EOS 1300D with Canon 400 f/5.6 Prime Lens Taking Soft Images

[Rashid1]

Hi,

I have Canon 1300D and recently i bought Canon 400 f/5.6 (Prime Lens) for wildlife photography. I was using Canon 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 which was sharper but with Canon 400mm lens my camera is not taking sharp images. 

Is my camera not supporting the lens or i am doing something wrong with camera settings? 

[jrhoffman75]

Welcome to the forum.

Your camera and lens are compatible.

The 400mm lens on your camera has a field of view equivalent to a 640mm lens on a full frame camera, so motion blur could be a problem. You should be shooting with a shutter speed of 1/800 second or faster if you are hand holding.

If you are going to judge sharpness you should set your camera on a tripod, set aperture to f/8 and use the 2 second shutter delay to photograph an object that will allow you to evaluate detail.

[Waddizzle]

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@Rashid1 wrote:

Hi,

I have Canon 1300D and recently i bought Canon 400 f/5.6 (Prime Lens) for wildlife photography. I was using Canon 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 which was sharper but with Canon 400mm lens my camera is not taking sharp images. 

Is my camera not supporting the lens or i am doing something wrong with camera settings? 

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You are using an interchangeable lens camera.  This means sharpness comes from the lenses, not the camera.  As one forum member is fond of saying, "The camera is nothing more than a recording device."

The only contribution the camera can make is to make the image seem soft because of how it is used. The camera does not capture sharp photos.  The photographer using the camera captures sharp images from the lens.

You will get the best results with the lens on bright sunny days using fast shutter speeds, I/800 or faster.  The Basic shooting modes in the camera are not adept at the task capturing tack sharp images.  You need to use one of the Creative shooting modes for the best results: P, Tv, Av, or M.

[ebiggs1]

"I was using Canon 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 which was sharper but with Canon 400mm lens my camera is not taking sharp images."

Very good advice form the above posters.  I have had several ef 400mm f5.6L lenses and can confidently say they are very sharp lenses in general. Easily the equal to you other 55-250mm zoom lens. Probably better! I still have one and use it often.

It is a great lens very light and easy to use but you do have to observe some factors.

My favorite settings, which may need adjusting for conditions, are Av (f5.6) mode, ISO 800, AWB, One shot and Raw file format. These settings do allow some auto control by the camera as it will select the fastest SS possible.  When using a big tele SS is important. You must hold this combo still, steady, very steady.  This may require some practice. A faster over slower SS helps. A higher ISO number also helps.

One last recommendation is to use lens correction on your Raw file images.  You can do so with the free form Canon, DPP4. Or you can use some other post editor like Photoshop, my preference.

[wq9nsc]

I agree with the others that the 400 f5.6 should be producing very sharp photos under the right conditions. I think it is Canon's best value in the telephoto category when image quality is high on your list.  I have owned one for years and still use mine at times even after I bought the 400 f2.8. The 400 f5.6 is a VERY good lens!

As noted, too little shutter speed is the most common reason for lack of sharpness with this lens.  Blur from camera shake can easily occur.  1/640 is the target based upon the old rule of thumb for shutter speed/focal length given you have it on an APS-C sensor camera BUT with care it can be handheld to slower speeds and without care 1/640 isn't fast enough.

Focus is critical with this lens wide open, at a 40 foot shoot distance depth of field within critical focus is only about 175mm and drops as the distance to subject is reduced.

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

Although the DOF is approx. 6" from 40' it is certainly and easy DOF to work with. And if, it isn't f8 provides nearly one foot of DOF. At MFD of the 400mm f5.6, it does get pretty shallow.  Your f2.8 lens does get to a more difficult DOF as it reduces to approx. 4" at 40'. (on a cropper)

DOF includes some other factors besides aperture, one is the circle of confusion. The circle of confusion defines what the human eye considers to be adequately in focus.