Tufted Titmouse

pathfinder · January 28, 2005

I found this little bird in the tree outside my house today. This frame was captured with a Canon 300mm + 2x telextender. I think this is a nice lens combo and it seems to not extract too high a price in the image to my eyes. Comments? f5.6 (That's wide open w/ 2x) 1/200 ISO 200 Better Beamer TTL

GREAPER · January 28, 2005

Looks great. Nice and sharp, might be a bit blown out on his side. I might need to get me one of those better beamer things....

Steve Cavigliano · January 28, 2005

Nice work PF :-)
What a cute little bird. Good job on the capture

I'm at work and my monitor isn't very good, or calibrated. But, to me, the bird looks a bit on the OE side. Maybe it's due to the flash. That Better Beamer can concentrate quite a bit of light. The bright chest area isn't a big deal, IMO, but I was looking for a bit more sat/contrast in the wing.

Again, it's entirely likely that my POC work monitor is the culprit here. So please take my comments with a grain of salt.

Anyhow, nice work and thanks for sharing,

Steve

pathfinder · January 28, 2005

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

What a cute little bird. Good job on the capture

I'm at work and my monitor isn't very good, or calibrated. But, to me, the bird looks a bit on the OE side. Maybe it's due to the flash. That Better Beamer can concentrate quite a bit of light. The bright chest area isn't a big deal, IMO, but I was looking for a bit more sat/contrast in the wing.

Again, it's entirely likely that my POC work monitor is the culprit here. So please take my comments with a grain of salt.

Anyhow, nice work and thanks for sharing,

Steve

The birds breast is light grey - when I clock the lightest areas I read ~240,244,246 - Almost nowhere do I clock above 250, So I don't think the detail is truly blown, but it may not be easily visible on all monitors.

When I corrected the color by threshold I may have raised the data too high on the chest so I went back to the original RAW file and created another image, to try to retain the detail in the breast area better. Now the light grey in the breast area reads 232, 235, 233 - nowhere is it greater than 240,240,240 I believe when I clock it.
Is this any better?
original

darker breast

gus · January 28, 2005

That looks like a long hard shot to do PF. I had always thought that the 2xTC would have softened it considerably more. Well done mate.

Sooo this is a 300 f2.8 then ? ie the 2x drags it back to f5.6 ?

Tim Kirkwood · January 28, 2005

Very nice capture PF! I like it alot! Nice DOF

pathfinder · January 28, 2005

Humungus wrote:

That looks like a long hard shot to do PF. I had always thought that the 2xTC would have softened it considerably more. Well done mate.

Sooo this is a 300 f2.8 then ? ie the 2x drags it back to f5.6 ?

The EXIF data says F5.6 That is wide open F2.8 with a 2x extender. That was kinda my point in posting this image 'gus. ANd it was shot hand held at 1/200 with IS on.

I hear every one saying the 2x ruins the lens and the images aren't sharp, but this seems pretty nice to me.
I am always amazed at the AF picking out the bird in that maze of limbs and only focusing on it - NOW _ I only used a single AF point. If I tried to used multiple AF points - no can do - it confuses the system too much.

TristanP · January 29, 2005

The second conversion looks better to my eye. Nice and sharp with more obvious detail (at least on my monitor).

pathfinder · January 29, 2005

TristanP wrote:

The second conversion looks better to my eye. Nice and sharp with more obvious detail (at least on my monitor).

Thanks - I am inclined to agree - the background for the bird is also a little darker helping keep the viewers eye on the bird rather than the distracting tree limbs.

In my second RAW conversion I used -1.10 stops of exposure adjustment to darken the birds breast more, although it never read above 250,250,250 before adjusting in RAW.

gubbs · January 29, 2005

I think the second is better too, what sort of distance are you shooting from? I've no idea of the magnification these things give

LouBuonomo · January 29, 2005

2nd.. is much better !

wxwax · January 29, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

The EXIF data says F5.6 That is wide open F2.8 with a 2x extender. That was kinda my point in posting this image 'gus. ANd it was shot hand held at 1/200 with IS on.

I hear every one saying the 2x ruins the lens and the images aren't sharp, but this seems pretty nice to me.
I am always amazed at the AF picking out the bird in that maze of limbs and only focusing on it - NOW _ I only used a single AF point. If I tried to used multiple AF points - no can do - it confuses the system too much.

That would be me!

But I've only used the 2x on an f4 lens... might be better with faster glass. I do think the image is a tad soft, to be honest. And in fairness, it's something I noticed before reading your post. Don't shoot me. :uhoh

ian408 · January 29, 2005

Isn't amazing how numbers vs. perception differ? I think the second
looks "better" or maybe more balanced than the first.

Ian

pathfinder · January 29, 2005

gubbs wrote:

I think the second is better too, what sort of distance are you shooting from? I've no idea of the magnification these things give

These shots are probably a crop of 1/2 of the frame. They were shot at about 30 feet. It can be hard to get much closer than this - I am shooting out of a window with the window open, in effect using the house as a shooting blind.

pathfinder · January 29, 2005

ian408 wrote:

Isn't amazing how numbers vs. perception differ? I think the second
looks "better" or maybe more balanced than the first.

Ian

Thanks Ian. The crop is slightly different on the second image - I just freehanded the crop as it was late an night and I wanted to see if the darkened version really was better. Deciding how much detail to keep in the lighter areas can be an interesting exercise, can't it?

pathfinder · January 29, 2005

I continue to pursue small birds out my dining room window.. It snowed again last night and this morning and the light is as flat as a pancake and grey allover. None the less....
f8.0 1/200 Mourning Dove

F8 1/200 House finch

F8 1/200 Female Cardinal