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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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

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.

My opinion is that you should post that image on the Gallery and judge it by the comments received. ;)

Also, I wonder if you managed to get a tele converter sorted yet? Do you remember my comments about the Solitel 1.85x M42 I use? I now have 3 of them ;) and would be happy to post one over for you to try.

Pete
 
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Regarding contrast and post-processing, I personally prefer using "curves" to fix the problem. Take a look at this tutorial, especially part E (the anchoring of the midpoint is not always necessary, try play around with getting a S-curve with two points).

Cheers
Niels
 
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.
Which camera are you using, and which AF mode? How do you tell when it's locked on? Surely you'd have the same trouble I would have telling whether I've focused on the bird accurately.
 
Also, I wonder if you managed to get a tele converter sorted yet? Do you remember my comments about the Solitel 1.85x M42 I use? I now have 3 of them ;) and would be happy to post one over for you to try.
Thanks for offering that, very kind of you. I have instead decided to try a 400mm lens, the equivalent of adding a 1.33 teleconverter, except there will be no light loss.

I have a Sigma APO 400mm f5.6 on the way in the post, and also today stumbled on a Tokina made OM Vivitar 400mm f5.6 locally for $50. I tried it in the shop using their $200 Olympus adapter, and can see an improvement over the 300mm, but won't be able to try it properly until the $20 eBay adapter arrives.

I'll try them both and sell the one that I decide not to use. Even if the improvement is slight, they both focus to 4m, 2m closer than my current lens, so that will be handy.
 
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/
The Konica bayonet fits 4/3? I never knew that. I assume it must be deliberate, not a fluke. I read though that some spacers and slight modifications are required. Funny that they'd copy another mount, but change the spacing.

I tried a baffle in my 300mm lens, I couldn't see any difference, even when I made it small enough to just see vigneting. Perhaps it isn't as effective for long lenses. I notice in that article that he mentions "hopefully better contrast".

I read somewhere that you're better off lengthening the hood instead, then you get the benefit of better shading as well. I don't know if any of these claims are backed up with actual results.
 
Which camera are you using, and which AF mode? How do you tell when it's locked on? Surely you'd have the same trouble I would have telling whether I've focused on the bird accurately.
I have an E-520 plus the 70-300mm plus EC-14. I use S-AF (single Auto-Focus), and spot-metering. All those pictures I posted above were tripod-mounted, without IS.

You can tell when the bird is in focus because the focus-light lights up when you half-depress the shutter. And you can tell that the BIRD is in focus instead of the branches by what you see in the viewfinder.

If the branches are in focus, you can aim at ANY point on the bird that is revealed and half-press again, and keep doing this until you see that the bird is in focus. Once you have attained focus, as long as you continue aiming at a part of the bird, it will usually continue to focus on the bird on each shot.

Sometimes, especially when you are aiming at a new bird, the focus will get really screwed up and focus on some branches that are MUCH too close, or even worse, the focus will go all the way out and then all the way back and never lock onto anything good. But to solve this, you can just pick a fairly well-revealed branch NEAR the bird and focus on that. Then, once you are in the correct area, aim at any point on the bird and half-depress.

I am spelling this out very carefully, but in practice it happens pretty quickly, moving the focus point to the bird, and firing. Once the focus is in the approximate area and you aim at the bird, the focus is instantaneous and you can see it happen.

Of course, if the bird is really moving fast, you don't even bother with the half-press but just press the whole amount on each shot. When you are doing this, you can tell if you have lost focus by what you are seeing and just use half-depress again to get yourself back on track.

As far as whether the bird is focused properly (i.e. exactly in focus), this is not much of a concern with auto-focus. If you are aiming at a part of the bird and the focus light lights, generally speaking the focus will be exactly correct. It's extrememly fast. Of course, if you are close, there are concerns about depth-of-field, which can be a problem if you are focuing say on the bird's chest and he is facing you and therefore his beak is closer.

I think that this is one of the BIG differences between using auto-focus and manual focus. With MF, even when you think you are in focus perfectly, often you are not (unless you have a ton of time and can use the 7x or 10x zoom view). With AF, you can be pretty sure the focus will be perfect when the focus light lights.
 
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I think that this is one of the BIG differences between using auto-focus and manual focus. With MF, even when you think you are in focus perfectly, often you are not (unless you have a ton of time and can use the 7x or 10x zoom view). With AF, you can be pretty sure the focus will be perfect when the focus light lights.
Very true about thinking you're in focus when you aren't. I've been doing some focusing tests to check my accuracy.

I set up on a tripod, with an angled tape measure as a target, and focused with live view zoomed to 10x. I stuck a bit of masking tape on the lens barrel and marked the position with a pen. Then I moved it a little each way, and marked the positions either side of perfect focus that looked not too bad.

I focused a few dozen times with the viewfinder, and compared the barrel position to what I'd marked. I think I had about a 25% rate of getting it in the acceptable range, and about 25% that were way off. I hope I can improve it, 50% would be good, and I'd like to really reduce the way off ones.

I also came across this focusing technique:
http://photo.net/digital-camera-forum/00RvLK
(see the posting by Godfrey DiGiorgi , Dec 28, 2008; 02:57 p.m.)

It sounds like he's saying he does it without twiddling the focus back and forth before he decides where the best focus is, he just knows where to stop as he approaches focus. No idea what size lenses he's talking about, or whether it applies to long lenses.

Anyone tried it? If it works it would be good to be able to focus that quickly.
 
Well, it sounds good on paper, but like some responses in that thread, I am skeptical about it when he says, "The trick is to look at a subject and know the lens well enough to turn the focusing at the speed which makes the sharp moment pop, and be able to stop PRECISELY at that point." I know that with my 120-600mm manual focus lens, there is no "sharp moment pop". I think at longer focal lengths, the depth-of-field gets so shallow that it is really difficult to distinguish in-focus from slightly out-of-focus.

But, of course, practice would help, especially using a well-lit subject at not too far a distance. I recently took several hundred shots of cormorants using my 120-600 and not one was in really good focus. :( However, they were too far away anyway, and I think that probably none were sharp because of the distance, the poor "seeing" conditions (atmospheric haze, etc), and the lack of contrast. I think that my results would have been kind of poor even with my 70-300 plus EC-14.
 
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I should have mentioned in my last post that the reason I was trying the 120-600 lens on these cormorants was because I had not had good success with them before using my 70-300 plus EC-14, because it wasn't powerful enough and I was too far away.

So I figured - GET MORE POWER. 600mm is 1200mm equivalvent - 24X! Well, nothing is simple at this type of magnification, and there is no substitute for getting closer. You'd think that with the luck of the draw, one or two of my hundreds of pics taken with the 120-600 would be really nice. No such luck. And as I said, the 70-300 plus EC-14 didn't yield good results earlier, so more power often isn't the answer either.
 
Well, it sounds good on paper, but like some responses in that thread, I am skeptical about it when he says, "The trick is to look at a subject and know the lens well enough to turn the focusing at the speed which makes the sharp moment pop, and be able to stop PRECISELY at that point." I know that with my 120-600mm manual focus lens, there is no "sharp moment pop". I think at longer focal lengths, the depth-of-field gets so shallow that it is really difficult to distinguish in-focus from slightly out-of-focus.

But, of course, practice would help, especially using a well-lit subject at not too far a distance. I recently took several hundred shots of cormorants using my 120-600 and not one was in really good focus. :( However, they were too far away anyway, and I think that probably none were sharp because of the distance, the poor "seeing" conditions (atmospheric haze, etc), and the lack of contrast. I think that my results would have been kind of poor even with my 70-300 plus EC-14.

Long distance over water is very difficult probably because the air gets loaded with water vapors that swirl around. Same distance over a cold field often will work better, I believe.

Niels
 
Thanks for this thread, it has been a long time since I have manually focused and I forgot about the method of overshooting and pulling back. It worked well after several rolls of film. Maybe it worked because film was precious, now it's actuation's and you need to waste a few dslr's first. :p Honestly, I do remember it taking some time to get used to but a tried and true rule that will still work for me.
 
A little rule I learnt from CarlJ (who uses a Sony) is to set the f stop at f8, it doesn't work every time but usually yields at least a couple of reasonable shots.
 
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

I dont think he was rude, he was describing the image, not the person. The images do have issues. The lens has poor chromatic control. You can see in several of the images. Red seems to seperate from the other colors. That is probably why the contrast is so low, the lens cant focus light to a point.

I know, I bought a cheap ($200-300) mega focal length lens on ebay when I first got into photography. The center was poor, the edges were terrible, even on a cropped sensor. It had the same issues of color separation. The truth was it was junk pretending to be a finished product. It was money thrown away.

The reality is that for the shot the person wants, the close up, the lens is completely inadequate. It cant even look good at 800 pixels across, a 1MB image.

The photographer has made some good compositions in the crops. They need a lens that can keep up.
 
I dont think he was rude, he was describing the image, not the person. The images do have issues. The lens has poor chromatic control. You can see in several of the images. Red seems to seperate from the other colors. That is probably why the contrast is so low, the lens cant focus light to a point.

I know, I bought a cheap ($200-300) mega focal length lens on ebay when I first got into photography. The center was poor, the edges were terrible, even on a cropped sensor. It had the same issues of color separation. The truth was it was junk pretending to be a finished product. It was money thrown away.

The reality is that for the shot the person wants, the close up, the lens is completely inadequate. It cant even look good at 800 pixels across, a 1MB image.

The photographer has made some good compositions in the crops. They need a lens that can keep up.
That was a very long time ago! I replaced that lens with an old Sigma APO f5.6 400mm. Much better results since then. I've no idea how much better they could be if I bought a decent modern lens.
 
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