What's going on in the background

I've noticed that, at the far end of telephotos, sometimes the OOF sections are rendered as diagonal lines or crosshatches. I believe they are (possibly) different than harshly blurred vegetation. Example above the pika's head:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/HWKZ​Gs

Looks like some manner of signal artifact. It can be difficult to sort out where it is coming from, but it is frequently amplified by accident during post processing. Things like sharpening algorithms can latch onto some fairly subtle patterned noise and run off with it if you're not careful with where it is being applied to.

Where do you find you first notice the patterns being visible? What is your work flow?

do you have a filter on the lens?

I had a Tiffen UV filter on for some but not all of the photos I noticed the diagonals on. Everything is processed in LR then exported for viewing. I don't add much global sharpening, usually a local brush over the subject. I did use heavier noise reduction for higher ISO stuff, maybe that is the problem? This was a rented lens for the trip so I didn't have much time to play with it/notice issues.

Another example (the bushes behind the legs):

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Hdco​b5

i'm not sure about the MKII 100-400L, but the original didn't play well with filters, and could cause issues like that

Try going back to Lightroom and reset all your adjustments? Are you still seeing a clear patter in those locations? Better, worse?

Also were these images done from .cr2 files, or in camera produced jpgs?

One thought that crosses my mind is that if you are significantly enlarging a shot some portions of the image may show pixel "patterns". This can happen, for instance, if you blow up a head shop and zoom in on strands of hair -- the way that portion is "composed" can tend to show diagonal "jaggies". The same thing could happen with in this example background detail that reflects the pixel "jaggies"...?

That being said, I'm not a graphical/image "scientist" and so this could just be babble!

It looks like the effect you get when shooting through chainlink fence. Even though the fence is completely OOF and invisible the pattern still shows up in the bokeh. http://jrlsphotos.smug​mug.com …iranda-postings/i-MzGR4Jn Found this example on google image search. Double check you have no scratches or marks on your lens or filter.

I'd say it's the filter. I've read about a similar problem where the photographer tested with additional filters from different manufacturers. Some exhibited the problem, but to a much lesser extent. Perhaps the combination of the filter and long focal length are the cause?

Filter was definitely on for the pika and then removed before the sheep shots. It only shows up in some of the photos. Here is legs closeup (SOOC except to crop and convert to JPEG,). The lens is on its way back to Borrowlenses or I'd do some more testing. As it is, I don't mind the lines but was curious about what they were.

Then it must be a lens aberration. Or maybe a defect with the lens. In any case, I love the goat photo!

Yea, this is weird, never seen anything like it before. You do see something like that sometimes with vegetation, especially with lenses that are not 'super-bokeh-machines', but as you say, this does not look like that.

Are you seeing the same patterns when viewing your RAW files?

I would go with either a fence or some sort of vegitation that is very close to you. Although you won't see it, stuff like that can really screw you up. If it were vegitation you probably didn't even notice you were shooting through it.

There was a similar post that turned out to be a chain link fence in a recent thread on POTN, they were Badeball shots. Another member posted some example shots, and in some there were some water droplets in the image which actually managed to form a sharp image of the fence within the droplet. So this sort of stuff can really have some odd effects. Long telephoto lenses, with the amount of bluring possible for items near MFD/Infinity when the lens is focused near the other extream are very susecptable to these wierd effects.

Alan

Can you see this problem when viewing the images on the camera's LED display? Looking for it there would at least eliminate (or confirm) the possibility that it is something that is caused during the downloading/processing stage.

By the way, there are no places that Pika live in close proximity to chain link fences, at least nowhere that I have ever heard of. So any suggestions that it is actually caused by a fence are really not plausible.

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