GO GET EM NED!!!!!!!

ned, just for my personal pleasure, will you post a pic of the exact same thing at 200 and then at 500 from the same spot

my eyes have only seen 200 through a camera and I want to see how close 500 can get

Processing
I took a set of these to compare sharpness. The difference is beyond the ability of my eyes now.
198mm

500mm

thx ned

does your tripod have a hook on the bottom? hang something heavy, like a weight or your camera bag from the hook. it'll help steady the tripod when it's on dirt or grass.


unless you already do that, in which case keep on keeping on.

What I fail to understand is how then can I take a hand held shots? I have taken some and they have not been blurry. Some are in this thread like post 41. I assumed if this level of detail was achieved hand held I could go beyond it with support.

I thought I could be somewhat cavalier with this setup if I could get decent hand held shots. I was very very wrong. That has been proven.

Is the OS(IS) of this lens that good?

How do I overcome the blurry shooting off my car door? This is a common practice recommended by several sources I have read. I may have a very poor shutter release technique that will be cured by the remote.

Waiting for a nice day to try again.

wait, what? try and give us a complete thought here ned, lol. when you shoot handheld with no bracing your shots are sharp, but when you set the camera on a surface you get shake?

telephoto lenses and handholding are not a reliable pairing. wide, fast lenses work great for shooting without support, and tripods work great for shooting with long lenses. if you set the camera down on a parked car and use either the camera's timer or a remote release, there should be little if any camera shake. you did turn the car off first, right?

these are hand held shots posted in this thread




LOL

I turn the car off, the OS off and use a beanbag I made on the car door to support the camera
It is a 4 wheel drive. The suspension is stiff.

then I get this

blurry

yes, the bird is blurry. the weeds are less so.


are you focusing manually? what aperture do you tend to use?

Auto focus only for these pics.

The finch is 1/200 at f6.3

The bug above it is 1/250 at 7.1

Yes some of the hand held shots are blurry but all of the shots from support have been.

You have seen what I have noticed.There are elements in the frame in focus but out of the plane I supposedly focused on according to the camera. Yes I am using the center focus point. My subject is dead center unless I crop the pic. In this case it is a weed in front of the bird. I have another where a squirrel is blurry but the fence behind it is clear. I do not think the camera could focus on fence wire if I wanted it to.

at those shutter speeds it's not motion of the camera that is causing the blurriness. I don't think it's a soft copy of the lens either, as some of the shots are sharp. that leaves the focus. try manually focusing, see if that helps. also, take advantage of the center focus point and make focus lock your friend.

I tried that today with live view in 10x mode. I could not catch it failing to focus correctly. I will work on it.

I've never used live view, but if it's even remotely similar to the super macro mode on my little canon p&s, the image on the screen is never as sharp as the actual image taken. go old school and look through the viewfinder, ned.

I have never used live view to take a picture but the way it works on this camera deactivates auto focus thus giving focus lock. The camera comes to a focus then lifts the mirror and the image appears on the back. I then selected 10x mode and tried coming to a finer focus.

You are correct. The image was not sharp enough for me to tell.

Hand held 1/125sec f8 500mm OS on

OS Off, using remote with camera on car door. A little awkward at first but much better.


Hand held using remote, a little blur in the crop


Thanks for the help. Lots.
Now to do it all at once.

nice pics!

go cardinals

I see how you do this. Capture the bird and then affix it to the tree in a lifelike pose.
How's this.





I got cardinals


Couldnt get close to this guy.

Thanks to you I got rid of the blurry.

Now to work on exposure.

the first one in that post is great. nice composition, with the bird's body facing out of the frame but the head turned toward the negative space. despite the blurred foliage in the foreground, it still works because of the composition.

I wonder if part of the softness is due to cropping?

Those latest shots are a huge improvement though, they look great!

Thank you. These are cropped a lot. I seldom get an overall good picture but that is to be expected from what I have been reading about bird photography. I will be honest. I am learning the basics. Some rules of thumb have gone out the window. Shot number 4 above was taken hand held. It truly amazes me this is possible at 500mm.

Jer I am glad you like one of my shots but first came focus and next is exposure. Then I will work on composition which matters little in blurry poorly exposed photos.
I am getting closer to what I want to see in my own photos.

Again I thank those that have responded to my posts.

focus, exposure and composition are not mutually exclusive. all are interrelated, and altering one alters the others. photography isn't done in a vacuum, ned. no matter how good you are, every single shot isn't going to be in focus, or exposed correctly, or composed well. you need to learn your equipment and apply all three skills to a particular situation in order to achieve a good photograph. 'perfecting' focus before moving on to exposure is an exercise in futility.

but way to take a compliment.

I am working on learning the equipment. It has surprised me. I am trying to catch up.
and I want a teleconverter 500x1.4x1.6=1120

1120mm f/1000

that snake is win, ned

radar on



target acquired



target is defiant



target subdued



and a couple from today.

I'm surprised the cat let the terrier submit him. good shots.

Thank you.

LOL

They take turns.

They are buddies

Great shots, Ned.

I'm not a photographer at all, but I see a lot of improvement in your pictures Ned. Keep posting, I'm enjoying your progress!

Doesn't hurt that I love being outside in WV. I spend most of my time at my grandmothers house on the back porch or sitting beside the barn watching nature go by.

Thank you.

Really

damn these camera things. They suck you in.

The photobucket uploader has gone buggy for me

I like them! Thumbs up!

Been a while since I last checked this thread.....


WOW is all I can say!

Those were all shot hand held too. I need to send 05XRunner flowers for recommending this lens.

I was reading Lani's thread with her beautiful pictures and wondering about the effect of the cold and taking the equipment in and out of it.

I was shooting this little guy. He was hamming it up for me. My lens started buzzing.




One of its motors was running continuously. It was about 22 degrees that day. I turned off all the switches on the lens (IS, Focus) to no effect and them shut the camera down. This stopped the buzzing. I was concerned about burning a motor out. The buzzing didn't stop until I warmed the equipment back to room temperature and reseated the lens. I haven't taken it out since other than quick trips out to grab a shot off the porch hand held.

At room temperature everything seems fine.

Are there any rules I should follow using equipment in the cold and do I need to worry about internal condensation on the elements of the 150-500. I have tucked everything in the closet for now.


Thanks

Ned

That's really strange, the buzzing motor.. never heard of that happening.
The shot of the deer is a great catch.

wow...you've improved dramatically!

ned,

if you're out in the cold for a while, just leave the gear in your bag and bring it indoors and let it warm up nice and slow, then deal with it later

I have been out several times lately sub 10 below and followed this protocol

I'm sure the buzzing was the IS in the lens because the view was blurry in the viewfinder. I need a very large ziplock bag from what I was reading today. The large lens has its own bag and will not fit in my camera bag.

Perhaps it was a fluke. I will try it again and see. I could always go back to my shorter lens for a while.
It would probably improve my skills.

Thank you D. I enjoy it.

I gave my daughter a 60 second course in photography and handed her the DSLR

60 seconds and she's already much better than I am...!!!

Great shots!!!

I didn't mean to leave the camera in a bag while shooting, I meant when you pack it up in your camera bag or backpack to just leave it in there for a while after returning indoors

LOL

I knew what you meant. I usually just assemble everything and head out in the car to shoot birds. The Sigma has it's own case and will not fit in my camera bag. I just need to stick the whole thing down in a trash bag for a few hours when I get home.

They are covering digital media in Jeanna's gifted class at school. All I showed her was the basic camera controls for the Canon. She knows more about photo composition than I do. They impressed me and speak volumes about how good these cameras can be in fully automatic mode.

Nice crisp shots, Ned.
How far from the coyote/wolf were you standing?

A long way. I couldnt get near it. That is a huge crop taken with the 55-250.

I an considered nuts. The guys go to lunch and I head into the bush behind the business.





I wish I had my Sigma here.

ned are you still shooting out of the car, or are you on the ground with sandbags?

These were all taken just walking around on my lunch hour with the 55-250 hand held on some unimproved property behind the training center here in Temecula, CA. Instead of feeding my face I go for a walk. Everything was done wrong. They were shot at noon with no support and I have cropped the hell out of most of them them.

This thread makes me sad. So many missing pictures

I repaired the links back for a few pages. The ones I didn't fix are awfully blurry.

I organized my Photobucket account finally. Something to do in a hotel room at 4AM.

I am wvned there too.