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Canon SX50 Specs (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter Roy C
- Start date
Tom Lawson
Well-known member
Roy.A cracking long-range shot of a cormorant.I couldn't handhold the camera still enough to get anything like this quality! I don't know how much post-processing of this JPEG you have done,but I would be intrigued to see your original non-processed shot side by side with the final version.
Tom.
Tom.
crazyfingers
Well-known member
Looks exactly like what we call a Common Loon around here.
pooleparrot
Ian Ballam
Roy C
Occasional bird snapper
Very little processing done Tom as it was shot in jpeg (mandatory when using the digital tc). Just a bit of cropping for composition and a few other minor tweaks. It was shot at 1/320 sec which with the claimed 4.5 stop IS system would be equal to 1/7680 sec without the IS. I must admit that I do find the Camera somewhat difficult to hold steady, due to its small size I cannot tuck my elbows in like I would with a big DSLR lens.
First one is straight out of the Camera and second one is the finished shot.
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Its European name is certainly a lot more prestigious sounding :-O.
They winter off our coasts here so to see one in summer plumage is a real treat for me.
crazyfingers
Well-known member
Perhaps Great Northern Loon would be the best name. The yodels that they make do sound Looney. I wonder if the word Looney comes from the Loon or if the are called Loons because of the looney call.
Anyway, of all the bird calls I know, I love their prehistoric eerie call. There is absolutely nothing like it.
I see these when we go to Maine in the summer in large lakes and in ocean bays and feeding by the crashing waves by the rocky shore.
Here are two relatively close shots from summer of 2012 and 2011 using the SX40 and another using the older SX30.
Getting the red eye next to the black head is always a challenge.
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tjsimonsen
Well-known member
Yep, as said above it's the same bird with two different names. While that difference seems trivial, I am a bit confused by the two names for the cousin: Yellow-billed Loon in North America, but White-billed Diver in Europe. It's the only Loon/Diver I haven't seen (missed it twice while living in Alberta), but surely the bill-colour is the same on both sides of the DamB
Thomas
Atricapilla
Still Wandering
Tom Lawson
Well-known member
Thanks Roy.It really is an impressive camera,particularly for those of us who find a DSLR with a long lens getting increasingly heavy!
Tom.
Tom.
tjsimonsen
Well-known member
Well it has the shape/jizz of an Eleonora's and the fact that underwing coverts are clearly darker than the rest of the wing rules out other possibilities such as an overshooting, pale Sooty, or a Hobby. I can't see what it could be other than a pale Eleonora's Falcon.
Thomas
Atricapilla
Still Wandering
Roy C
Occasional bird snapper
No there is not a spot focus option - this is not even available on the majority of DSLR's although the 7D has it (not that I would ever use it for flyers).
For BIF unless it was a slow flying bird I would not bother myself - you could rattle off lots of shots in the hope of nailing one but even then CA is likely to rear its ugly head for flight shots where there is a lot of contrast between the bird and the sky. You do see some flight shots taken with this cam (I have some myself) but I have yet to see anything really decent with it although you could get lucky. There is a tracking AF mode where you pick the bird up from the centre point and it is supposed to track it with other points if it drifts away from the centre one but it is:- a) slow to initially lock-on and b) it is slow to pickup from one focus point to another. You could try putting it in the HQ mode of the SCN menu where it will rattle off 10 shots but it takes the AF from just the first shot - this could be your best bet for trying to nail a flyer.
Hope this helps Gerard.
crazyfingers
Well-known member
Yes it's called Flexzone. The default is a small center rectangle in the viewer but once you are trying to shoot you can move the rectangle around manually to where you want it to be. Most of the time the center is good enough for me such that I haven't bothered yet to learn how to move it around.
I believe that you want to be on one of whichever of the non-Auto settings that you like best, Av or Tv or just C1 or C2 and set in the Menu's AF frame to Flexzone and save to either C1 or C2 and use either of those when you want to use the point focus (flexzone)
Roy C
Occasional bird snapper
That is not spot AF but just the option to choose a single AF point - there is a big difference between single point AF and spot AF. There is a setting which allows you to reduce the size of the AF frame when in Flexizone but that is still miles bigger than a 'spot' AF point/frame.
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squidge
Wha Whassssat
Thanks for the replies. I went with the sx50 after trawling through various forums and especially this thread. I normally shoot with a Nikon dslr so it's a learning curve using the canon.
I've only had the camera out once but I'm really impressed with the zoom on this camera for taking record shots. Although with practise I hope to get better shots like some of the pics shown on this thread.
It is a compromise when compared to my dslr but so far it has done the job I bought it for.
Great thread.
Regards Gerard.
I've only had the camera out once but I'm really impressed with the zoom on this camera for taking record shots. Although with practise I hope to get better shots like some of the pics shown on this thread.
It is a compromise when compared to my dslr but so far it has done the job I bought it for.
Great thread.
Regards Gerard.
Gomphus
Well-known member
Finding this camera is great for the type of shots I wanted it for... took the Thrush Nightingale in Hartlepool last night at iso800 with 1.5x converter in crap light last night and got a reasonable image for my uses! The Dusky Thrush I snapped at 2x converter and was happy, not great IQ but just what I needed to work from.
If you want DSLR quality you will be disappointed but that is not what I wanted, I want a light weight camera to take shots of the birds I see for reference in artwork, its been brilliant for that so far! The video is excellent too!
Steph'
If you want DSLR quality you will be disappointed but that is not what I wanted, I want a light weight camera to take shots of the birds I see for reference in artwork, its been brilliant for that so far! The video is excellent too!
Steph'
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crazyfingers
Well-known member
So you are saying that it doesn't have Spot focus?
Roy C
Occasional bird snapper
Yep, that's right. It has single point focus and you can make the point smaller but that is not spot focus. It has spot metering but that is an entirely different thing of course. I believe the 7D was the first Canon Camera ever to have spot focus although I could be wrong.
Spot focus even with a DSLR and phase AF can be a tricky thing to manage because the AF area is so small that sometimes there is not enough contrast to lock on - it is useful for,say, putting the focus point right on a birds eye or shooting through dense vegetation.
With a small sensor cam like the SX50 which does not use phase AF but relies entirely on contrast spot focus would be nigh on impossible to implement I would have though.
Often you see shots posted where the poster talks about the SX50's ability to focus on a subject that is behind branches ect. but that has more to do with the depth of field (DOF) rather than the AF system. All these small sensor cams have a much bigger DOF than a DSLR at comparable focal length so that means that you can obtain focus on a branch just in front of the bird but because of the large DOF the bird will also be in focus. That is the plus because you have a little bit of wriggle room with the focus.The downside for bird photographers is that you do not get a nice bokeh because of the big DOF but that can be corrected in processing by blurring just the background.
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