100-400 User opinons needed for faulty lens

Liquidstone did an inceredible review comparing his 500m f4 to a 300-800 sigma. Here is the link www.pbase.com/liquidst​one/image/58879465/ori​ginal. He shot a ten dollar bill at 30' and shows 100% crops. I shot the same at 25' to get the same field of view with late afternoon light. This should give an easy way to see if the lens ( when it comes back ) is working properly. As expected the crop is a little soft,but it is 25' away and the print is really small .

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"As expected the crop is a little soft..."

Looks pretty good to me...

I can't wait to try this test but of course I'll be using a diffrent note.

Whoops I forgot your across the big pond.

Hi all.. my first post here and this thread is most interesting since im having problems with my new 100-400IS lens.

I just send in my brand new 100-400IS for being way to soft. Im used to the 400 prime and was hoping that the zoom would at least be closed when stoped down as the prime is wide open. But this wasnt the case with my lens.
Would be very interesting to hear what happend with your lenses that was in service?
I think i might have just a tiny bit of front focus.. not sure that would be enough to produce this soft images i get.. i kinda suspect that its the elements in the lens that need adjustments.. Not sure the local canon service will notice and adjust it if its the case.

Heres a crop from my copy... not to exited about it lol

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Hi Bass,

It was a bit better when it came back but did not get rid of the artifact problem so I think something is still out of alignment. It was not a true Canon service center but Canon approved and they admitted they didn't have the latest lens diagnosics software that Canon now use.

So I'm gona take it to a proper Canon center in the next week or so.

The center focus isn't too bad but I think it should be better. My main concern it the strange arifacting on some backgrounds and I think that it may be affecting the overall sharpness on the focused part. I have not seen this effect on any other 100-400 images. BEFORE anyone else says it.... ITS NOT MOTION BLUR...

BTW, I think mine is sharper than yours so maybe I'm being paranoid

Below is a full frame and a 100% crop showing the background artifacting. (NO PP)

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Here is a 100% center crop and right side

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evandavies wrote:
Hi Bass,

It was a bit better when it came back but did not get rid of the artifact problem so I think something is still out of alignment. It was not a true Canon service center but Canon approved and they admitted they didn't have the latest lens diagnosics software that Canon now use.

So I'm gona take it to a proper Canon center in the next week or so.

The center focus isn't too bad but I think it should be better. My main concern it the strange arifacting on some backgrounds and I think that it may be affecting the overall sharpness on the focused part. I have not seen this effect on any other 100-400 images.

BTW, I think mine is sharper than yours so maybe I'm being paranoid

Below is a full frame and a 100% crop showing the background artifacting.

Outch! That dosnt look good at all!
I have never seen that before? Hope it turns out ok for you.
Looking at some peoples 100% crops makes me sure that both of us should be able to have more sharpness into our crops.
The Service Center i left my 30D and lens at is a recomended service place according to Canons swedish website. So i guess they know what they are doing.. i feel stupid.. they being nice and all taking the time to look at my lens.. but still im suspiciouse that they´ll fix my problem.
Hate the wait and see thing

Yeah, I'm going on holiday in 3 weeks so it should be ready in time... hopefully...

Your second bird pic looks great!!! Maybe some people do that much pp to their images..? ? ?

Any updates on this from either of you guys?

Hi Patrick,
As a matter of fact I'm taking it to a Canon service center on Tuesday. I haven't been able to sort it out till now.
I will probably get it back in a week or so and I'll update this thread...

Yep,Kohany, looks like the same symptoms as mine but yours looks even worse. I'm sure its an element alignment issue.

I took mine to Canon so I'll let you know what its like when it comes back and I'll ask how much it would be without warranty.

Evan, I'm missing something, are you expecting the out of focus areas to be as sharp as the in focus part?

There appears to be a certain amount of streaking going on here.

One question Evan, did you use the lens with or without UV filter?

In my case I figured out that it was UV filter's fault that pictures were soft, with weird background artefacts similar to your's.

The filter is Hoya HMC bought from ebay from chinese seller. You can get 77mm Hoya HMC there for ~$20 with shiping. Apparently those filters are forgery, or junk from hoya's dumpster. I have two 77mm UV HMCs from different sellers, both from China. Both filters produce described above effects. With regular uncoated Tiffen no such effects, and picture is as sharp as without filter.

Does anyone know if Hoya makes UV(0) HMC filters on green glass? Because that's what chinese HMC are made from, though coating seems to be good.

Below are examples with and without UV filter, no postprocessing applied:

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Geez thats a huge difference. Im going to go take my eBay hoya filters off and see if theres any change