Tony's owl shot shows how good the 100-400L IS can be. But in his case, give him credit too for exceptional AF technique for such a slow shutter speed.
thedigitalbean wrote:
I recently re-acquired the 100-400 and oh my what a pleasant surprise. My copy is tack sharp across all focal lengths and at 400mm, I swear it looks almost as sharp (if not as sharp) as the 500 at f/4. Optically speaking, I find nothing lacking about this lens. The most notable change that Canon could do IMO would be to add the latest generation image stabilizer.
+1. I have the same impression about my new one after owning a sub-par copy years ago.
M Vers wrote:
Agree. The 100-400 is a very sharp lens. It's major shortcoming is the AF speed and tracking, not it's IQ.
Agreed.
Super IQ and if the actions not too fast it tracks ok (very well on 1 series) but once the action gets fast the tracking goes to hell, especially on the xxD's.
Hopefully if they ever update this lens AF speed will be a priority.
I am happy enough with mine that the 2X TC stays on it the majority of the time. Shooting on a monopod makes it the poor mans 800mm. That said I don't shoot action.
Paul
I picked up a uw date code from a fellow FMer and this is my second copy. I’m in the newer ones are better camp also. I will add I feel the IS is not that great and I try not to rely on it too often. As far as tracking my experience is if you do not zoom during tracking the AF performs much better. If you do zoom during tracking, stop and give the AF a second to re adjust. The lens is slow @5.6 but given the right technique I found the image quality very good.
a lot of folks rushed thru when using IS. that's not the way to use it ...
let the IS start running first then press the shutter all the way down. that's my free tip for the day.
+1 to what Karl and Gene said. When I switched from a tack sharp 70-200 f2.8 to this lens, it took me awhile to get reliably sharp images from this lens.
Thanks everyone, I think I have figured out what my problem was. I've ruled out the fact of having a defective copy b/c of such a new date code. I've gone through some samples of different shots at 400mm, some far away from subject and some extreme close ups, all wide open 5.6 to really test out the lens. I noticed that the full frame shots of subjects from a distance were tact sharp at 5.6 and even relatively lower shutter speeds. I noticed for the full frame extreme close ups there weren't as tact sharp wide open, and I think the problem came down to pure depth of field logistics. I'm not used to such zoom, and often the "softness" of say an extreme close up of a flower at 400mm at 5.6 was due to the shallow depth of field. I will do some more testing in a couple days but I'm sure that when I narrow it down some more then I will get that tact sharpness for all types of shots at 400mm!
Allen 321 Got it all right in his post..I own this lens and love it,that said, I had along learning curve with this lrns,some of the same problems you are having.I have the 40D and at 1.6 crop and 400mm it's nearly 600mm and at that distance every movement is reeely magnified alot. Trust me I have been there.Keep your SS up around 1000 or so and stop down a bit,ISO around 400 and keep at it.You will come around.this info is based on birds in flight.
However, I have a May 2009 date code and I cannot believe how sharp it is for a zoom of its focal range.