Reflecting on the trip - learning points

Our trip to Scotland was great fun, and while it seems churlish to moan about the weather (blue skies every day temperature just below 30C), as photographers it did cause us a few issues.  Whereas I had hoped for leaden skies, summits shrouded in mist and cloud, etc etc we had the odd puffy blue cloud instead.  Unfortunately, this meant that during the day we had very flat high contrast scenery with little detail, making for lacklustre shots.  Evenings produced some lovely vistas though.

The trip also provided an opportunity to observe how four very different photographers interpreted the same situations.  This was not just in technique and equipment chosen, but also in enthusiasm for a subject.  I have to confess to being uninspired enough a couple of times that I didn't bother getting out of the car to take a shot as in my opinion, all I would end up with would be an uninteresting image, rendered so by the very strong midday sun.  To note though, my pals that did make the effort made the best of a bad job and got some nice shots.

One of the highlights of the trip was the opportunity to get close up and personal with a nesting pair of wild Ospreys.  This session provided a lot of food for thought in regard of wildlife photography and equipment.

Iphone photo of Osprey nest top of tree left and
Osprey in tree on the right, the little dot towards the top,
not the dot further up thats a Crow.

The picture on the left was taken from my Iphone to "scene set" and also provide the GPS location for where we were.

So you can see things are pretty small (but not as small as at the nearby RSPB reserve which is really far away!

The birds are sitting in trees on a small island and luckily its easy to get down to the waters edge and set up a tripod and chair.

Cameras trained on the Ospreys

So that's exactly what we did as you can see in the following photo.  We were joined by a couple of other chaps.  Notice how two of us are sitting close, that's me and a buddy that is well into wildlife photography.

It gave us a good opportunity to do a little comparison of the kit we were using and the outcomes.

I was using a Canon 7D, a Sigma 120 - 400mm lens and a no brand 2x converter.  My buddy was using a Canon 5D mk 2, Canon 300mm f2.8l lens and a Canon 2x converter.

If we crudely priced these up then I would guess the 300mm lens alone would far outweigh the cost of my entire setup!  but hey lets not dwell on that!.

So we had the same subject, doing the same things, in the same light from the same spot, the only difference, was kit and photographer.  So how did we fare?  Well in terms of zoom I had the advantage, as I started with 400mm at the long end, with 2x converter giving me 800mm and then a sensor crop factor of 1.6 which meant a massive 1280mm! whereas my buddy had just 600mm.  I also I had the advantage of a far higher frame rate of up to 8 frames per second versus 3.9 of the 5D mkII. 

Of course its not all good, at full zoom, the Sigma 120 - 400 has an aperture of f5.6, add the converter and I lose two "stops" so it becomes f11.  That's pretty dark, and as we were photographing birds I wanted a high shutter speed so had no choice to up the ISO, with all the sensor noise that brings.  Needless to say, my pal didn't need as much ISO though he'd too dropped two stops to f5.6.

The other main difference in this setting is mega-pixels.  7D =18mp and 5D = 21.1mp, so he can throw away 3mp of data in a crop and he'll be at my total image size, if I crop in 3mp I'm down to 15mp and much further and the image could get ragged.

So anyway lets look at the images:

Canon 7D, Sigma 120- 400

This is mine, if you view it full size you'll see its really not sharp.

Exif data:1/1250 @f11 and ISO 400, 800mm











5D mk II, Canon 300 f2,8L

This is the 5D version, really nice and sharp.

Exif data: 1/1600 @ f8, ISO 400, 600mm











So there we have it.  The compromises that manufacturers have to make to bring components down to affordable levels do have an impact when situations become more extreme, like the high zoom levels here.  In more normal situations I'd expect the differences to be less stark.  We were blessed with very good light, if it had been overcast I would have really been in trouble.

Time to start saving!!!!

At Last Sharp Pictures!!

I've often felt that the pictures I've taken on my Canon 7D are not always as sharp as they could be.  Its been noticeable in a number of situations and I've put it down to operator error or wrong settings. 

Its been particlulary annoying when going out with others to do wildlife pictures.  Ok perhaps I can't expect to compete with a Canon 5DS Mk II and a 300mm f2.8 L lens, with my 7D and Sigma 120 - 400mm lens but I'm sure I should be able to get sharp(er) shots more of the time.  The Sigma lens is well regarded and I do get the odd sharp shot but not as often as I should.  In some images I can see that the Auto Focus (AF) point is spot on an animals eye for example but the eye is "soft".

One of the things that was bugging me was that certain shots with the subject close to the ground, showed sharp focus in the foreground going soft on the main subject.  After a bit of judicious Googling, I stumbled on a page from Northlight Images which exactly described my problem and how to fix it.

I'll not replicate here the work on the Northlight website, suffice to say that when I tested my camera/lens combination, the sharp point was indeed in front of the AF point.  Using the 7D's "Micro Adjustment" feature I was able to correct this in the "test" scenario.  I've had a quick go "in the field" and things did seem much much better though low light levels and high ISO's meant things were a little soft all the way through.

Hopefully I'll get out in good light in the next couple of days and see a great improvement.

Watch this space!

Locked out!!

Never done it before but yesterday I locked myself out of my car!! I was taking photo's of friends racing Karts at the outdoor Kart track near Caxton Cambridgeshire Kartsport. All had gone well but I needed to switch to a wider angle lens for the trophy presentations, and also change memory card.  In the rush I put my keys down on the boot floor, changed the bits over and slammed the tailgate and that was it.

Ah well, got some nice pictures though including some chaps on Pit Bikes, which I'd never heard of.

A good time to use my Sigma 120 - 400mm telephoto, which is a lovely lens for this kind of work..  I shot most on shutter priority. leaving the camera to adjust aperture, I'd also set ISO to 400 so the camera had enough space to work in.  If you don't do this, and the scene gets too dark, once the camera has reached maximum aperture (lowest f number) your images will start to go dark.

The Kart set can be seen here Kart set

My Flickr Photstream

Its how I wanted it to look.

I bought a Sigma Fisheye lens earlier this year  (10mm f2.8) for those that are interested in those things) and I love it to bits, it can give you a photo thats markedly different to one taken by someone next to you using standard lenses.  As well as its great field of view in tight spaces, I like the way it distorts things providing extra  drama, and its this that is also problematic.  

A couple of times now people have looked at images produced with the lens and seen the distortion as an error that I've overlooked, and advised that I could correct the distortion Photoshop!  I'm always appreciative of comments positive or negative, but it is a little frustrating that people would think I'd present an image that was in need of that level of correction.

I've started now to let people know in advance that the distortion is there for a purpose and that I've not just been sloppy.

A case in point, in the comments of this  image of Senate House Passage in Cambridge, I stated in its comments that I'd left the distortion in to create a more oppressive feel, and thus far have had no comments back recommending I straighten it up. 

On the other hand I didn't say the distortion was deliberate on this one taken in Trinity Lane in Cambridge and someone took the time to comment which is great, that I should take out the distortion.  I did a version with no distortion but binned it as it was too "straight", the way the building looms over the bicycle just adds something.

See them full size at My Flickr Photostream