OM-1 + M.Zuiko 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 ---- Is My Lens Copy Soft?

Co172 wrote:

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

Looking at your info, for me at 400 mm (800 FF) a shutterspeed of 1/800 is to slow. My own movement, a branch that maybe moves a little by the wind etc. can already give some motion blur.

Try the combo with a higher shutterspeed and for test sake forget/ignore a higher iso/noise. For me this was a game changer.

Oh, I do agree that higher shutter speed will net sharper images in the case of moving birds. That said, when I rattle off 50+ shot bursts of a perched bird at 1/800, I'd expect to get a few sharp ones in the lot, but I'm seeing none. And I have a slew of tripod shots of stationary objects that look soft as well. Just not sure where my expectations should be tempered. Your shots here leave me wanting more!

To me, that shutter speed argument doesn't add up.  I get excellent results with BIF at 1/2500s, where I can go slower with seagulls and other slow fliers while upping the ante to 1/4000s and more for the fastest species.  However, for perched birds, 1/250s is usually good enough and 1/800s is ample unless you have a REALLY nervous fella in focus.

Getting closer to the bird is always a good idea as your sample pic requires too much cropping. Using Topaz Sharpen is indeed the fix to use, but you are right that you don't want to do this all the time.  Yet, at a distance of 14 meters and with a crop that makes use of 5% of the sensor area, if even that, I'm not sure you can expect much more.

Here is a comparable shot, taken on an OM-1 with the PanaLeica 100-400, at a subject distance of about 12 meters, so a little closer than yours, and a shutter speed of 1/250s.  DxO 6 with DeepPRIME, no sharpening applied whatsoever.  See what you think.

It is not my intention to insult you, but to me this photo is not sharp or a good example what can be achieved with this lens.

Or your copy is not so good as mine or perhaps it is the relative slow shutterspeed.

Concerning the shutterspeed I agree to disagree on this matter

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

It is not my intention to insult you, but to me this photo is not sharp or a good example what can be achieved with this lens.

Or your copy is not so good as mine or perhaps it is the relative slow shutterspeed.

Concerning the shutterspeed I agree to disagree on this matter

Perhaps you can show us a bird shot at the same distance that does meet your standards.  I think the picture is fine given that the subject us just too far away.

What happens is you see the m43 images and think "wow" then you find out later that post was needed to improve the images.

This is what happens when people post images without any context about image enhancement.

This is why I encourage anyone posting images to provide some context, so people entering m43 aren't disappointed with the format.

It's all about honesty.

PhotoMac503 wrote:

What happens is you see the m43 images and think "wow" then you find out later that post was needed to improve the images.

This is what happens when people post images without any context about image enhancement.

This is why I encourage anyone posting images to provide some context, so people entering m43 aren't disappointed with the format.

It's all about honesty.

Probably not specific to m43 images. Other format users postprocess also i imagine.

Agreed that some info of software used is good.

da7329 wrote:

I have several sigma/tamron 100-400 lenses. Your lens is basically a rebadged sigma 100-400 with better sealing etc. 10yd is not that far away and this time of year heat is not a problem at that short distance. I have done many test like this with many bodies from FF to 1in sensor using the 100-400’s. Assuming you are using standard picture setting and ooc jpg I would say your test shots look on the soft side compared to what I would expect from a sigma 100-400. Your SS is high and should be fine for hand held shooting the target. You could stop down to f8 and that could improve things but sigma 100-400’s very usable at full zoom f6.3. You could try some manual focus shots to compare with AF shots and if they look the same then it is what it is. Sample variation is real with zoom lenses in this price range.

DA

Thank you for the experienced input. You're the 2nd person to suggest the manual focus shots.  I must do that now before passing any final judgement. I did stop down in a few uncontrolled tests, but I'll tell you that in our grey winter climate I generally need the fastest aperture I can get.  Nonetheless, I will look harder into this.

The sample variation is what I worry about.  Sad that they can't be more repeatable at this price point, but it's really all I could afford.

Mait wrote:

Co172 wrote:

Hello!

Just purchased an OM-1 and M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 IS this month mainly for the purpose of bird photography. This is my only lens. Even after spending lots of time working with the various AF settings, I've found that a number of my bird photos lack some sharpness, especially at the long end. Part of that is likely due to lower shutter speeds usually needed here in the cloudy northwest winter, but keeper rate remains low under all circumstances. I use back-button C-AF (no tracking) almost exclusively.

Here's an example:

Looks OK from far but cropping or pixel peeping disappoints me

Today we had some rare sun, so I decided to do a quick experiment with controlled conditions to get a baseline on this kit. I set up a poor man's lens calibration kit with a Siemens star target and yardstick ruler at 45 degrees. The star was printed on a laser printer, albeit a bit low on toner. There is too much DOF with this lens to tell if it's front or back focused using the ruler, but the Siemens star did give a nice target to check contrast/sharpness. I've uploaded 4 OOC photos at different focal lengths. All were taken with S-AF small size target at 10 yards with the camera on a tripod, all IS off, and a 12s timer. The camera was placed at the same height as the target.

So I'm looking for comments on whether this is the expected performance for this camera/lens combination.

I'm considering renting another 100-400mm from LensRentals as a comparison but would rather not spend any more money if necessary...

100mm (200mm eq)

200mm (400mm eq)

300mm (600mm eq)

400mm (800mm eq)

Hi, i got your message.

Thank you for joining the conversation!!

I would say it is not too bad at all. I needed to get used to this lens few months before i was getting better results. I find that the biggest problem is slight misfocusing with my setup (i use em5 iii). OM 1 should maybe do better but who knows.

I too wonder if the camera body could have a small issue with misfocusing. This would be much harder to diagnose, especially with one lens! I'll have to assume for now it is OK.

I always take bursts with this combo and i find that 1 of 6-7 photos is actually crisp and others are all a bit soft. I would say it is not easy to get sharp photos with it but if you practice more it will become better. I would buy 300 pro for sure if it was not so expensive.

Understood.  I was hoping for a better keeper rate. Mirrorless Comparison rates the OM-1 as having a very high keeper rate for BIF, so I figured stationary bird would be a slam dunk.

https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/best/mirrorless-cameras-for-birds-in-flight/#rankings

Most of the time i sharpen my raw-s with topaz denoise or use dxo deep prime. If the iso is low and shot is pretty sharp then i skip dxo.

I have found out i get best results with ibis only, my lens stabilization is always OFF.

This surprised me. I've tried this setting once, with no discernible difference.  I didn't spend much time evaluating this option because I've always understood that lens stabilization would be most helpful for long focal lengths.  Nonetheless, I'm open to trying anything that works for others.

I have one recent example which i did not use dxo or topaz, i am not sure it is very sharp but not very bad too, iso was high also:

It's often tough to see through the iso noise. This does seem to be closer to what I'd expect out of my kit so far.

Your bird seems pretty far away, in that situation it is harder to get crisp image.

One example where the bird was only about 5 meters away (i believe i used dxo and topaz to get it more sharp):

Ah yes. Images like this definitely contributed to my purchase of the camera. I may have been expecting too much without post.

Found few raws where the bird is further away, those are not sharpened or denoised :

These examples below are also helpful for me to set a baseline.  Thank you!

And one raw with iso 320. Here is the sample with photoshop default settings:

And same photo processed also with topaz clear settings:

But to get those pretty sharp samples i had to burst a lot

Hope this post helps you a bit.

Much appreciated!

lokatz wrote:

Co172 wrote:

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

Looking at your info, for me at 400 mm (800 FF) a shutterspeed of 1/800 is to slow. My own movement, a branch that maybe moves a little by the wind etc. can already give some motion blur.

Try the combo with a higher shutterspeed and for test sake forget/ignore a higher iso/noise. For me this was a game changer.

Oh, I do agree that higher shutter speed will net sharper images in the case of moving birds. That said, when I rattle off 50+ shot bursts of a perched bird at 1/800, I'd expect to get a few sharp ones in the lot, but I'm seeing none. And I have a slew of tripod shots of stationary objects that look soft as well. Just not sure where my expectations should be tempered. Your shots here leave me wanting more!

To me, that shutter speed argument doesn't add up. I get excellent results with BIF at 1/2500s, where I can go slower with seagulls and other slow fliers while upping the ante to 1/4000s and more for the fastest species. However, for perched birds, 1/250s is usually good enough and 1/800s is ample unless you have a REALLY nervous fella in focus.

Your experience is in-line with mine, but if there's enough light to go faster, I can see where it will increase chances for keepers.

Getting closer to the bird is always a good idea as your sample pic requires too much cropping. Using Topaz Sharpen is indeed the fix to use, but you are right that you don't want to do this all the time. Yet, at a distance of 14 meters and with a crop that makes use of 5% of the sensor area, if even that, I'm not sure you can expect much more.

Coming from my bridge camera with 1200mm eq FL, it's already a big difference. I do need to 'zoom with my feet' a bit more, but there's always a balance with getting the picture and trampling habitat.

Here is a comparable shot, taken on an OM-1 with the PanaLeica 100-400, at a subject distance of about 12 meters, so a little closer than yours, and a shutter speed of 1/250s. DxO 6 with DeepPRIME, no sharpening applied whatsoever. See what you think.

To be honest, I'd have hoped for more a bit more from this shot, although I'm not so sure the shutter speed is a problem.  Thank you for sharing!

PhotoMac503 wrote:

What happens is you see the m43 images and think "wow" then you find out later that post was needed to improve the images.

This is what happens when people post images without any context about image enhancement.

This is why I encourage anyone posting images to provide some context, so people entering m43 aren't disappointed with the format.

It's all about honesty.

I'll admit that I was smitten with some photos that must've been heavily processed. Agreed that without disclosure, it's very hard to have a baseline and know how your shots compare to others.  I'll take your advice and do my best to label all processed photos that I post going forward.

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

It is not my intention to insult you, but to me this photo is not sharp or a good example what can be achieved with this lens.

Or your copy is not so good as mine or perhaps it is the relative slow shutterspeed.

Concerning the shutterspeed I agree to disagree on this matter

I also suspect that my copy isn't the best around, so we can agree on that. (Fortunately, I have the 150-400, which gets preference anyway.) Consider the low light situation the shot was taken in, though.

Regarding shutter speeds, I don't mean to insult either, but watch some videos from renowned wildlife photographers (Steve Perry, for example, one of the Nikon "gurus", has a video specifically on this). You'll find yourself in a clear minority. Perched birds rarely make movements that cannot be frozen at 1/800s.

In practice, shooting perched birds at 1/2000s+ means you either have to use very high ISOs, or you restrict yourself to bright sunlight. Pushing ISOs higher for fear of not getting the sharpest shot, or only shooting in bright light, both mean you're picking one poison over another. Most birds I consider worth shooting are around in the early mornings or just before sunset, so with your approach, you do not get to shoot them at all. I usually stop shooting birds well before 9am because the light gets harsh and the birds aren't that active any longer.

See one of my previous replies

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

See one of my previous replies

I have done and your pictures are fine but can't be compared to the OP unless you can show us that they were cropped from shots taken at a similar distance.

lokatz wrote:

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

It is not my intention to insult you, but to me this photo is not sharp or a good example what can be achieved with this lens.

Or your copy is not so good as mine or perhaps it is the relative slow shutterspeed.

Concerning the shutterspeed I agree to disagree on this matter

I also suspect that my copy isn't the best around, so we can agree on that. (Fortunately, I have the 150-400, which gets preference anyway.) Consider the low light situation the shot was taken in, though.

Regarding shutter speeds, I don't mean to insult either, but watch some videos from renowned wildlife photographers (Steve Perry, for example, one of the Nikon "gurus", has a video specifically on this). You'll find yourself in a clear minority. Perched birds rarely make movements that cannot be frozen at 1/800s.

I'm glad that we agree on the 'no insult eachother part'. That's cleared.

Considering the shutterspeed, maybe I'm in the minority. The only thing I know that it works for me, and that it is not only (if so) movements from the perched bird, but also my little movement (I mainly shoot handheld). That being said I probably also have some nice shots with a slower shutterspeed but they are in the minority.

Maybe I'm wrong, but you can give it a try, shooting a series with a higher and slower shutterspeed. Your photo (handheld) was taken at 1/250 and I'm curious how it would have come out with 1/500, 1/640 or 1/800

Anyway it was only my intention to give you a tip from what I experienced and not to start a discussion who is wright or wrong.

In practice, shooting perched birds at 1/2000s+ means you either have to use very high ISOs, or you restrict yourself to bright sunlight. Pushing ISOs higher for fear of not getting the sharpest shot, or only shooting in bright light, both mean you're picking one poison over another.

I'm not sure about 1/2000s+ (this is a leap from your example shot taken at 1/250)  why not 1/800 which you mentioned before as an example?

Anyway i agree about the 'poison' of higher iso hence noise.

To a certain degree noise can be 'solved' in PP where as a photo is unsharp, it cannot be fixed.

So it depends on the situation/object if I start with lower shutterspeed/lower iso or with a higher one. Am I able to check my results or is a once in a lifetime shot. In that case I would go for a sharper but maybe more noiser photo.

Anyway, I'll try to find a balance and try not to forget that we have a nice m4/3 platform, but iso wise and maybe resolving power wise, we are not shooting with FF cameras

Most birds I consider worth shooting are around in the early mornings or just before sunset, so with your approach, you do not get to shoot them at all. I usually stop shooting birds well before 9am because the light gets harsh and the birds aren't that active any longer.

JoiseyM43 wrote:

In addition to my original post, FWIW, I offer this, I had forgotten that I posted this…

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/66652349

Those are very nice shots and I wouldn't complain about them at all.  In the 3rd shot, it appears as if the focus was on the leftmost bird.  Maybe that was an artifact of the bird detection algorithm... do you agree?  Can you tell me if there was any processing done on these 3 photos?

Thanks!

-Colin

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

See one of my previous replies

I have done and your pictures are fine but can't be compared to the OP unless you can show us that they were cropped from shots taken at a similar distance.

Hi Trevor,

My comment (with no meaning to insult) was a reaction on the photo of lokatz.

Looking at his photo with full resolution (horizontal a little over 5000 pixels) his subject/ birds (give or take) covers 1/5 of the frame. Therefore give or take 1000 pixels.

Looking at the exif of my second photo, my photo has a width of around 3000 pixels. My subject covers (give or take) 1/3 of the photo. Therefore also around 1000 pixels

Maybe my mathematics are off, but I think looking at the numbers the pictures are more or less comparable.

lokatz wrote:

Co172 wrote:

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

Looking at your info, for me at 400 mm (800 FF) a shutterspeed of 1/800 is to slow. My own movement, a branch that maybe moves a little by the wind etc. can already give some motion blur.

Try the combo with a higher shutterspeed and for test sake forget/ignore a higher iso/noise. For me this was a game changer.

Oh, I do agree that higher shutter speed will net sharper images in the case of moving birds. That said, when I rattle off 50+ shot bursts of a perched bird at 1/800, I'd expect to get a few sharp ones in the lot, but I'm seeing none. And I have a slew of tripod shots of stationary objects that look soft as well. Just not sure where my expectations should be tempered. Your shots here leave me wanting more!

To me, that shutter speed argument doesn't add up. I get excellent results with BIF at 1/2500s, where I can go slower with seagulls and other slow fliers while upping the ante to 1/4000s and more for the fastest species. However, for perched birds, 1/250s is usually good enough and 1/800s is ample unless you have a REALLY nervous fella in focus.

Getting closer to the bird is always a good idea as your sample pic requires too much cropping. Using Topaz Sharpen is indeed the fix to use, but you are right that you don't want to do this all the time. Yet, at a distance of 14 meters and with a crop that makes use of 5% of the sensor area, if even that, I'm not sure you can expect much more.

Here is a comparable shot, taken on an OM-1 with the PanaLeica 100-400, at a subject distance of about 12 meters, so a little closer than yours, and a shutter speed of 1/250s. DxO 6 with DeepPRIME, no sharpening applied whatsoever. See what you think.

I have plenty of Sharp images at 15m from OM-1 and 300 Pro, or from Sony A9 with 200-600 in heat, so distance Is not the only factor.

I have few decent shots with E-M1X and MZ 100-400, which I soldi both for the OM-1 and 300/4. I think there is a good amount of sub-par copies of 100-400 (I won't say it's a bad lens per se, but I saw and read so many reports of not-performing copies that I suspect it is a lens I would never trust in the lottery to find a good one, I lost 400€ once on It and I am done), I hadn't the chance to use it with OM-1, so I suspect a partial responsibility in the EM1X, but a friend with OM-1 confirmed that after 8m the 100-400 performance fall off the cliff.

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

lokatz wrote:

Schoonderwoerd wrote:

It is not my intention to insult you, but to me this photo is not sharp or a good example what can be achieved with this lens.

Or your copy is not so good as mine or perhaps it is the relative slow shutterspeed.

Concerning the shutterspeed I agree to disagree on this matter

I also suspect that my copy isn't the best around, so we can agree on that. (Fortunately, I have the 150-400, which gets preference anyway.) Consider the low light situation the shot was taken in, though.

Regarding shutter speeds, I don't mean to insult either, but watch some videos from renowned wildlife photographers (Steve Perry, for example, one of the Nikon "gurus", has a video specifically on this). You'll find yourself in a clear minority. Perched birds rarely make movements that cannot be frozen at 1/800s.

I'm glad that we agree on the 'no insult eachother part'. That's cleared.

Considering the shutterspeed, maybe I'm in the minority. The only thing I know that it works for me, and that it is not only (if so) movements from the perched bird, but also my little movement (I mainly shoot handheld). That being said I probably also have some nice shots with a slower shutterspeed but they are in the minority.

Maybe I'm wrong, but you can give it a try, shooting a series with a higher and slower shutterspeed. Your photo (handheld) was taken at 1/250 and I'm curious how it would have come out with 1/500, 1/640 or 1/800

We will never know for sure.

I've taken thousands (seriously!) tests shots of the same subject at various shutter speeds, all handheld as I rarely use my tripods, and I feel I have a pretty good understanding of what shutter speed to use in what situation.  It all depends on the movement of the bird, though.

If it sits perfectly still, you're going to get a sharp image with a 400mm lens at 1/40s, even below that, just fine most of the time. (Consider that this requires only about 4-5 stops over the old "inverse of FL" rule.  The OM-1 IBIS easily delivers that. Most good tele lenses do that, too.)

If the bird moves, it depends a great deal on the kind of bird. With large ones, 1/250s still cuts it in my experience, whereas this can be way too slow with a small bird that is always on the move. However, you may not have the luxury to go much higher unless you accept seriously high ISOs, and 1/250, even slower than that, can still be fine with a small bird.  [Just FYI, I plan to start a new thread on this very subject later today.]

Anyway it was only my intention to give you a tip from what I experienced and not to start a discussion who is wright or wrong.

Fair enough and much appreciated.

In practice, shooting perched birds at 1/2000s+ means you either have to use very high ISOs, or you restrict yourself to bright sunlight. Pushing ISOs higher for fear of not getting the sharpest shot, or only shooting in bright light, both mean you're picking one poison over another.

I'm not sure about 1/2000s+ (this is a leap from your example shot taken at 1/250) why not 1/800 which you mentioned before as an example?

Well, you're the one who suggested that 1/800s is not enough.  (It was actually the OP shooting at that speed, not me bringing it up.)

Anyway i agree about the 'poison' of higher iso hence noise.

To a certain degree noise can be 'solved' in PP where as a photo is unsharp, it cannot be fixed.

Did you ever try Topaz Sharpen AI?  I think you're wrong when thinking sharpness cannot be restored, at least not to a degree.  I am continually blown away by how well that software restores even seriously unsharp photos.  There is a limit to everything, but still...

So it depends on the situation/object if I start with lower shutterspeed/lower iso or with a higher one. Am I able to check my results or is a once in a lifetime shot. In that case I would go for a sharper but maybe more noiser photo.

"Once in a lifetime" may be overly dramatic.  However, I tend to do most of my bird shooting while traveling foreign countries, though, so if in doubt, I have to assume that I won't get another opportunity. Currently in Australia, then New Zealand, then Indonesia. 

Anyway, I'll try to find a balance and try not to forget that we have a nice m4/3 platform, but iso wise and maybe resolving power wise, we are not shooting with FF cameras

[Well, here I will again refer to that other thread 'll start later.  ;-)]  I came to MFT from several FF bodies and realize this full well.  Yet, I think the difference is often overestimated.

The bird box shot I shared was taken during a week during which I was constantly switching between my Canon R5 (FF) with the RF 100-500 lens and my OM-1 with either the Oly 300 f4 or the PanaLeica 100-400.   In fact, I have taken this very shot and several similar ones with all three combinations.  (If you'd like to know more, please take a look at this report on my website, but be warned that it is loooong.)  The Canon and OM-1+Oly shots were pretty much at par, the OM-1+PL shots clearly not at the same level but still quite decent.

(By the way, I should have mentioned that the bird box shot was taken through glass at an angle, which won't help sharpness-wise.  I remember this only now but should have told it to the OP.)

I am not overly concerned about ISO noise since removing it is so effective nowadays.  (I started shooting at a time when this was WAY different...)