Dunnock

[Ron Lander]

Spent some time today having my first go at calibrating a lens on the 7D. Chose the Siggy 300 F2.8 and Canon 1.4x. Thinks it about right? required an adjustment of +7.

1/800 sec, F5, ISO 800

[djguk47]

Re: Dunnock

Ron,
Great clarity in head and eyes, detail of feathers, to me, is spot on. Nice catch-light in the eye and to catch him/her with food, well done.
Not sure about the OOF tail though. Understand how it happens and to get the clarity of head it will happen but just think that there is good detail in the tail area which is missing.
Like the angle looking through the grass.
David

[briansquibb]

Re: Dunnock

Ron,

Personally I prefer the graduated OOF to the rear - to me it adds perspective (and is closer to what the human eye actually sees)

[Ron Lander]

Re: Dunnock

Thanks both, the noise in the background does nothing to help the OOF tail. However I did not want to go above 800 ISO or less than 1/800 sec so could not really go for a smaller aperture.

[briansquibb]

Re: Dunnock

I dont understand why you are getting so much noise at ISO800 - even the 50D would be better than that....

[hughbie]

Re: Dunnock

Sorry, agree with Brian.
Should be better with that camera & len at ISO 800.

Is it oversharpened, overcropped or something - looks a bit unnatural on my screen.

[colin C]

Re: Dunnock

Hello Ron

For the shot itself, you couldn't have done much better under the circumstances. Using the 300 plus the 1.4, you have a focal length of 420mm and multiply that by the 7D crop factor of 1.6, it gives you an effective 670mm.. You didn't want to go over 800 ISO and you needed 1/800sec to keep things sharp and that left you with f5, which is not far short of wide open when the 1.4x is attached. The depth of field is a couple of inches max (without resorting to my DOF tables). At that angle, you are never going to get a sharp tail.

The 7D is fairly noise free and will handle ISO much higher than 800 if you tick all the boxes along the way. Exposure has to be nailed and frequent checks of the histogram will help. If the exposure sliders in your RAW converter have to be moved too much, the image will get noisier than expected. Similarly with any post processing, too much levels, curves, saturation and sharpening will have a more adverse effect on noise, than say on a 40D or 50D.

The 7D is quite an outstanding camera and I have friends that regularly grab their 7D in preference to their 1D MKIII for wildlife work. But it is a more precise instrument than its predecessors and does need some mastering to get the best out of it.

Hope that helps.

Colin

[Ems]

Re: Dunnock

I think you dunn OK as well!

[colin C]

Re: Dunnock

I think you dunn OK as well!

Oh dear, oh dear!

Colin

[djguk47]

Re: Dunnock

I think you dunn OK as well!

Groan !!!!!

[Ron Lander]

Re: Dunnock

Here is the same crop with minimal processing, no sharpening at all. noise free enough?

[hughbie]

Re: Dunnock

Here is the same crop with minimal processing, no sharpening at all. noise free enough?

Far better, quite clearly.

[colin C]

Re: Dunnock

Much better Ron. There is clearly nothing wrong with the 7D, or your photographic technique, but your post processing could do with a little help.

On your first shot, the background was too noisy through over processing, but the bird was OK, as there was enough detail within the bird to take some extra processing. Ideally, a compromise between the two shots would yield the best results. I have taken the liberty of spending a few minutes with the Low Res image to show what it could look like ........... I hope you don't mind? Obviously, with a little more time and working from the original Hi Res image, even better results could be obtained.



I have only processed areas that could stand it. A soft selection around the main sharp area of the bird and a harder selection around the beak and insect and add 50% sharpening and a gentle S curve in curves. A further selection around the eye and 30% extra sharpening, +10 saturation. Cloned out the large piece of out of focus grass across the centre of the body. Gently darkened the foreground grass using the centre Gamut arrow in levels. All layers flattened and re-posted.

Colin

[Ron Lander]

Re: Dunnock

Colin,

Thank you very much for this. I shall have a go this evening. If successful I'll post my results.

[Ron Lander]

Re: Dunnock

Well I have had a go following Colins advice. Two problems, could not get the bug right so I cloned in a worm from another bird photo taken same day, second I have managed to get some noise in the tail...