smugmug.com

Click to expand...

Another good tip - I will do that.
Gus

rwbaron said:

Gus Stangeland said:

I will get my new XTi on Friday, and I have both the 100-400mm and
the 300f4L so I'm planning on doing some comparison shots with my
new camera. I'll post some comments after those tests - probably on
a new thread.

Click to expand...

One suggestion I would make is to shoot a close focus test as you
did originally and also a test at infinity with a lot of fine
detail such as a distant city scene. The infinity test will help
to eliminate the variable of focusing errors in the camera.

http://www.pbase.com/rwbaron
My PBASE page is new and growing so please be patient.

Click to expand...

Here are some pics taken with my 300 f/4 IS + Kenko 300 Pro 1.4 TC all handheld:









--
RomeA