Unusable images with Canon R5 and 100-500mm RF lens

Hi!  I made a trip to Alaska this summer and I'm sooo disappointed that many of my images are not usable.  I'm a full time photographer specializing in nature and wildlife.  I've got decades of experience, starting with slide film.  However, my results from this past trip have me stumped.  So many of my brown bear images have an odd result.

The cub on the left appears sharp (although wet, because of course it was raining).  The cub on the right, especially the face, shows the issue I'm having. Some of the images lose their sharpness and look more painterly.  I can't print this large and have it look good.  It's not blur from movement, it's not exposure.  I've never had results like this before, so I'm assuming its either the R5 or the lens.  I did originally have the IS settings wrong when I first started shooting, and sadly many of my distant images are not usable.  After a bit of research, I found I had the tab on the lens on the wrong IS setting.  However, I still can't figure out this issue.  Especially, when most parts of the image are sharp.

Has anyone run into this?  Or does anyone have any thoughts?  I'd be so incredibly grateful if I could find a fix, but I fear that's too much to ask.

PS I am new to zooms.  My fav lens has always been my 500 f4.0.  Also, these are hand held, but at higher ISO, in case that matters.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Photo67 wrote:

Hi! I made a trip to Alaska this summer and I'm sooo disappointed that many of my images are not usable. I'm a full time photographer specializing in nature and wildlife. I've got decades of experience, starting with slide film. However, my results from this past trip have me stumped. So many of my brown bear images have an odd result.

The cub on the left appears sharp (although wet, because of course it was raining). The cub on the right, especially the face, shows the issue I'm having. Some of the images lose their sharpness and look more painterly. I can't print this large and have it look good. It's not blur from movement, it's not exposure. I've never had results like this before, so I'm assuming its either the R5 or the lens. I did originally have the IS settings wrong when I first started shooting, and sadly many of my distant images are not usable. After a bit of research, I found I had the tab on the lens on the wrong IS setting. However, I still can't figure out this issue. Especially, when most parts of the image are sharp.

Has anyone run into this? Or does anyone have any thoughts? I'd be so incredibly grateful if I could find a fix, but I fear that's too much to ask.

PS I am new to zooms. My fav lens has always been my 500 f4.0. Also, these are hand held, but at higher ISO, in case that matters.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

The Exif data is showing EF 100-400 II so the question is a bit confusing.

Can you post some more examples? I'm not seeing much of a difference between the right and the left on that one. Is that a 100% crop?

OK, I'll bite.  Highly cropped, fairly high ISO, with lots of noise reduction?  That can do it.

Low image quality setting in camera?  Set to small (low-pixel) image?

It's always best to post the whole, unedited picture if you want a competent diagnosis.

No text.

Looks to me like a pretty simple depth of field issue.  400mm at f/9 has pretty shallow depth of field at any distance that would have produced this shot.

The Canon EOS R5 is a 45 MPxl camera, but clicking on the image shows 2,100 × 1,500 (3.2 MP). This is definitely a heavily cropped image!!

To the OP: can we see the original full size (uncropped) picture, please? Thx.

Photo67 wrote:

Some of the images lose their sharpness and look more painterly. I can't print this large and have it look good. It's not blur from movement, it's not exposure. I've never had results like this before, so I'm assuming its either the R5 or the lens.

Please tell us what your image settings are. What your file type is. What your shutter mode was. What your in-camera or post-processing involved. What software? What noise reduction? What noise reduction settings? How big a crop? Do you have a filter on your lens? What lens did you actually use? Were you shooting out of a car window? Was there wind blowing? Did you have a hood on? Were you shooting over your hood? Over a road? Over water? Over dark ground? How far away were you? Was your lens at the ambient temperature? Were there atmospherics present? Did you use a tripod? Was image stabilization on? What mode? Any good results? (please show us).

There’s more I could ask, but you get the drift.

Then we could start really helping...

R2

Still no full sized image, but;

• Quite high ISO
• Different to lens to that mentioned
• Looks over-exposed
• Looks like heavy crop
• Looks like shot through a window/mist/rain (which has softened everything).
• Looks like excessive noise reduction (and/or other heavy-handed processing).
• IMO the entire image looks "off", with minimal difference between the two faces. Nothing is good/sharp/detailed/correctly exposed.

But something is definitely not right because this looks like a reasonable phone photo, not a photo taken by an experienced photographer using pro-grade gear.

They are cute!

I hope you have some keepers ...

Photo67 wrote:

Hi! I made a trip to Alaska this summer and I'm sooo disappointed that many of my images are not usable. I'm a full time photographer specializing in nature and wildlife. I've got decades of experience, starting with slide film. However, my results from this past trip have me stumped. So many of my brown bear images have an odd result.

The cub on the left appears sharp (although wet, because of course it was raining). The cub on the right, especially the face, shows the issue I'm having. Some of the images lose their sharpness and look more painterly. I can't print this large and have it look good. It's not blur from movement, it's not exposure. I've never had results like this before, so I'm assuming its either the R5 or the lens. I did originally have the IS settings wrong when I first started shooting, and sadly many of my distant images are not usable. After a bit of research, I found I had the tab on the lens on the wrong IS setting. However, I still can't figure out this issue. Especially, when most parts of the image are sharp.

Has anyone run into this? Or does anyone have any thoughts? I'd be so incredibly grateful if I could find a fix, but I fear that's too much to ask.

PS I am new to zooms. My fav lens has always been my 500 f4.0. Also, these are hand held, but at higher ISO, in case that matters.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Joe Reynolds wrote:

R2, you forgot to ask for his mother’s maiden name and social security number.

HaHa, I would have asked that if I thought it would help! 😁

Instead, there’s a complete dearth of any relevant information about the shoot that’s been provided for us. Not even whether it’s a SOOC jpeg, or if it’s a carefully processed 45 MP 14-bit RAW file that’s gone through DxO’s Photolab Deep Prime Noise Reduction (best case scenario, IMHO).

I mean the obvious answer is that the rain has matted the bears’ fine facial hairs so that there is almost zero texture to start with (along with any number of other detail-reducing factors, many of which I listed), and the high ISO image was then subjected to an (over-zealous and/or under-performing) noise reduction method, causing the characteristic “oil painting” look that’s destroyed any remaining detail left in the poor bears’ miens.

The problem may in fact have deeper roots than that (much of which might involve technique that could be improved), instead of camera or lens issues. We can’t rule one or the other out yet though. I’d be willing to walk the OP through any of it, but he must be the one to kick things off by providing the necessary details.  That’s the process.  

R2

Dark rainy day. Maybe f/5.6 and using a tripod at a 1/320 shutter speed would have reduced ISO to around 1600 at +1ev exposure compensation and improved matters with the final image?

Get closer next time (wear running shoes).