I've Never Seen This Before. Help Solve a Mystery

I was out in the yard testing my new 135L with my pup Remy, when I noticed a strange thing on two of the shots. Most of the background is nicely blurred, as you'd expect from the 135L on a 5DMKII shot wide open, but look at the right side of the picture. Part of the wooden fence is blurred, but part looks to be almost in focus. I was at a right angle to the fence, so it was all equidistant from the camera. Remy's in focus, so it's not the camera missing focus on the subject. Why would part of the background be so clear while the rest is blurred?

This is very strange. I've checked the rest of the shots, and there's nothing like this in any of them.

Anyone seen this before?

It just isn't blurred out enough to stop the dark lines in the fence showing, it's normal. The other fence panel is showing them too, in the area in shadow. It's just the effect of the sunlight lightening the dark gaps where they don't show.

Blur won't remove detail, like panel gaps, unless you are VERY out of focus. Otherwise it just blurs them a bit, as here.

Normal, eh? Hmmm. I don't know. It probably is normal, but I just think it looks mighty peculiar. I just have never noticed anything like this, and I've been shooting for 30 years. It's hard to see in the compressed image, but on the full size TIF file I can see detail in the boards on the right, but none on the left, even in the shadow parts of that side. The fence was about 30 feet behind the dog, and I was 20 feet from him. I wouldn't think I would see any detail at that distance, considering I was shooting at f/2.

Here's a crop showing the fence and Remy's head, so you can see it more clearly.

It just seems weird.

did you see any highlights on the histogram?
zooming in, even pixelated I can still see most of the wood fences except for 3 spots where it's way over-exposed

I think the problem is with your fence, not your lens. Check to see if the palings are equally spaced and all flush with the rails.

Well, it's too late to check the fence. I spent all day today tearing it down and putting up a new one. It was all part of one panel, though.

gibbit1 wrote in post #14858979
Well, it's too late to check the fence. I spent all day today tearing it down and putting up a new one. It was all part of one panel, though.

It freaked you out that much?

gibbit1 wrote in post #14858979
Well, it's too late to check the fence. I spent all day today tearing it down and putting up a new one. It was all part of one panel, though.

I think it would have been cheaper to just get a new lens...

ewheeler20 wrote in post #14859029
I think it would have been cheaper to just get a new lens...

Or just shoot the dog against a different background.

Or get a new house. I mean seriously, it may be haunted :P

Beautiful Pooch!

The fence that refused to bokeh.

It's just perfectly straight lines of out of focus highlights.

To me it looks more like destructive interference of the light waves coming through the gaps between the panels. That is unless you had panels 10-20mm wide with gaps of a 70-100mm width.

Ha! No, it didn't freak me out. Well, not that much, anyway. I've been replacing my fence a section at a time for awhile now, and it was that piece's turn to go. Good riddance. Damned non-bokehing fence.