NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => Lens Talk => Topic started by: Frode on February 24, 2016, 18:43:06
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I'm having problem getting sharp pictures with my AFS 400 2.8D (NON VR). The lens and camera have been to a certified office for adjustment and are approved.
Didn't have any problem with my 300mm...
Testchart innside: sharp. Outside: 50% soft images..... Tripod, ballhead, single shot, center AF, timer and so on...
How is your tele- technique?
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I am not a telephoto expert, but this is what I would do to test:
With tripod, and high shutter speed such as 1/2000, 1/4000. Auto focus and manual focus. Image should appear sharp by eye in the finder, and on live view w/zoomed-in mode.
Even steady hand held at 1/4000 should give at least somewhat sharp results.
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For sharp images of distant subjects with a long lens: heat waves, air turbulence and aerosols leading to haze are all powerful damagers of quality. Do shoot such subjects early morning or very late, even at night.
Goes without saying you need proper long lens technique and that does NOT include supporting the lens with your hand. Mirror lock-up and a cable release will both help as well. Look through the finder and lightly tap the sun shade - does the finder image shake violently or does it settle immediately? If not the latter, your tripod setup is inadequate.
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You need faster shutterspeeds on the 400 than you did on the 300. It is also heavy - so dont be shy to up the shutterspeed.
What are you shooting?
What settings do you get the problem on?
perhaps you can post some pics and the settings used?
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With a decent tripod, there is no need to use faster shutter speeds for a 400 ...
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Bjørn - you can't not always use a tripod. If I do birds - its totally impossible.
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With a long lens, one should always use some kind of support. VR alone is never enough.
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Try with 2 bean bags, one camera mount, one lens front, to eliminate the tripod/ballhead variable. I guess you're not shooting outside from the inside, through an open door or window?
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Thank you all for your replies, appreciate it!
Reason why I get confused is that when I set up my SpyderLENSCAL chart inside, I get really sharp images. Using the same setup (tripod, timer and so on...) I get MUCH more unstable results. I really don`t get this!
Shutter speeds 1/2000+. So the tripod/ballhead should not be the problem....I think....
Get the same results with my D300 (yes, I know it`s old, but I love that machine in many ways :-) and the same lenses (AF- S 400 2.8D and AF- S 500 4.0 VR - last one are not mine though, just for testing).
I experienced something strange also (I`ve never paid attention to it anyway..); using live view outside I saw that after I had tuned to plane of focus, I saw that the screen went in and out of focus - SLIGHTLY. Using live view same way inside, the plane of focus was constant. "Air pollution/turbulance"?
Will use it for nature/wildlife/soccer/bird (from hide) so I`ll almost always will use it on a tripod/monopod (haven`t tried it with a monopod yet).
I`ve read your thread regarding long lens technique, Bjørn, so I don`t try to support the lens with my hand.
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Hopefully you had your AF set up to use AF-ON *only*, so as not to be surprised by refocusing of the lens?
Air turbulence is a major issue for any subject > 100 m away when you shoot with long lenses.
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Hopefully you had your AF set up to use AF-ON *only*, so as not to be surprised by refocusing of the lens?
Air turbulence is a major issue for any subject > 100 m away when you shoot with long lenses.
Yes, I always use AF- ON.
The chart was set up about 6- 9 meters away from the camera.
Regarding the experience with the liveview I`m not sure wether I was outside or stood just inside.
Most likely user failure, but, as I mentioned earlier, it`s so strange that I get so good results inside, compared to the ones outside....
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What kind of shutter speeds did you use?
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What kind of shutter speeds did you use?
1/2000 + outside, but a bit konger for the test shots inside, about 1/800 (I think).
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With a decent tripod, there is no need to use faster shutter speeds for a 400 ...
I was secretly assuming a somewhat wobbly tripod. As you have documented, most tripods...even name-brand, fairly expensive ones like my $800 Gitzo with $450 ball head... are wobbly with a very long lens.
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Start with eliminating difference between inside and outside to find the culprit:
- what surface is the tripod on? Grass, pavement?
- what distance to target? Same or longer outside?
- height of tripod
Etc
The good news is you can get sharp in one environment.
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Sample images might help identify the problem as well.
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Start with eliminating difference between inside and outside to find the culprit:
- what surface is the tripod on? Grass, pavement?
- what distance to target? Same or longer outside?
- height of tripod
Etc
The good news is you can get sharp in one environment.
Same distance (6- 9 meters), same surface (parquet) and same height of tripod.
I'll see if I can take some new pictures as I've deleted the first ones.
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same surface (parquet)
Bjørn,
If you are shooting with your target outside but your tripod inside, the temperature difference and the air waves it generates will fuzz your images. Been there myself in winter.
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Bjørn,
If you are shooting with your target outside but your tripod inside, the temperature difference and the air waves it generates will fuzz your images. Been there myself in winter.
What a relief; went outside and photographed same target with the tripod outside....SHARP😀!
Lesson learned and thankfully I'm now aware of air "pollution" and how it can affect imagequality.
Thank you all, once again 🙂👍.
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Good to hear you found this out ....
Another issue when temperature gradients are severe is shooting from your car, or taking the lens out of the car boot and immediately starting to shoot. Especially in the latter case the lens can be thermally unbalanced and might not even focus to infinity until it has been acclimatised to the ambient temperature.
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(https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8351/8309522706_f943e66637_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/dEhtAS)20121225-20121225-043 - Copy (https://flic.kr/p/dEhtAS) by long[url=https://flic.kr/p/dEhuPq](https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8072/8309526798_71957a2e64_b.jpg) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/longzoom/)20121225-043-3 (https://flic.kr/p/dEhuPq) by longzoom (https://www.flickr.com/photos/longzoom/), on Flickrzoom[/url], on Flickr. Very old Sigma 500/7.1 manual lens on the D800. Very good stable tripod. 1/250, f16.0 for DOF, crop. As more heavy and stable your tripod is, as more keepers you have. Everything posted above is absolutely correct. LZ
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(https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8361/8310499833_fa959f2ac0_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/dEnu4T)20121225-029 (https://flic.kr/p/dEnu4T) by [url=https://flic.kr/p/dEnupH](https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8361/8310500983_5dc54bed22_b.jpg) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/longzoom/)20121225-029-2 (https://flic.kr/p/dEnupH) by longzoom (https://www.flickr.com/photos/longzoom/), on Flickrlongzoom[/url], on Flickr. The same combo, the same situation. Hand held now, 1/750, but with good support. Crop about 200%, I believe. LZ
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With a long lens, one should always use some kind of support. VR alone is never enough.
Sorry, I don't agree.
Probably more than 70% of my photos with my 500mm lens are shot hand-held with no support whatsoever. And most of them are sharp as can be wished.
In fact, on several occasions I have tried to see a difference in sharpness between various forms of support and various combinations of VR settings and shutter speeds, and the only conclusions I have reached is that, on a tripod (and with standard lens foot), VR tripod-mode is better than no VR at speeds under 1/500th, and that I can see no difference in sharpness between say 1/250th with VR and 1/1000 without.
But as this thread clearly indicates, atmospheric conditions are very important at long focal lengths.
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Try 1/15 sec and see what kind of results you can achieve hand-held.
There are more areas in photography in which long lenses are used than just birds or sports.
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Sure, that's what I am trying to point out. There are more uses for long lenses than distant landscapes. Depending on usage, light levels and camera (settings and performance), it is possible to use fast modern telephoto lenses hand-held with excellent results.
I am not saying they perform at their best hand-held. Very far from it. Even I own a tripod.
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Wind is the enemy.
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Just to contribute my own experience with lenses up to 600mm on my D800 and A7RII:
- The traditional shutter speed rules of thumb are general guidelines - with my 400/5.6 ED I can get away with 1/800 sec (1/2xFL) with good success and with my A7RII using IBIS 1/FL (1/400) will generally give me very very good results (sharp at 100% viewing of the image)
- Hand-held ability varies from day to day - sometimes I have more high-frequency shake than other times and thus results vary.
- As others have said, atmospheric conditions [turbulence level (fluctuation level), the physical scale of the turbulence (eddy size), and turbulence type (wind shear vs. thermal vs. both), etc.] can play a key role at any significant distance. There is not "safe" time of day for reduced turbulence, it can happen at any time depending on what type of turbulence it is.
- Lens thermal stability. As Bjorn pointed out, with long lenses, just as with telescopes (reflector and refractors) if the optic is either out of thermal equilibrium or is very hot/cold relative to the surroundings this will have bad effects on the image quality
- Some lenses are myopic - i.e., even with perfect atmospherics, they tend to be sharper at closer distances than at "infinity"
- Focusing accuracy: All of my telephotos give poor image quality with very very very minor changes in focusing. My D800 is nearly useless with my 400 and 600mm lenses as the OVF is totally inadequate and the poor LiveView implementation is not accurate enough. Only my A7RII is really good enough with LiveView to get optimum focus. The D810 is reportedly much better with LiveView.
- My long lenses have good days and bad days depending on the absolute temperature. I.e., even if the lens has come to thermal equilibrium sometimes they don't like being very cold or very hot
My 2 cents.
- John
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I'm a frequent user of tele-lenses. Had very few problems as a result of atmospheric disturbances. There is a definite need for very performing AF such as with the D4s and now the D5 and D500. I'm using telelenses in all support alternatives i.e. tripod, handheld (I have a quite stable hand) or monopod, the latter more used as a "rest" between shots rather than a device to improve stability:
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7325/27297775343_679c764786_b.jpg)
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Excellent guidance on using long lenses, especially now that a correct method has been identified when carrying out sharpness tests.
I would very much enjoy hearing all the different uses for a long lens other than birds, sport and celebrities on beaches.
" How about a new thread "
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I would very much enjoy hearing all the different uses for a long lens other than birds, sport and celebrities on beaches.
1) selection of background.
a. Frame a subject
b. Double the focal length and frame as before, e.g. 50 to 105mm. You will change the perspective as you'll double the subject distance.
c. Note one half the background is now included. Now move slightly side to side to include or exclude items in background while keeping the primary subject framed as at the start.
Try 50 to 200, 300, 400, etc.
Dave
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Landscapes...