Bizarre Bokeh w/Canon 100-400 IS Lens--Help!

I'm posting this in the Nature Forum because that is the kind of

photos I take. Also, many nature photographers probably have the

same lens that is the subject of my post so they may have an idea of

what is going wrong.

 

I took my newly purchased EOS Ef 100-400mm IS lens to Bosque del

Apache in New Mexico on New Year's day. From sun-up to sun-down I

shot 8 rolls of velvia and/or provia 100. When I got the slides back

I noticed several strange things.

 

1.) Bizarre bokeh. The OOF areas have a diagonal pattern (upper left

to lower right) which appear to be in groupings of 3 lines. See the

photos of the Canadian Goose and the Road Runner in my folder at the

URL given in question 2. Other areas that have these same diagonal

three lines are in very bright reflections such as the sun sparkling

on water. Each round bright spot will have this diagonal pattern.

 

2.) Several shots of the sun setting or rising show double or triple

suns and sometimes doubled ridgelines in the area near the sun. But

on these I do not see the strange bokeh. See the other 3 photos in my

folder:

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=273445

 

Some other info: I used a Canon EOS 3. I pushed all of the rolls 2

stops. I also had a Tiffen UV filter on the lens. I sometimes used

a 2x converter. Tripod use was intermittent as I wanted to see how

good IS really is. It was REALLY cold at sunrise!!

 

My questions are:

 

A.) What would cause the diagonal bokeh? Would it have something to

do with the filter as proposed here:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000iYh

 

b.) Are the doubled suns and ridgelines due to lens flare? Or

possibly the filter?

 

c.) Has anyone else seen this kind of phenomena with the 100-400 IS?

 

 

I'm hoping this is a simple thing to correct and that I do not have a

defective lens. Any help would be appreciated.

 

And yes, I know the photos suck so no need to critique these. I just

wanted to show the weird things, not my skill as a photographer! ;-)

And yes, I searched the forums and articles for more info. Only

found the link I provided above which has a photo in the original

post showing the same kind of diagonal pattern.

 

Many thanks for your help!<div></div>

I have never had this or any other problem with my 100-400 - can you run some shots through another 100-400 lens on your body / your lens on another eos body easily?? this will eliminate any gross failure of your equipment. (then start looking at technique?)

 

post this question on the canon eos forum - there is a quite scary amount of knowledge represented there!

 

good luck

It seems that the challenges never end. I've got the same lens. I used to shoot it on an EOS 3 and now am using it on an EOS 1V. It's probably seen 100-200 rolls of film. My shooting subject(s) and style appears to be close to yours. I shoot Provia 100F and 400F also. So far my background bokeh has been AWESOME. I couldn't tell from your scans but are your chromes turning out sharp?? If or if not I'ld check to see if there is (1) a smudge on your front lens element (2) check for a smudge on your rear lens element. The only reason for light to get distorted that unevenly is for light not to go through your optics accurately. Find a very bright light and look through your lens first through the front and than from the back.

 

One side note, lens flare caused by shooting directly into the sun is not to uncommon. Using a grad ND filter or just a ND filter will help tone things down and might even help with the strange multiple sun flare.

 

To view some pictures taken with the lens go to the Urban Wildlife Presentation or the one titled Nature Photos (Canada) both by Chad H.<div></div>

I've used the 100-400 for some time now, and have never experienced these problems. I have, however, had problems with certain filters. A particular circular polarizer produced out of focus images. I would run some tests both with and without your filter. The other posters make good points about checking for something on the lens itself. I find the l00-400 a joy to use. I hope you will too.

"I also had a Tiffen UV filter on the lens" - one suspect - especially for backlight issues.

 

My first impression (without reading the post) was motion blur in the left image.

I have noticed that type of bokeh from time to time when using a couple of lenses that I have. It only happens when I use a converter (1.4). If the background is far enough away or close enough or not laden with lines (branches) you will not see it. I stopped using uv filters for protection as I got tired of flare and loss of contrast in some lighting situations. I keep the lens cap on till I'm ready for a shot. I also use the hood all the time.

The axial sun images are reflected images from the film, then reflected from a flat filter on the front of your lens, and then re-imaged (180 degrees rotated) from the original source of light. Photos taken into the sun (contre jour) or other bright sources are best done without filters. If filters must be used, they should be of the multi-coated variety to minimise thes spurious images.

 

Alex

Chalk up another vote for your filter as the prime suspect. Try some shots without the filter. I have not seen this with my 100-400.

 

Pet peeve - it's "Canada Goose" ;-).

Brian beat me to it. Pet peeve of mine as well.

OK, OK!! Jeeeeeezzzzz!

 

To all CANADA GEESE around the world, I offer my most sincere and humblest of apologies for my gross negligence and unbelievable ignorance. I beg your forgivness. ;-)

 

 

Now, how about some help with the strange bokeh?

Ok, I take back what I said about the 1.4 converter being the cause of the bokeh you are seeing. I went through some slides that I took with my 100-300, 28-135 @ 135, 100-400 and found examples that when shot, with or without converter, if the background had lines, (such as twigs or small bare branches), running through it at some point, I saw this bokeh (of varying degrees). So next I just mounted each of these lenses on my camera, with and without the converter, pointed them through my back window at some trees and you can see the same bokeh as you defocus the branches through the viewfinder. I then took an old 400mm tokina lens I have and did the same. Again I found the same bokeh as noted just not as bad. I could not see this bokeh when trying my 90mm f2.8 lens but that doesn't mean it's not there, just that I could not see it through the viewfinder. Maybe if I had set the f-stop to 5.6 maybe it would have shown up again. I gather it is also more pronounced at higher magnifications as with a converter. So those that say their 100-400 lenses are free of this I beg to differ. If they take a picture at the same distance of the same type of subject at the same f-stop they will get the same. My two cents...

I just got out my EOS-3 and put my 100-400IS lens on it. I removed the UV filter. I focused on some grass and twigs and then defocused. The bokeh in the viewfinder had the same pattern as shown in the images in the original post.

 

I then put on my 50mm lens and did the same thing. And yep, the same strange bokeh!

 

So I tried my 16-35mm lens and guess what? That's right, the same strange bokeh.

 

All lenses were wide open and it is a sunny day. Granted, I was looking through the viewfinder at light passing through the focusing screen which has a similar pattern to the bokeh in the Canada Goose image I posted. This is why I see the bokeh pattern in the viewfinder. But why is it showing up on my photographs?

 

Is there something wrong with my EOS-3? It almost appears as though the bokeh in the photographs may be caused by the focusing screen somehow. I know its not likely but is there some way light can be bouncing around within the camera body? Not every canon set up produces this bokeh pattern. I'm still trying to figure out why mine is. Any ideas?

 

Thanks

Very strange effect. The OOF areas don't entirely appear to be parallel, just close to parallel. We're there bright reflections

in the grasses for the bird photos (dew?)

<p>

Is the diagonal always in the same basic direction?

<p>

I don't suppose you wear some sort of mirrored sunglasses when you're shooting? You could try reshooting with something black and opaque covering the viewfinder.

<p>

Can you see the effect in the viewfinder yourself?

(Okay, the sunglasses suggestion doesn't make any sense. Was just thinking out loud.)

<p>

The next thing to try probably is a different camera body, if you can borrow one.

Can someone please explain to an ignorant Anglo, what is/are bokeh?

<P>Wearing glasses, of any kind ( except drinking-glasses : ), may

alter the recorded image, unless using viewfinder shutter/blocking,

and mirror-lockup probably wouldn't completely eradicate this,

because the mirror's <I>partially</I> silvered ( though it'd be

<I>totally</I> up when the shutter fired ), and this may affect

metering, as well.<BR>

Partly because of reflection-of-light coming from the

camera/viewfinder, partly

because of transmission of light from around the glasses-lens into

the viewfinder.</P>

 

<P>Bokeh: the <I>way</I> background is

out-of-focus ( search for "mirror lens bokeh" to see some disgusting

effects ).</P>

Philipp, the Canada goose diagonal lines are certainly a case of bad double-line bokeh. It simply seems to be the reed´s leaves being dissolved into this structure by this type of bokeh.

The sunset/sunrise example must be caused by the filter. Though it is possible to get a "mirror image" of the sun with zooms sometimes I´ve never seen 3 in one picture. I use some Tiffens for filming, although they are expensive like hell, picture quality deteriorates in backlight.

Bokeh can change considerably with focal length and focusing (I see this in my old FD 50-300L which is great in the bokeh department mostly, but not always, and I´ve seen bad bokeh with long Leica lenses in some cases), so your lens need not always be as bad as this.

But I do wonder about the 50 and 16-35 (haven´t used them, the Nikon 50/1.4 shows terrible "bright ring" bokeh though, why not the Canon). Let us now if you find out what´s going on.

Well, the right image I dont know about, but the left image looks very familliar to me! Actually, I dont have the lens mentioned but

 

I've gotten simmilar results with my 70-200F4L on occasions using my D30. Havent got a clue as to what causes it, but only seem to get it on 'busy detail' (like branches / grass etc) that is 'just' outside the plane of focus, and then only on certain focal lengths / focussing distances (or any other X factor I dont know about, maybe lighting etc.). Also using UV filter (Hoya;HMC) will try stop using it for a while see if it helps.

 

Never mentioned it to anybody anywhere (thought I was getting to obsessed with analysing images), and was quite surprised to see that image in this post!

Bokeh is dependent on various optical aberations (among other things). By reading the Pentax(!) IS patents from 12 years back, Image Stabilization introduce weird optical aberations. Hence, IS lenses include correcting elements. However, since some elements is moving about my guess is that this could create weird bokeh under certain cercumstances. Just a guess...

I think this is a combination of all of the above... the sun reflections are most likely due to

the filter (and tiffen filters are notorious for this, based on the following web sites: http://www.optyczne.pl/5.1-Inne_testy-Test_filtr�w_UV.html and http://www.kenandchristine.com/gallery/1054387_ucZqa). There have been a lot of

reports about the canon 100-400 IS lens giving odd bokeh effects. The trick is, it is

usually with IS on only... when turned off the effects go away. While it may have

something to do with the spherical aberration, leading to nisen bokeh, more liekly in this

case it is due to the IS system itself. I have been trying to figure this out for a week or so

and finally decided I had to diagram it out to see what the cause is. If you are still

interested, given that this is a 5 year old thread, then you can see my website at:

 

http://bokehtests.com/Site/Stabilization_and_Bokeh.html

 

Hope this helps, if anyone is still out there on this thread.

 

Klaus

--

http://www.bokehtest.com

<p>Just got the 100-400 and the first shots were in my face with the unusual bokeh, using a Rebel XTI. Never seen anything like it with my 300 F4. Off to try some experiments with filter and IS.<br>

James.</p>

<p>Ok, 50-50 chance and I guessed wrong. I thought this was going to turn out to be an interaction between the IS and the tripod I was using - sounds logical, right? Wrong. In my case the diagonal artifacts on the bokeh were due to the filter on the front. IS/no IS, tripod or no tripod made no difference, taking off the filter solved the problem completely. The filter was a Hoya UV with no obvious defects.<br>

James.</p>

<p>I'm using the Canon 100-400 on a 40D, and was appalled at the bokeh (diagonal lines being the culprit) in the out-of-focus area at the 'back' of the picture. All solved when I removed my Hoya HMC multi-coated filter - the best I thought I could buy. A guru friend pointed out that ANY extra 'glass' you put in front of ANY lens will have some effect (obviously!) on the result, and some of these effects are VERY unwanted!<br>

I'm very pleased to have had the collective wisdom of contributors to get me to 'see the light' a little better!</p>