I got to play with a 100-400L

[robertwsimpson]

All taken at 400mm f/5.6

 

[rstrick2]

very nice, however it needs some more DOF.

 

[Derrel]

I like the first shot the most. One thing to notice is how this lens renders near out of focus items, as well as the way it renders out of focus things behind the point of sharpest focus; look at the way it renders the stems that are out of focus. The 100-400 L does not have very pleasing bokeh in its rear defocused areas; things look a bit harsh and sort of double-lined, rather than really smoothly out of focus. In the out of focus background areas, such as on the white petals of the flowers, we can see the "main" shape of the petals and then a fuzzy edge sort of "halo", which creates a slight effect that many bokeh afficionados refer to as double-line or double-lining...it's more jarring than a very smooth,creamy out of focus bokeh effect where the main object and its blur circle smoothly,almost seamlessly diffuse in what is known as "creamy" bokeh.

Not wanting to appear to be picking on Canon or the 100-400 L, but just trying to make an observation about bokeh on photos that very clearly show both the foreground bokeh characteristics (first photo) as well as the background bokeh. I actually like these kinds of photos, where the photographer shoots through OOF foreground flowers to show a bee at work, and also includeS other blooms as part of the background. Nicely seen! I especially like the way the first photo uses an OOF foreground bloom to show the depth,and those delicate spider webs are a lovely addition to the shot too.

 

[robertwsimpson]

Thanks for your comments!

I was looking at the blooms trying to figure out why they looked weird. It almost looks like motion blur, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and I was fairly sure that it wasn't motion blur, given the shutter speeds I was shooting at. Now it makes sense.

 

[Derrel]

Good point Robert: as you state, the blooms look a bit "weird". And yes, if it were motion blur, those delicate, thin spider webs would really show it, but they are rendered at something like like two or three or four pixels wide--but the blurring round the edges of the petals on that one photo is like 40-50 pixels wide...so we can deduce that is is *not* motion blurring.

One of the things with overcorrecting a lens's spherical aberration is it can lead to harsh background rendering BUT that same correction also gives the lens's in-focus areas a very high degree of sharpness. So, there's a tradeoff.
Canon's 100-400 stabilized zoom isn't really optimized for its bokeh qualities--it has other design priorities. I didn't want to "dog on it", but merely pointed out that your photos are excellent examples where it's really clear and easy to spot some bokeh characteristics that that lens happens to show in this type of situation.

 

[robertwsimpson]

Yeah it is pretty sharp. Those pictures are all at wide open aperture, and they're still pretty sharp. I'm sure that if I were using it under different circumstances, the weird bokeh would be far less noticeable. It's a pretty boss lens, to be sure.

 

[pbelarge]

I really like how the stems are exposed in this photo. Looks like something is just beyond the focused area...what is it

If you get tired of the lens because of the bokeh, just send it north, I will suffer for you.


I am curious, is these handheld? If so, I am impressed even more

 

[robertwsimpson]

it's all flowers beyond the focus area.

I had the lens for like an hour because it wasn't mine so sorry I cant oblige!


and yes, these were all handheld.