EF 400mm f/4 DO ii in 2025?

[Frodo]

A couple more photos from the windsurfing session. First one at 400mm, the others with 1.4x iii.
As with the previous test photos, these were shot at relatively long distance through salt spray.
Clearly this lens can deliver!

 

[Frodo]

I may have been too critical of the bokeh of the 400 DO ii.
Here are some comparison shots of the 400 DO ii with my previous lens RF 100-500L when I was focused on resolution/sharpness. All at max aperture (although LR reads the RF 100-500 at f/6.7) and processed in PureRaw4, which should increase background contrast a little.


400mm

500 and 560mm.
The 400 DO clearly wins this test against the zoom with more modest aperture and no nasty bokeh traits are visible.

 

[curiousMonkey]

I am thinking about picking up one of these lenses for some trips I have scheduled next year. I think the wider aperture will be beneficial for low light situations in jungle and rain forest environments. My biggest concern is AF speed on a Canon R6 Mk2 but I don’t think my RF 200-800 will be very useful on these trips.

 

[Frodo]

I am thinking about picking up one of these lenses for some trips I have scheduled next year. I think the wider aperture will be beneficial for low light situations in jungle and rain forest environments. My biggest concern is AF speed on a Canon R6 Mk2 but I don’t think my RF 200-800 will be very useful on these trips.

I have been happy with the AF on my R5. Speed seems fine, ability to pick up birds is probably limited by the body. I think your R6ii will be fine. The EF 400 DOii works very well with the EF 1.4x iii on my R5, and would be even better on a 24MP camera.

 

[curiousMonkey]

Here are a few shots with my new 400mm F4 DO II. All of these were shot with relatively high ISO (4k-12k) and had noise reduction applied. I checked the focus points in DPP and they all seem to be located on an eye. Something just looks off in the cat photo, the nose is a little soft but the rest of the body looks fine to me. I had to crop the birds a lot but those images were still around 7MP and look fine to me.

 

[Frodo]

The cat photo is focused on the cat's chest. Indeed, the fence is sharper than the eyes and nose. Wide open the depth of field is narrow, but with relatively static photos like that, the eyes should be sharp. What camera and settings did you use?

 

[curiousMonkey]

Here is the output from DPP 4 showing the focus point is the left eye of the cat.
This is with the Canon R6 Mk2.

 

[Frodo]

Is this using eye tracking?

 

[curiousMonkey]

I believe it is. I was testing several modes so I can’t be 100% sure. I did some research and saw that there was a firmware update available from 2018 (1.0.9) so I installed that last night. The description of the bug that was fixed by the new firmware was not very clear but since it mentioned IS I don’t think it is relevant to the results I am getting.

I will try and collect some more shots when the wildlife reappears in my yard. I will also try and collect some shots with my older 50D to see if that makes any difference.

 

[koenkooi]

I believe it is. I was testing several modes so I can’t be 100% sure[...]

As far as we can deduce as users, the Canon AF algorithms are 'open loop', there body doesn't check if something is actually in focus during exposure, it trusts the lens to have moved to the correct position. The obvious example if this is a branch crossing in front of your subject, at the edge of the 'eye box'. The eye will be out of focus, but the branch will be tack sharp.

I had hoped that Canon would have fixes this, especially with the R5II and R1 having multiple AF processors. Doing a contrast based fine tuning pass at the end would be a great option to have!

 

[curiousMonkey]

Here are a few more squirrel shots from about 30 feet away. I varied the aperture by one stop but I think they both look fine in terms of sharpness. The cat photo I posted earlier may just be an anomaly related to shallow DOF and camera movement.

 

[AlanF]

Here are a few more squirrel shots from about 30 feet away. I varied the aperture by one stop but I think they both look fine in terms of sharpness. The cat photo I posted earlier may just be an anomaly related to shallow DOF and camera movement.View attachment 226618View attachment 226619

Presumably, you have downsized the full image to about a 1000 px wide? If so it's difficult to assess critically the sharpness. A crop from the original not downsized would be better.

 

[curiousMonkey]

The resulting cropped files are rather large so I downsized them to 1000 px wide again.

 

[Frodo]

The eye of the squirrel seems sharp in both photos, as far as I can make out.

 

[Arizona]

This thread is great, so a huge thank you to all the participants. Was researching getting one of these or the 300 F2.8 ii and settled on the 400 DO ii as I was able to pick one up for 2600 in mint condition. I'm feeling like that's a pretty smoking good deal...

 

[curiousMonkey]

I took my lens to a wildlife preserve neat my house and starting playing around with burst mode. I managed to get a nice sequence of a turkey vulture. This helps convince me that the used lens is solid and works well with the R6 Mk2.