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The sharpness of XT2+100-400+1.4x extender revisited....

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baobob

baobob

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AF on the moss of the chimney
AF on the moss of the chimney

Download the file and view it at a real 100% (not the + in the DPR viewer)

A field test is also a test when conditions are poor to awful, to test how usable the gear is in such situations

When the sky is blue, sun brilliant, no wind high contrast you do expect brilliant results

here the weather might be not so friendly quite often so I have to know of the gear behaves

Distance about 80m, cloudy and high degree of humidity

look at the moss on top of chimney

cheers



Bob
 
I guess the photo was taken with a handheld camera? Anyway, the photo lacks sharpness, due to obvious camera shake.

"Making predictions is very hard, especially about the future.
Alfred E. Neuman"
 
May be you should go to the optical center ? :-)

Where have you seen a motion blurr on this photo ?

It is razor sharp on the moss at the top of the chimney(remember that DPR viewer with + option gives more than 100% )

Oh yes the background is blurred, right :-P
 
baobob said:
May be you should go to the optical center ? :-)

Where have you seen a motion blurr on this photo ?

It is razor sharp on the moss at the top of the chimney(remember that DPR viewer with + option gives more than 100% )

Oh yes the background is blurred, right :-P

--
Good judgment comes from experience
Experience comes from bad judgment
Click to expand...
Sorry baobob, but it's not even close to being 'razor sharp'.



Razor sharp??
Razor sharp??



--
"Making predictions is very hard, especially about the future.
Alfred E. Neuman"
 
Have to agree, looks like a bit of motion blur. At least it's not the lens. :-p
 
If one wants sharp pictures, use a good tripod.

Several years back when working at a high end commercial product illustration studio (one day of our time would buy a nice Hasselblad system), I had a bet with one of their top photographers. The bet: with a 50mm lens on a Leica at 1/1000 (yes one thousandths) of a second, he could see the difference between handheld and tripod shots.

To keep it fair, he did the handheld shots and I did the ones on the tripod. Yes, I won the bet.

Notice that this was at 1/1000th and not at the reciprocal guideline of 1/50th.

Examining images posted on forums and my own shooting, it seems that sharp images don't happen handheld with modern stabilization below 2-4X the reciprocal. So for the 100-400 plus 1.4 TC, a 1120mm full frame equivalent, 1/2000th would be the absolute minimum shutter speed for a sharp image.

Sure if one is just doing web posting or sharing through email then the sharpness is not critical. But then one could save a ton of money and weight and just use a small bridge camera such as the new Panasonic with 24-1200mm equivalent lens.
 
yes at 200%

you should read about the DPR viewer
 
a slight focusblurr in the previous however (no motion blurr see the roof)

Minimizing the AF sensor gives that



28f4bc2285d94495a8de9527578efb29.jpg

now count the number of sexual organs of the moss... good luck

--
Good judgment comes from experience
Experience comes from bad judgment
 
You seem to take this way too seriously, baobob.

We probably do not have the same opinion about what 'razor-sharp' means. I think the sharpness is still pretty average, certainly nothing that impresses me.
baobob said:
a slight focusblurr in the previous however (no motion blurr see the roof)

Minimizing the AF sensor gives that

28f4bc2285d94495a8de9527578efb29.jpg

now count the number of sexual organs of the moss... good luck

--
Good judgment comes from experience
Experience comes from bad judgment
Click to expand...
--
"Making predictions is very hard, especially about the future.
Alfred E. Neuman"
 
Not at all, I was just expecting the answer, how many sexual organs you can count in the moss at the top of the chimney, that is the challenge, viewed from 80m....
 
True 100% of the former
True 100% of the former

easy to count now !

--
Good judgment comes from experience
Experience comes from bad judgment
 
TwoMetreBill said:
If one wants sharp pictures, use a good tripod.

Several years back when working at a high end commercial product illustration studio (one day of our time would buy a nice Hasselblad system), I had a bet with one of their top photographers. The bet: with a 50mm lens on a Leica at 1/1000 (yes one thousandths) of a second, he could see the difference between handheld and tripod shots.

To keep it fair, he did the handheld shots and I did the ones on the tripod. Yes, I won the bet.

Notice that this was at 1/1000th and not at the reciprocal guideline of 1/50th.

Examining images posted on forums and my own shooting, it seems that sharp images don't happen handheld with modern stabilization below 2-4X the reciprocal. So for the 100-400 plus 1.4 TC, a 1120mm full frame equivalent, 1/2000th would be the absolute minimum shutter speed for a sharp image.

Sure if one is just doing web posting or sharing through email then the sharpness is not critical. But then one could save a ton of money and weight and just use a small bridge camera such as the new Panasonic with 24-1200mm equivalent lens.
Click to expand...
And yet, I responded to your post in another thread on this subject yesterday with two examples of very sharp images taken handheld with the 100-400 and 1.4 TC (OIS enabled) at 1/250s and 1/320s respectively. WAY under your recommended guideline of 1/2000s. I can post more if you'd like -- these are more the rule than the exception from my experience (not to mention MANY others who've posted similar examples on this forum). OIS dramatically changes the game, and the OIS in this particular lens is extremely effective.

Sorry... have to strongly disagree with your contention here.
 
baobob said:
True 100% of the former
True 100% of the former

easy to count now !
Click to expand...
Just because you can count them doesn't mean "razor sharp". But that's a subjective definition.

I agree with both of you. I think Bueche is right in that I wouldn't use the term "razor sharp" to describe the sharpness of this image.

I agree with you that this image, taken from 80 meters, is pretty good. It's maybe what I would expect from this distance, especially if it's hand held.

If you want to really see what the lens is capable of I would take the same shot from a tripod with electronic shutter. That would serve as your baseline for comparing against hand held "field test" shots.

--
Mike Dawson
 
Thx for your comments

at the very beginning it was just to show what you can expect in field operation (bad weather bad light no tripod no monopod) and still an impressive resolution whether this is tacksharp or just very sharp is as already mentionned related to the weight you give to words

The shot was also some practice waiting for birds in a few weeks

best

bob
 
baobob said:
The shot was also some practice waiting for birds in a few weeks
Click to expand...
Interesting. I was going to make a bird comment in my previous reply.

If that had been a bird on the chimney instead of moss I don't think you would have gotten a lot of fine feather detail. That wouldn't have meant that the image wasn't extremely sharp. You simply won't get fine feather detail at 80 meters (IMO).

Compare that to this same lens combo on a bird at say 10 meters. I think you would see a lot of fine feather detail.

I think your combo there will be doing fine when the birds come out.
 
I probably agree, getting fine details in feathers is very difficult, depending of course on the size of bird One issue being the lack of high contrast if the colors are all the same

The game being to try and find a part of the bird where contarst is ok provided that DOF allows that practice

Anyway since the gear is new (santa Claus) there is a strong need to train and train and train

Best

Bob
 
I'd have to agree with those who say this image lacks sharpness at the point of focus. Sorry Bob but no way is the moss on the roof anywhere near sharp. As to why that should be is the important question.

Looking at the ridge tiles, I can see evidence of what looks like blur due to camera shake.

At ISO 800 we can rule out digital noise and at f8 there should be no diffraction effects. That just leaves a poor lens or camera shake as the cause of the problem. Let us assume that the lens is fine. That means that, even with IS, 1/160th second is too slow at a focal length of 560mm.

If it was my lens, I would want to test it more thoroughly with a tripod just to convince myself that I had a good copy. I certainly would not trust to getting tack sharp images of birds feathers as things stand.

However, what bothers me as much, if not more, is the nasty rendition of the out of focus trees in the background. That may also be a result of camera shake, more testing needed for sure.
 
TwoMetreBill said:
If one wants sharp pictures, use a good tripod.

Several years back when working at a high end commercial product illustration studio (one day of our time would buy a nice Hasselblad system), I had a bet with one of their top photographers. The bet: with a 50mm lens on a Leica at 1/1000 (yes one thousandths) of a second, he could see the difference between handheld and tripod shots.

To keep it fair, he did the handheld shots and I did the ones on the tripod. Yes, I won the bet.

Notice that this was at 1/1000th and not at the reciprocal guideline of 1/50th.

Examining images posted on forums and my own shooting, it seems that sharp images don't happen handheld with modern stabilization below 2-4X the reciprocal. So for the 100-400 plus 1.4 TC, a 1120mm full frame equivalent, 1/2000th would be the absolute minimum shutter speed for a sharp image.
Click to expand...
How are you calculation 1120 mm equivalent? Would this not be (focal length x crop factor x TC ratio) or (400*1.5*1.4) which is 840 mm equivalent ???

TwoMetreBill said:
Sure if one is just doing web posting or sharing through email then the sharpness is not critical. But then one could save a ton of money and weight and just use a small bridge camera such as the new Panasonic with 24-1200mm equivalent lens.
Click to expand...
 
Bueche said:
You seem to take this way too seriously, baobob.

We probably do not have the same opinion about what 'razor-sharp' means. I think the sharpness is still pretty average, certainly nothing that impresses me.
baobob said:
a slight focusblurr in the previous however (no motion blurr see the roof)

Minimizing the AF sensor gives that

28f4bc2285d94495a8de9527578efb29.jpg

now count the number of sexual organs of the moss... good luck

--
Good judgment comes from experience
Experience comes from bad judgment
Click to expand...
--
"Making predictions is very hard, especially about the future.
Alfred E. Neuman"
Click to expand...


I thought the same. Unsharp if anything.

Greg.
 
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