Canon R5C smudge blurry photos?

Hi Forum,

I got an R5c as a gift and tried it out in the weekend.
Im totally in love with the movie quality BUT the photo quality is something that im really unsure about since it comes out smudgy and blurry almost everytime i shoot.
I really think this is more about my skills since i am a beginner when it comes to photography.
Photo info:
R5C with EF100-400mm f/4,5-5,6L IS II USM
5464x8192 CR3
ISO 1600
f / 5,6
1/50 
The photo is unedited. 
What am i doing wrong?

Mako2011 wrote:

k327 wrote:

Hi Forum,

I

The image is shot at 400mm with a shutter speed of 1/50s. Unless you are on a rock steady tripod the camera shake will make the image blurry....even if on a really good tripod...at 1/50s the animals need to be not moving at all (statue still) or you get motion blur. Given the shutter speed and focal length...not to bad a shot. Could be improved some in post processing

At least, in theory, the EF100-400's IS of 4-stops (16x) should have been good enough to not need a tripod. It probably is on the edge as the IS stops ratings are somewhat exaggerated plus the 1/f.l. the rule should probably be 1/(2 x f.l.). Unless the person used very good and steady technique, camera shake is probably a contributing factor. Also, a good point about even relatively stationary live subjects will move a bit at 1/50th.

On top of the motion blur issues in this specific case, the focus looks like it is short/in front of the deer. If you look at the back fence, you can see that it is relatively sharp on the left and blurry on the right, and the fence is diagonally toward the camera on the left side.

The next question is why is the focus short? It could be that they didn't have the focus locked on the subject. I don't know what focus mode was used. The image is dark which will make AF with a mirrorless camera much more difficult/unreliable. It looked to me too dark (in the image) for eye detection AF to work.

Another issue is the depth of focus at f5.6 at 400mm and that focus distance. I have not worked the numbers, but since the deers are on a diagonal relative to the camera, I would not expect all the deer to be in focus. Still, it should have been enough for the front deer IF the focus was locked correctly, as the shot is not that tight.

There is also the chance that the lens is focusing short. I recently noticed an issue with my old EF 100-400 mk.1 (I have not confirmed it yet), and another person (https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/66530666) has commented on having similar short focusing issues with their EF 100-400 IS mk.2

Dark conditions, 1/50s, small depth of field, and as Karl_Guttag pointed out possible misfocus could have all contributed to the issue. It’s a challenging scene and setup.

You can probably up the ISO to 3200 or more in cases like this. That in turn would let you up the shutter speed and/or the f stop (as a way to increase depth of field).

Also you may want to shoot some in better conditions first to get familiar with the camera for photos, and to determine that the camera is capable of sharp pictures. (But I realize the deer probably won’t be there for that!)

k327 wrote:

Hi Forum,

I got an R5c as a gift and tried it out in the weekend.
Im totally in love with the movie quality BUT the photo quality is something that im really unsure about since it comes out smudgy and blurry almost everytime i shoot.
I really think this is more about my skills since i am a beginner when it comes to photography.
Photo info:
R5C with EF100-400mm f/4,5-5,6L IS II USM
5464x8192 CR3
ISO 1600
f / 5,6
1/50
The photo is unedited.
What am i doing wrong?

- starting with photography in difficult lighting situation, slow long lens make it worse

- too slow shutter speed (left from your video setting?), I would set at least 1/125s and expect some blurry photos due to movement anyway