Canon EOS R7 soft images with 100-400mm lens

[alisonleedham]

I have the canon EOS R7 and canon 100-400mm lens. I was taking photos of burrowing owls - it was midday and very sunny, they were far away so it was at the end of the lenses range but the photos in their entirety (background + owl) were all coming out so strangely, I've never seen "focus" come out like this before. I'm trying to understand what is causing the softness - user error, and if so what exactly (settings, shake, etc), or something up with my lens or camera. I have a few other examples, all hand held on a bright sunny day. At 200mm I am seeing a very sharp image that I'm happy with (grackle). At 347mm (duck), not a sharp image, but not as terrible as the owls. Is this to be expected as I get closer to the end range of the end? I've cropped the photos a bit just so it's easier to see how they look. Would appreciate some insight, as this is driving me crazy! 

Image details below:

Burrowing owl sitting - 500ISO, 400mm, f8, 1/1600

Burrowing owl flying - 800ISO, 400mm, f8, 1/2500

Duck - 1000ISO, 347mm, f8, 1/1600

Grackle - 1000ISO, 200mm, f8, 1/640 

[Tronhard]

Hi Alison and welcome to the forum:  and a happy Christmas to boot!

It is challenging to come to a conclusion from JPG images that have been reduced for posting here.  What is best is to post a link to a share site with RAW images (if you have those).  
When you say Canon 100-400 lens... is it the EF 100-400, and if so, what version (there are two).  If it is a push-pull version it is the MkI, if it is twist to zoom it's the MkII.  If you are using an EF lens, what make adapter are you using to attach to the R7.
Was it warm or hot in the location where you were shooting at the time?

[alisonleedham]

Thank you! Merry Christmas! I've uploaded the RAW images here

It is the Canon RF 100-400mm F5-6.8 IS USM

It was kind of hot for the owls - those were shot in Denver in August. And the other two were shot in Las Vegas just yesterday so in the 50s

I've been googling around for anything kind of similar, which is what led me here. I was also planning on contacting Canon but wanted to see if anyone had some insight. 

Appreciate the quick reply 🙂

[wq9nsc]

Alison,

I think the quality of the owl images are mostly due to a lot of cropping required by the distance and focal length.   You have plenty of shutter speed to avoid motion blur and the ISO is reasonable.  Take a couple of test photos of a subject with the lens @ 400mm with a distance where the subject fills 1/4 to 1/3 of the frame and see how those look as a test.

As an example of how much cropping can reduce IQ, this was a quick capture a couple of years ago of a hawk having lunch.  I shot it with an EF 400 f2.8 plus 1.4X with a 1DX III body which is still a very sharp setup even with the 1.4X but this example is cropped from the hawk filling maybe 15% of the sensor area so the quality goes way down compared to what the setup does under more optimal conditions.

Rodger

1DX III, EF 400 2.8, 1.4X, f4, 1/1600, ISO 250

[johnrmoyer]

My preferences might differ from yours, so please take this as an example and not as advice. Your duck photo seems good to me.

One exception to my "not advice" statement, if using the raw file, then turn off peripheral illumination correction in the camera menu and apply it later if needed.

In DPP, I changed style from Auto to Standard, changed noise reduction from 9.0 to 3.0 because I like a little graininess as nostalgia for film, changed DLO to 45.0, changed clarity from 0 to 1, changed saturation from 0 to 1.0, changed unsharp mask to 2.0,1.8,3.0, and disabled peripheral illumination correction.

Noise reduction will make the image softer and it seems to me that at a lower temperature less than the default noise reduction is needed.

A second unsharp mask before display or print after all resizing is complete will make edges in the photo appear more prominent or provide more contrast at the edges. The radius for unsharp mask should depend upon expected viewing distance and expected viewing surface and the size of the feature one wishes to enhance.

eye of duck at 400% screen capture from Canon DPP software.

[Treeman]

I also had the same issue with this combo (100-400ii). Close up pics were good distance pics deteriorate. I set up a tea box in the house 30ft from the camera and shot handheld the fine print on box while playing with the menu.here is what i found out, go to red 5 lens aberation in menu turn peripheral on, distortion off, digital optimiser off, chromatic aberation on,diffraction correction on. When you turn digital optimiser off you will have chromatic and diffraction show up in menu. This gave me tack sharp images. My theory is that digital optimiser was designed for rf lense performance but im not sure from there i experimented with iso and f stop and iso 2000 at f9 produces sharp results at distance, good luck

[johnrmoyer]

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@Treeman wrote:

I also had the same issue with this combo (100-400ii). Close up pics were good distance pics deteriorate. I set up a tea box in the house 30ft from the camera and shot handheld the fine print on box while playing with the menu.here is what i found out, go to red 5 lens aberation in menu turn peripheral on, distortion off, digital optimiser off, chromatic aberation on,diffraction correction on. When you turn digital optimiser off you will have chromatic and diffraction show up in menu. This gave me tack sharp images. My theory is that digital optimiser was designed for rf lense performance but im not sure from there i experimented with iso and f stop and iso 2000 at f9 produces sharp results at distance, good luck

---

For me with this lens on EOS R5, digital lens optimizer works well. The usual reason for near subjects to be sharper than far subjects is distortion from varying densities in the atmosphere.

From the EOS r5 manual (R7 may be different) :

Digital Lens Optimizer

Various aberrations from lens optical characteristics can be corrected, along with diffraction and low-pass filter-induced loss of resolution.

If [Correction data not available] or [  ] is displayed by [Digital Lens Optimizer], you can use EOS Utility to add the lens correction data to the camera. For details, refer to the EOS Utility Instruction Manual.

Caution

• Image processing after you shoot takes longer when set to [High] (which causes the access lamp to be illuminated longer).
• Maximum burst is lower with [High]. Image recording to the card also takes longer.
• Depending on shooting conditions, noise may be intensified together with the effects of correction. Image edges may also be emphasized. Adjust Picture Style sharpness or set [Digital Lens Optimizer] to [Disable] as needed before shooting.
• The higher the ISO speed, the lower the amount of correction will be.
• For movie recording, [Digital Lens Optimizer] will not appear. (Correction is not possible.)
• The effect of Digital Lens Optimizer cannot be checked on the screen at the time of shooting.

Note

• With [Digital Lens Optimizer] set to [Standard] or [High], [Chromatic aberr corr] and [Diffraction correction] are not displayed, but they are both set to [Enable] for shooting.

I usually turn off peripheral illumination correction in the camera because the manual says that it may add noise.

[Treeman]

Well that is probably all true, i will try turning off periferal and see if it gets even better , all i know is with those same settings with optimiser on i was about to return the camera now im very pleased with it after the optimiser off ,thought it might help people.

[Treeman]

I noticed that the lense optimizer had three settings if i remember correctly default setting was standard, as the r7 is like shooting an 80mp full frame and higher density (apsc sensors in this case) results in the camera "seeing" any problems including diffraction to a greater extent maybe setting the optimiser to high would also solve the issue.

[johnrmoyer]

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@Treeman wrote:

I noticed that the lense optimizer had three settings if i remember correctly default setting was standard, as the r7 is like shooting an 80mp full frame and higher density (apsc sensors in this case) results in the camera "seeing" any problems including diffraction to a greater extent maybe setting the optimiser to high would also solve the issue.

---

I hope some of this might be helpful.

At least on my EOS R5, setting digital lens optimizer to high in camera slows down the camera more than I like. I usually do it in the Canon DPP software.

The digital lens optimizer will remove some small aperture diffraction blur. It does not work well if there is a lot of noise. Diffraction blur increases as F number increases. Diffraction blur becomes noticeable at a smaller F number when pixels are closer together on the sensor chip.

The noise reduction in camera will lose some detail if there is a lot of noise.

When I have noise, I set the radius for unsharp mask in the Canon DPP software to 3 or 4 so that it will be larger than the noise and not sharpen noise.