Peter, the tern shots are compositionally excellent, but I can see at this web size a bit of softness in the shots and this is what I find with the 100-400L that I get many shots that are almost sharp, but not quite at 100% and I couldn't make large prints from them, but fine for 6x8 or 8x10.

I'm glad you found with smaller faster targets even on the 1D II, the 100-400L struggles, as this is my experience and on the 40D it's a waste of time.

Here's a shot from a rugby league game with the 1D II and 100-400L. First is the full frame and the second is a 100% crop. This was tracked with centre point only

That's good, Whayne.......that is not an easy shot to make.
Indeed, the terns are not quite sharp mostly due to AF issues. Mind you, those are large crops as well, so I should call the sharpness just sufficient.

There was no real focus lock on those birds with the 100-400 at that distance and with non-vacant background. To be more specific, focus hunts in and out between the background and the bird, so one releases the shutter when one sees good bird focus appearing in the VF for a fraction of a second. And after a focus loss, rebooting the AF results in a slow focus re-acquisition. And that repeats itself...

As I said before often enough, in my experience the 100-400 is not an ideal lens for those kinds of shots, and I have had better performance from 180L on those very same shot types, not to mention 400 f/5.6 and 300 f/4 non-IS etc.

To be fair, what also needs to be said about the 100-400 and its performance on Common Terns in flight is that the target is a fairly challenging one, as anyone who has shot that species for even an hour starts to appreciate quickly. Although that tern normally doesn't fly very fast when fishing, it does it in an undulating manner....the period of those oscillations is one full wing stroke. The amplitude of such wave is quite large. A flight patter similar to that of woodpeckers except with much shorter wave period and larger dips. Even if one disregards frequent and very sudden changes in speed/direction, such undulating flight causes tracking difficulties.

In comparison, the larger Caspian Tern is much more of a bee-line flyer, very similar to seagulls, and IMO they are more within the 100-400 performance capability.

Sorry, I haven't used a 100-400L, although I had one for very short time. I liked its size, but I wasn't sure if I should have kept it just for that. For action shots, I trust my 300/2.8L for sure even with 1.4x TC, like this one:

The 100-400 is an ok lens but I really prefer the 400 5.6 for focus speed and accuracy. The 100-400 is hunting fool at times.

Still, here's a few from the 100-400 mostly when I was shooting a Rebel XT or the XTi.

Did someone mention Terns?

Mr Zoom wrote:

This was with the 100-400 on the 1D2n - one of my all time favorites.

Pixel Perfect wrote:
Mr Zoom wrote:

This was with the 100-400 on the 1D2n - one of my all time favorites.


Awesome, and it would be one of my faves too.

100-400L is great for soaring birds.

Yeah, one of the best in flight hawks one can see around here.

Anyway, folks, in order to round up our educational programming on Common Tern in-flight photography with 100-400, here is what the little beastie looks like when it is sitting on its butt.

Some horrible JPEG artifacts (white fringing at contrast interfaces) due to oversharpening on these shots Pete. I should "tern" back to pijuns if I were you!!

Colin

Mr Zoom wrote:

This was with the 100-400 on the 1D2n - one of my all time favorites.

Colin Key wrote:
Some horrible JPEG artifacts (white fringing at contrast interfaces) due to oversharpening on these shots Pete. I should "tern" back to pijuns if I were you!!

Colin

Well, Colin, thank you for pointing that to me......like white outline on the head and the bill of the tern #1.
However, that's not due to pp because it does show on the JPG original to essentially the same extent. I must say I am not sure what that is, and I don't think I have seen it before.

Actually, USM does amplify the white outline....gotta keep my glasses on more often.

It is a sharpening issue. I noticed it earlier but decided not to comment. You also see a similar dark "halo" along the lighter feathers on the left side of the bird's head/shoulders. In addition, you can see it along the bird's legs/feet.

It looks like the size setting was a bit too large and the amount setting a bit too high. For a subject like this I'd go for perhaps a smaller size.

If you did not do this in post, you might want to take a good look at your camera's sharpening settings. I know these things can be a matter of taste, but the reds seem over-saturated when viewed on my calibrated monitor as well.

Since you produce some very nice photographs, I recommend shooting in RAW so that you can customize the sharpening, saturation, etc. in post and retain the best quality in the final image.

Dan

PetKal wrote:
Colin Key wrote:
Some horrible JPEG artifacts (white fringing at contrast interfaces) due to oversharpening on these shots Pete. I should "tern" back to pijuns if I were you!!

Colin

Well, Colin, thank you for pointing that to me......like white outline on the head and the bill of the tern #1.
However, that's not due to pp because it does show on the JPG original to essentially the same extent. I must say I am not sure what that is, and I don't think I have seen it before.

Actually, USM does amplify the white outline....gotta keep my glasses on more often.

The red saturation is not an issue, it's just a shade hotter than the real bird, done on purpose.
The white outline on 100% crops above shows very much, no two ways about it.
Still, one who hasn't seen those Terns before can tell what the birds look like from up close.

You can avoid the sharpening halos by selecting the bg, inverting your selection, contract 1 pixel, and then apply USM. If you apply sharpening globaly (in camera or in PP) the halos will occur and may be noticable.

JimN wrote:
You can avoid the sharpening halos by selecting the bg, inverting your selection, contract 1 pixel, and then apply USM. If you apply sharpening globaly (in camera or in PP) the halos will occur and may be noticable.

Thanx, Jim...that would certainly work. I also found another possible culprit......the sharpness setting in the camera was dialed higher than where I normally keep it.
It also seems that my eyesight has reached the point where I have to start wearing my reading glasses even when looking at images.

A Peli-Ken in action 1DIIn + 100-400 kinda close...

PetKal wrote:
JimN wrote:
You can avoid the sharpening halos by selecting the bg, inverting your selection, contract 1 pixel, and then apply USM. If you apply sharpening globaly (in camera or in PP) the halos will occur and may be noticable.

Thanx, Jim...that would certainly work. I also found another possible culprit......the sharpness setting in the camera was dialed higher than where I normally keep it.
It also seems that my eyesight has reached the point where I have to start wearing my reading glasses even when looking at images.

I can relate to that. I am wearing my brand new progressive bifocals as we speak.

Mr Zoom wrote:
A Peli-Ken in action 1DIIn + 100-400 kinda close...
Ken

Good shootin', Zoomer......gotta have some reflexes for that. Jim Neiger sure knows that full well. One has to try those things in order to appreciate the finesse involved.
I got something similar although less sharp the other day......an attacking pijun.

PetKal wrote:

Well, Colin, thank you for pointing that to me......like white outline on the head and the bill of the tern #1.
However, that's not due to pp because it does show on the JPG original to essentially the same extent. I must say I am not sure what that is, and I don't think I have seen it before.

Actually, USM does amplify the white outline....gotta keep my glasses on more often.

Peter, I have advised you before, and Dan (following my post) agrees, SHOOT IN RAW - it is the only way to go unless you are a Pro sports shooter who's images appear in newsprint where I.Q. rarely matters. JPEG involves too much in-camera processing.

Going off at a bit of a tangent, I have not previously posted enough photos to warrant paying for the "image upload" facility of this forum. Would that increase the I.Q. of my posted images? I notice that the images I have embedded (URLs from either my PBase or Photobucket sites) are far inferior in terms of sharpness and noise to the originals - is there an automatic down-rezzing of images for us "outsiders"?

Colin

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I too previously had a 400f5.6 prime but ultimately sold it for the versatility of the 100-400. In poor light, it does tend to hunt a little bit but, to me, that's a minor problem. It performs very nicely on an xxD series body but where it really shines is on a Series 1 body. Image #1 was made last year with the 100-400 on a 40D, Image #2 made this past weekend with a Mk3.

I've had a love / hate relationship with my 100-400 since I purchased it a few years ago. I didn't use it much because the shots always seemed pretty soft. Finally I sent it in to Irvine for adjustment and it came back with a note that said "a part was broken inside and was replaced".
It must have been broken from the day I bought it because I've hardly ever used it.


I just took it out for the first time since getting it back to shoot our local Rodeo over the weekend. I haven't had time to process many shots but here are a couple with a bit of LR processing (cowboy hat shadows shot at high noon are a pain in the butt) but no PS processing.

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Ugh, you guys are making me seriously consider purchasing a 100-400! I was originally looking at buying a used 300 F/4L... to help round out my 24-105 and my 70-200 F/4L IS... but now this seems really tempting. Does anyone have a 70-200 F/4L IS and a 100-400 F/4L IS and wants to keep both? With my 1.4x TC my 70-200 becomes ~98-280 F/5.6... I just don't know if I can justify owning both of these (not to mention afford them both! haha)

I had the chance to use both before I purchased one of the two lenses, I belong to a photographic club and friends let me trial their lenses. The 100-400 was very versatile and I did like it but found it just was not giving me the sharpness I wanted at 400m, I never had an issue of needing IS so thought Id go with the 400 prime and never looked back. Love it. I also own the 70-200 F2.8L (non IS) and the 1X4 TC so thought in that I would have a zoom lens for stuff like the zoo. I wish I could afford to own both lenses though.

Here is where I like to use my 100-400. This is before the fix at Irvine. The first few were taken with the 100-400 on my Mark III, the last two were taken with it on my XTI. I find that for larger objects (for me) it works just fine but small BIF's or distant BIF's not so good. I haven't tried it on any BIF's since I got it back form Irvine so that is on my list.

These were taken at our small local Air Show.

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