Very quick retest with AF-C at f5.6 and 1/500 and 1/640. Shutter speed really does make a difference here. Again, I won't handhold my Sony at lower than 1/640, and that appears to be just about equal on the Nikon. There is significantly less blooming around the white lettering on the faster shot. It's my opinion that this blooming at slower shutter speeds is what is making the image look soft. I don't know if there's a term for that or not.
Last post about this. I'll be contacting my vendor to see what my options are...it's a return for sure if nothing else.
Left is Nikon 100-400, 400mm, 1/500, f5.6 handheld
Right is Nikon 24-120, 120mm, 1/400, f4 handheld
Note how much sharper the shorter zoom is. This is the behavior I expect to see from all my lenses. If you can't see a clear difference, and understand why I feel the lens that costs 3x more is quite disappointing, well...I dunno.
Anyways, thanks for humoring me, hopefully my tests were helpful to some degree. Y'all have a very merry christmas, and may Santa bring you only the sharpest copies of your favorite lenses.
Have you checked for front or back focus? It’s much more rare, but it does happen and the cameras have the ability to adjust focus. Kind of looks to me like it’s slightly missed. Or maybe try manual focus with a tripod, sorry I haven’t heard the whole thread if you’ve already addressed this apologies.
RoamingScott wrote:
Last post about this. I'll be contacting my vendor to see what my options are...it's a return for sure if nothing else.
Left is Nikon 100-400, 400mm, 1/500, f5.6 handheld
Right is Nikon 24-120, 120mm, 1/400, f4 handheld
Note how much sharper the shorter zoom is. This is the behavior I expect to see from all my lenses. If you can't see a clear difference, and understand why I feel the lens that costs 3x more is quite disappointing, well...I dunno.
Anyways, thanks for humoring me, hopefully my tests were helpful to some degree. Y'all have a very merry christmas, and may Santa bring you only the sharpest copies of your favorite lenses.
The 24-120 looks great 100-400 is clearly behind and none of the pictures in this thread seem bitingly sharp to me - in comparison to what I’ve become accustomed to with the 70-200S. I don’t think the Sony looks that much sharper (it is still definitely sharper) in the comparison @ the percentages on the meter.
This is pretty solid comparison and I do see that Sony version is bit sharpers than Nikon while the Nikon version shows better contrast. I wonder how much has to do with A7R4's higher mp vs Z7II?
It's hard to know what kind of processing happened here, but this looks pretty good.
I'm wondering what everyone here thinks about it?
According to EXIF, 400mm wide open. White-crowned sparrow in the rain by Doug Greenberg, on Flickr
henderson92 wrote:
This is pretty solid comparison and I do see that Sony version is bit sharpers than Nikon while the Nikon version shows better contrast. I wonder how much has to do with A7R4's higher mp vs Z7II?
The fact that the 24-120 is sharper than either the Sony or Nikon 100-400 tells me the MP difference is meaningless, which I suspected all along.
AdaptedLenses wrote:
Have you checked for front or back focus? It’s much more rare, but it does happen and the cameras have the ability to adjust focus. Kind of looks to me like it’s slightly missed. Or maybe try manual focus with a tripod, sorry I haven’t heard the whole thread if you’ve already addressed this apologies.
I didn't try these things because 1) i shoot mirrorless to avoid having to deal with micro adjustments and 2) it should just work.
Would it be possible to test using 'Pinpoint AF' on Nikon? I think using AF-S+Pinpoint option is the most accurate way to nail focus in this type of static subject shooting since pinpoint AF uses contrast detection instead of phase detection.
Hey Scott, I have the same Ego charger, so I can give you some apples-to-apples! Unfortunately it was already getting dark at 4:15pm here, but I was able to shoot outside with a tripod at ISO100 on my Z6.
Here's my results!
First shot is my 105 MC at f/5.6 a couple feet from the target. I'd call that an "ideal case"!
Second shot is my 100-400 at 100mm f/5.6 at the same distance.
First shot is my 100-400 at 400mm f/5.6 perhaps six feet from the target.
Second shot is my 500PF at f/5.6 at the same distance. As close to an "ideal case" as I can muster with my equipment. Note I did NOT correct for distance, cause I was running out of light!
Just noticed you're shooting tbe 100-400@ 1/500 hand held.
You're shooring the 24-120@ 1/400 hand held which means you must be much closer and much better shutter speed for that lens. Probably enough to produce a sharper image.
I wish my 100-400mm copy is here so I can conduct these tests myself (with 70-200mm Z S or 300mm PF) :/ So far I can not tell if its a bad copy issue or the 100-400mm is just a bit weaker lens than what I wanted.
100-400 is clearly behind and none of the pictures in this thread seem bitingly sharp to me - in comparison to what I’ve become accustomed to with the 70-200S. I don’t think the Sony looks that much sharper (it is still definitely sharper) in the comparison @ the percentages on the meter. 