Some 300mm f5.5 Asanuma samples (1 Viewer)

In a previous thread someone requested some sample shots from my E-520 with 300mm Asanuma manual focus lens. Here are a few, and apologies if I haven't uploaded them correctly.

I've cropped them to be no more than 900 wide, no resizing, and I don't think I've enhanced them at all. Now that I try to do an upload, I see the max size is 1024 x 800, but never mind. I chopped some tails off to get them down to 900 wide. I also notice that the upload process removes the EXIF information, pity that.

They are, from left to right:
1. Noisy Friarbird, ISO 400 (Goulburn, NSW)
2. Sacred Kingfisher, ISO 800 (Goulburn, NSW)
3. White-eared Honeyeater, ISO 800 (Goulburn, NSW)
4. White-plumed Honeyeater, ISO 200 (Melbourne, Victoria)
5. Richard's Pipit, ISO 400 (Western Treatment Plant, Victoria)

Some low ISO shots would be better for seeing how good a lens is, but these sorts of speeds are what I will end up using the lens on. I think the White-plumed Honeyeater is the sharpest, and none have very bad fringing, although I'd like to hear what faults others can find. All of them are probably suffering from at least some focusing inaccuracy.

Most were taken wide open at f5.5, but by the time I got around to the White-plumed Honeyeater I was experimenting with f8, and I think it has improved the shot. Bear in mind too that I'm still learning how to use both the lens and the camera, so they aren't as good as they could be.

I'm kind of happy with the quality, especially for the price, but not with the reach. The kingfisher is the best example of that, being the most distant shot, but is ISO 800 so a bit fuzzy anyway.

In my opinion that sharpness doesn't match my Canon S3 with 1.7x teleconverter, so I'm in the process of buying a 400mm lens to see if I can remedy that. Although it feels like a backward step to upgrade to an SLR and lose reach at the same time, the number of focused behind-vegetation shots I'm getting compared to before is good compensation. The other problem before was simply finding the bird using the grainy EVF, and that isn't that much of a problem anymore either.

In my opinion, combining an SLR with a cheap MF lens is probably the most cost effective way to get into bird photography - if your eyes can cope with manual focusing, and if you have enough experience to buy the right lens off eBay, etc. It probably works out cheaper than a good compact megazoom, and you probably need to add a teleconverter to most of them anyway.

Such a pity that as they increase the zoom factors, they also make the short end of the range even wider. Bloody landscape photographers.

That looks like a piece of junk you've attached to your E-520.

paulthomas said:

That looks like a piece of junk you've attached to your E-520.

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Well, yes and no. I think it is really difficult (probably impossible) to evaluate a lens under these conditions. If these are 100% crops with no resizing (as he says and I believe him), then these images of birds are cropped from a MUCH larger image. Under such conditions, there aren't many lenses, even expensive ones, that will yield good results, IMHO. As he says, he doesn't have enough reach.

Plus, there's the question of focus, which is iffy with a manual focus 300mm lens anyway.

However, Paul, I think we're more or less in agreement about this whole exercise. I do not agree with the statement that "combining an SLR with a cheap MF lens is probably the most cost effective way to get into bird photography - if your eyes can cope with manual focusing." For one thing, I do not think that anyone's eyes can reliably cope with manual focusing at extreme telephoto lengths with crumby DSLR viewfinders. And even if you do sometimes get lucky and take a picture that's in focus, with a cheap lens your results are going to be mediocre at best. I think a person can do much better with a modern auto-focus superzoom. At least the images will be reliably in focus

paulthomas said:

That looks like a piece of junk you've attached to your E-520.

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It's nice to be able to put the results into perspective, that's what I put them on display for, but can you be more specific? Too soft? Some other fault?

To my eyes, the images I see when I click on those thumbnails are way too soft. But I'd never normally view them that big, maybe half or a quarter that size, then they start to look ok. I also haven't enhanced them in any way, a little sharpening and brightness/contrast adjustment seems to greatly improve them.

RAH said:

If these are 100% crops with no resizing (as he says and I believe him), then these images of birds are cropped from a MUCH larger image. Under such conditions, there aren't many lenses, even expensive ones, that will yield good results, IMHO.

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Yes, they're 100%. So what should I be doing to display them in a way that lets people evaluate the results better?

For one thing, I do not think that anyone's eyes can reliably cope with manual focusing at extreme telephoto lengths with crumby DSLR viewfinders. And even if you do sometimes get lucky and take a picture that's in focus, with a cheap lens your results are going to be mediocre at best. I think a person can do much better with a modern auto-focus superzoom. At least the images will be reliably in focus

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True, I have to focus bracket to be sure of some well focused results and, as I said, my S3 often did better. But I found that a very large percentage of my shots were behind vegetation where all AF becomes useless. I had too many shots of perfectly focused grass or leaves, with a fuzzy bird in the background. What do you AF lens people do in those situations? Give up? Or manually focus, with the same sort of precision I'm getting?

Most compacts give you no easy way to manually focus, so I swapped to SLR.

I should have put my usage into context, I shoot mainly for id or as a sighting record. I want photos of the brief glimpses I get, so I'm happy with partly obscured shots. I picked samples of whole birds to show because they look better.

If I wanted well composed, unobscured shots I'd wait around with my S3. For those who only want that kind of shot, I don't recommend this path.

I would prefer an AF lens, and will probably eventually get a Zuiko 70-300mm zoom and EC-14 TC, but don't have the spare $1200 or so at the moment. I already had this lens, so I thought I'd give it a go.

In the meantime, a viewfinder magnifier and 400mm lens are on the shopping list.

Well as I was the one who asked for the images I guess I should also comment.
The first thing that strikes me is the complete rudeness of paulthomas who seems to enjoy making inflammatory and unhelpful remarks.
The second is that both of the replies come from posters who have NO uploads onto the gallery to compare with your efforts, I wonder why?

OK, back to the job in hand. I think you have been very brave by choosing such small targets, they are not helping you at all.
Pictures 1 and 2 seem to be soft and have "overall" blurriness which I suspect is camera shake. Are you hand holding for these shots?

Numbers 3 and 4 are MUCH better.

The one thing that I have learned about this forum, is that there are VERY few people who do what you have done and show their pictures "unaltered", despite the fact that they might have spent hundreds or even thousands of pounds/dollars on a lens.

I have taken the liberty of "sharpening" your 4th image to give some idea of what 5 minutes of tidying up with post processing will do.

It looks very exceptable to me mate.

Pete

Mad_Sunday said:

Well as I was the one who asked for the images I guess I should also comment.
The first thing that strikes me is the complete rudeness of paulthomas who seems to enjoy making inflammatory and unhelpful remarks.

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That's cool, I'm a dpreview forum veteran, and expect no mercy. I asked for it with my comment about this being a good way to get into bird photography. (It is for me, but wouldn't be for someone with higher standards.)

The second is that both of the replies come from posters who have NO uploads onto the gallery to compare with your efforts, I wonder why?

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While it would be nice to have something to compare to, unless the comparison is done under controlled conditions, it's often not useful. The distance to the subject needs to be similar as a minimum, and it's certainly not fair to compare a low light/high ISO image to and bright/low ISO one. Then there's whether a tripod was involved, etc, and the camera settings for sharpening, etc. And once people start resizing, there's no way to compare sharpness of the lenses, only of the end results.

I'm quite aware that this 300mm lens is not up to the standard of the 70-300mm Zuiko, I did enough tests in camera shops to prove that.

OK, back to the job in hand. I think you have been very brave by choosing such small targets, they are not helping you at all.

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I was actually just putting the pictures up for people to see what the lens could do, not as an example of my skill as a bird photographer. I'm not into sneaking up on birds to get close, so I just don't have many photos like that. I would normally resize such images before putting them on display, maybe half or quarter the original size, to hide the softness.

Pictures 1 and 2 seem to be soft and have "overall" blurriness which I suspect is camera shake. Are you hand holding for these shots?

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Yep, all hand held, hence the high ISO to get enough speed. Should have mentioned that too.

Numbers 3 and 4 are MUCH better.

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I think I fluked the focus a bit better on those two.

I have taken the liberty of "sharpening" your 4th image to give some idea of what 5 minutes of tidying up with post processing will do.

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Yes, that's much better, and I've had similar results sharpening them myself, and darkening some of the early ones up too, as I didn't have the metering worked out at first.

It looks very exceptable to me mate.

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Thanks, I'm glad someone liked them. You're using an MF lens yourself, aren't you?

When I used long manual lenses on my Pentax K10d, I found it critical to adjust diopter. It's probably best to practice quite a number of shots on a detailed, fixed target, so you can get that muscle memory and frame of reference. The shots are soft, which means either it's a tight crop beyond the limits of the lens, or it's shake, or it's out of focus, or maybe other factors, and even a combination thereof. This is why I now use AF only... Keep at it though. A 600mm F5 equiv ain't nothing to shake a stick at; one of the benefits of the 4/3 format.

I think you've shown the possibilities of a MF tele/mirror lens. I have an Sigma 600/8 at home somewhere with an Olympus mount that I should dig out and try. For focusing try on a tripod and use the Liveview capability of the 520 to check focus. Of course the bird will have to sit still for a while.
Neil.

Matt_RTH said:

When I used long manual lenses on my Pentax K10d, I found it critical to adjust diopter. It's probably best to practice quite a number of shots on a detailed, fixed target, so you can get that muscle memory and frame of reference. The shots are soft, which means either it's a tight crop beyond the limits of the lens, or it's shake, or it's out of focus, or maybe other factors, and even a combination thereof. This is why I now use AF only... Keep at it though. A 600mm F5 equiv ain't nothing to shake a stick at; one of the benefits of the 4/3 format.

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"Muscle memory", interesting concept, but I think I can understand what you mean. Swapping between binoculars and camera has been causing some delays with getting my eye ready to focus, but this seems to be reducing with practice. I will try practising like you suggest, it can only help. Maybe using a tape measure as a target, so I can measure the results.

I expect the softness of the images is due to all those things, not least the cropping. I've attached the White-plumed Honeyeater again, this time the full frame, resized to a quarter the dimensions, to give an idea how much it was cropped. Again, I haven't sharpened it.

Yes, 600mm (F5.5, actually) equivalent is pretty long, but not compared to my old S3 with TC. It was 732mm, at f3.5.

Mad_Sunday said:

The first thing that strikes me is the complete rudeness of paulthomas who seems to enjoy making inflammatory and unhelpful remarks.

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I agree that he was rude.

Mad_Sunday said:

The second is that both of the replies come from posters who have NO uploads onto the gallery to compare with your efforts, I wonder why?

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I don't post my pictures here because I don't see any reason to do so. I know which ones are pretty good (so should I post them to show off?), and which ones aren't (and I usually know why, so why post them?).

Pshute posted his images to get people's reactions. I gave him my reactions and thoughts on the subject, and tried to be helpful, and I do not think I was unfriendly. I don't see any point in posting pictures to compare to his. This isn't a competition - he asked for comments about his pictures. I have plenty of pictures that look better than those and plenty that look worse. So what?

I have a fair amount of experience using long lenses and I do think I know the problems and issues involved. I agree that what he is trying to do is very difficult. And he has made it much more difficult by using a manual focus lens and not getting close enough, which he knows.

Pshute, concerning 100% crop - you asked, "Yes, they're 100%. So what should I be doing to display them in a way that lets people evaluate the results better?" I wasn't questioning whether they were 100% crops, and I wasn't saying you could use a better way to display them. I was only saying that if those pictures are 100% crops, then you must have been really far away from the bird. For example, here is a link to an unaltered 100% crop of a catbird picture I took:

http://www.rahsoft.net/catbird_crop1.jpg

and a downsized version of the original it was taken from:

http://www.rahsoft.net/p5114530_orig.jpg

Had you been as close as I was when I took this picture (with a tripod mounted 70-300 plus EC-14), your 100% crop would have only showed a small portion of the bird.

I think that these examples shows the value of a 100% crop - as you mentioned, you cannot really evaluate a downsized image, such as the 2nd image, at least concerning sharpness.

As far as manual focus, I think that your Canon S3 superzoom has a switch to put it into manual mode, right? So that is a way to get around the problem of intervening branches. I agree that the manual focus mechanism is cumbersome, however. Myself, I usually don't take the picture until I can get a good look.

From what you have said, Pshute, I think you have a pretty good handle on the problems with using long lenses, and it is important to not get discouraged. I did not mean to be discouraging, if I was. As I said, you are making a difficult task more difficult because of the equipment. As long as you understand that, that's good!

As far as using the camera primarily for ID purposes, I agree that this is a GREAT use for a camera. I often take my S5 superzoom along with me on birding trips for just such a purpose. However, an E-520 plus 70-300 is kind of bulky for that, I think.

You mention that it would cost you $1200 for the 70-300 plus EC-14. Wow! That combination costs about half that in the USA. Are you sure it is really that much? If so, that's a shame. Guess you'll have to move!

Hi pshute,

I had forgotten that you are an (old?) S3 user. I also used this type of camera with a Raynox DCR 2020PRO teleconverter. This is about 950 mm at f3.5...

pshute said:

You're using an MF lens yourself, aren't you?

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Yes, In fact I just ordered another 300mm f4 so I'm hoping the extra point 5 will help!

Having seen the full frame image, I don't think you have too much to worry about considering your lens cost nothing! The range as you say is the main problem and your lens is a little lacking in contrast. The good points however are the good colour rendition and the wonderful depth of field. Your photo at full frame shows the bird well in it's environment.

Some of the points raised are definitely worth considering. Diopter adjustment is very important and each individual needs some slight variation to suit his/her own vision. Setting up on a tripod to do "test shots" combined with switching live view on/off is worth a try.

My own results seem to verify several points, they seem to rely upon....

1 Speed, I always use the fastest shutter speed I can to avoid camera movement. I find keeping the aperture wide open or at f5.6 is the only way to achieve this. If the day is VERY bright I might go to f8 (remember I am also using a 1.85x tele converter so ad 2 stops to those figures) and rest the lens on something solid if possible. I normally use iso400 or 800 in poor light.

2 I now DO NOT use the focus confirm AT ALL. Having done some tests I simply do not trust it.

3 I always take several shots in succession and maybe get 1 good one out of those, (occasionally I get several good ones) which is really all I need.

4 I get close, anything over 10 meters points to a wasted shot. With smaller targets (like yours) I'd want to be closer (and my EFL is 1100mm, not 600)

Regards, Pete

pshute said:

It's nice to be able to put the results into perspective, that's what I put them on display for, but can you be more specific? Too soft? Some other fault?

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Extremely soft and very poor contrast.

paulthomas said:

Extremely soft and very poor contrast.

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What causes poor contrast, and what do I look for in the image to determine how good the contrast is? Can someone show me an example of an image with good contrast?

I've spent a bit of time enhancing the White-plumed Honeyeater. I've selectively sharpened it and adjusted the levels for more contrast. Probably a bit of a clumsy first attempt (looks a bit suss that the branch it's sitting on is blurry). Opinions please, even harsh ones.

Quite respectable. Not perfect but in my experience, I wish a lot of my shots looked that good! Keep at it.

That's quite an improvement on the Honeyeater. Concerning your Kingfisher picture and the whole issue of getting close to birds, I think it is REALLY difficult to get close to Kingfishers. They are so skittish that I have never been able to get a good picture of one. I suppose if you do it up big with a portable blind or some such, you might be able to get a good picture, but with normal techniques, just getting one at all is good.

pshute said:

What causes poor contrast, and what do I look for in the image to determine how good the contrast is? Can someone show me an example of an image with good contrast?

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I think that contrast has a lot to do with the light you have. For example, even though shooting in the middle of the day on a sunny day is problematic, it does give you a lot of contrast. On a cloudy day, if a bird is against a dark backgound, it is often really hard to get a good shot, unless you are really close.

Concerning autofocus, I am attaching 2 pictures that show that it is indeed very possible to use autofocus even in a situation with a lot of intervening branches. Both of these pictures aren't lucky flukes, by which I mean that I have a bunch of shots on either side of them taken within seconds of them, also mostly in focus and not fooled by the branches. In other words, once you get the focus to lock onto an area with single-point focusing, it will stay there as long as you keep your aim steady.

The 3rd picture is one taken on the same day, which I think gives a good example of one with good contrast, since you asked for one.

(None of the pictures has been cropped. All are just downsized for display.)

pshute said:

What causes poor contrast, and what do I look for in the image to determine how good the contrast is? Can someone show me an example of an image with good contrast?

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This is common concern with long lenses, and is often associated with older lenses. It is not normally a problem as post processing will fix it. Problems occur when you get nasties like chromatic aberration, I don't see those problems in your pictures.

See this link

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/lens-contrast.shtml

An interesting article about using Konica lenses (which don't need an adapter for 4/3rds cameras) where a "baffle" is used (step 5) to boost contrast.

http://www.gfsnt.no/hexanon/

chromatic aberration link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration

This site also has plenty of excellent unbiased opinions on using old manual focus lenses on DSLR's. He tells it as it is, warts and all. The link goes directly to the page on Olympus E system camera and legacy glass. Basically he says you need a good quality prime for best results.

http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/43/any-lens.html

Pete