EOS R5 & RF 200-800mm lens: What could be causing this softness?

[mknabster]

Hi all, I'm a new owner of the RF 200-800mm lens and it's cool to see the additional reach I used to get over my old Tamron 150-600mm, which I would have kept, but didn't work with the R5 unfortunately. I have a few examples of images here which are all handheld and the lighting is mid-morning so a decent amount of light, and when I have the camera on electronic shutter shooting birds, very few of the pictures I shoot are sharp, while most are soft. The settings in camera I have set for my profile are: RAW, Full 45MP, Electronic shutter, high speed continuous, Servo AF, Spot AF, Subject to detect animals, Servo AF Case 1 (-1 for tracking sensitivity and -1 for accel/deccel tracking). Of the 384 shots I took of various birds that morning, only 25% of them were salvageable in terms of sharpness. All of my examples were cropped in at about 92.3%. The first two images are shot at f/9, 800mm, 1/100 sec, ISO 400. The second two are at f/10, 800mm,1/320 sec, ISO 400. The third set of two are at f/9, 800mm, 1/80 sec, ISO 400. The last set of two are at f/9, 800mm, 1/60 sec, ISO 400.

I know reading about the shutter speeds they were on the slower end, but as you can see I was able to get sharp results with that, but the soft image for each set shows what a majority of the images actually came out like. I did some research before posting and rolling shutter was mentioned, could that be what's happening here? Thanks for your time!

V1 - SharpV1 - SoftV2 - SharpV2 - SoftV3 - SharpV3 -SoftV4 - SharpV4 - Soft

[p4pictures]

Simply put, you need to use faster shutter speeds. 

Image Stabilisation can help with camera shake, but moving subjects at a distance is only fixed with shutter speed. Also the birds moving feathers will never be fixed by anything other than shutter speed. The simplest way to improve the shots is raise the ISO and the shutter speed. As a test I would set your camera to Tv mode, use auto ISO and go try again with the shutter speed set to 1/800 or even more. Don't worry about the ISO and noise for such a test, since a sharp shot with a bit of noise is way better than a clean one with a blurred subject.

Secondly you said EOS R5, if this is the original version then there is no subject or eye detection when you use the Spot AF point. You will need to place the AF point exactly where you want the camera to focus. If you have the EOS R5 Mk2, then yes it can track the eye and detect the subject with Spot AF.

I also wonder if you have back button AF and are lifting off the AF-ON button when taking the shots?

Just as an example, this little robin was sitting in a tree on a cold day. This is with an EOS R3 and RF 100-500mm lens at 500mm. Shutter speed is 1/800th and ISO is 16,000 - yes sixteen thousand

[Tintype_18]

I have a T7 but this relates to some of the photos I take. Good info and thanks.

[ebiggs1]

"I know reading about the shutter speeds they were on the slower end,..."

That is an understatement for certain. SS needs to be 1/1000 or faster. Even if IS can stabilize you, the birds can move or flutter faster than that and IS doesn't help that at all. In a couple of your examples nothing is in focus that is camera shake. In one it looks like you missed focus since the branch is in better sharpness. On the R5 don't be afraid of kicking the ISO up, way up. 

If you don't have DPP4 get it from the Canon website it is free and will make a huge difference.

[mknabster]

Thanks for your replies guys, good to know on the proper settings to be at. I had a feeling it was more an issue of my setup than the camera. I truly never used the ISO too high, but good to know it won't inhibit the look of the image! I will keep playing!