Test Images

On Sun, 3 Jul 2016 13:08:45 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:


Both are pretty good. I would have anticipated images of similar
quality from Peter's D500, but then you aren't making severe crops and
making unusual corrections in post processing.

Cropping should have no effect. Not knowing how to properly apply
sharpening after cropping is a totally different aspect.

Thanks for reminding me one of the reasons I went away. I thought I
had something relevant to contribute on subject. given your and
Peter's normal lacking to trim posts, you give me crap two posts in?
I'll go back away, your folks aren't worth it.

On Sun, 3 Jul 2016 13:03:50 -0700, Savageduck

I just have one request. Please stop top posting. Rather bottom post or
inter-lace responses, top posts are a royal pain to to deal with and
they screw up atributes and thread chronology.

On 2016-07-03 20:43:52 +0000, me said:

Thanks for reminding me one of the reasons I went away. I thought I
had something relevant to contribute on subject. given your and
Peter's normal lacking to trim posts, you give me crap two posts in?
I'll go back away, your folks aren't worth it.

That is your option. I was just making a simple request. Up until now I
thought we were having a reasonably civil discussion, but I guess each
of us struck a particular nerve. So be it.


On Sun, 3 Jul 2016 13:03:50 -0700, Savageduck

I just have one request. Please stop top posting. Rather bottom post or
inter-lace responses, top posts are a royal pain to to deal with and
they screw up atributes and thread chronology.


--
Regards,

Savageduck

On Sat, 2 Jul 2016 11:42:00 -0400, PeterN
wrote:

Just trying to learn focusing this morning, with a new toy.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97242118/20160701_nickerson%20birds%20oyster%20cathcers%20t erns_3895.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97242118/20160701_nickerson%20birds%20oyster%20cathcers%20t erns_4106.jpg


And yes, I misspelled "catcher."

doesn't the eye see 150 line pairs per inch? isn't that's why
according to Nyquist you need 300 dpi to avoid aliasing/moire,etc.?
--
Dale
http://www.dalekelly.org
https://twitter.com/@dalekellytoo/
https://www.facebook.com/dalekellytoo/

On 3/07/2016 8:22 @wiz, J. Clarke wrote:

I suspect I could give you a more pleasing shot taken with my D70 and
the old 80-400mm. For example this D70 shot from 2004 with a measly 7MP
sensor.
https://db.tt/n59msTjX

Do you still have that 80-400? I've been after that lens for eons and
even nowadays it's still hard to find in ebay at a reasonable price!
A lot of folks didn't like it, but the one I tried was miles better than
anything else I've seen in that class!

On 2016-07-04 09:38:55 +0000, Noons said:

On 3/07/2016 8:22 @wiz, J. Clarke wrote:

I suspect I could give you a more pleasing shot taken with my D70 and
the old 80-400mm. For example this D70 shot from 2004 with a measly 7MP
sensor.
https://db.tt/n59msTjX

Do you still have that 80-400? I've been after that lens for eons and
even nowadays it's still hard to find in ebay at a reasonable price!
A lot of folks didn't like it, but the one I tried was miles better
than anything else I've seen in that class!

I still have it, I am a bit of a packrat with my old stuff. I still
have my Yashica Electro 35, K1000, and D70. I still use it from time to
time, it is slow, and the AF hunts, but it gives me a bit of extra
reach and adds a particular flavor to the images I get when I use it.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 7/3/2016 12:08 AM, Noons wrote:
On 3/07/2016 9:48 @wiz, PeterN wrote:


Here is the type of super crop that I like to do. It shows the essence
of the bird, but is a work in progress:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97242118/20160701_nickerson%20birds%20oyster%20cathcers%20t erns_4192.jpg


I'm surprised at the noise artifacts. That must be a super crop indeed!
No demeaning, I quite like these images. Oyster catchers are
notoriously difficult to snap. They are all over the place here but very
hard to catch in an interesting pose.

I don't take any well intentioned comments, adverse, or not, personally.
I learn more from the adverse comments than from the ones that say
"great," with no explanation. i also appreciate the time it takes to
look at an image and think about it.

As to the image being a super crop, her is the NEF, to play with, for
personal use:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97242118/20160701_nickerson%20birds%20oyster%20cathcers%20t erns_4192.NEF



I plan to go back there within the next week, and bring my tripod, a
chair and a remote release. That way I should not have to use such a
high ISO.

I wasn't expecting 1600ISO to be that noisy in a D500. I've read it's
got amazing low-light performance.
The OlyEM5MII I'm using now is regularly pushed to 3200 in my
astro-photography and the results are nowhere as noisy.
Need to go up beyond 5000 to start getting really noisy stuff that needs
DeepSkyStacker processing.
I also have to do super crops - no "super telescope" here, just a
regular 500/8 mirror Nikkor and a CZJena180/2.8 medium format size...


I have, but rarely use, a 500 mirror. For still images it is fine.


--
PeterN

On 7/3/2016 12:39 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2016-07-03 14:50:06 +0000, me said:

Might I suggest you take advantage of the auto iso feature, set
aperture-priority and a reasonable minimum shutter speed so you are
not forced into such high iso needlessly.

I agree. I think if Peter started using auto ISO with sensible
parameters he would fare much better.

I have been using auto ISO with my X-E2v4.0. That gives me three custom
auto ISO presets and four non-auto presets.
Currently I have those auto ISO presets, set as follows:
Auto ISO 800, default sensitivity ISO 200, min shutter speed 1/80
Auto ISO 1600, default sensitivity ISO 200, min shutter speed 1/80
Auto ISO 6400, default sensitivity ISO 200, min shutter speed 1/80

The suggestion about auto ISO is a good one, however, those shutter
speeds would not work for birds, I will have to modify accordingly.
I also made the mistake of leaving VR on for the inflight shots. When
shooting at high shutter speeds, VR is not needed, and only slows things
down.



Are these 1:1 crops? Even
though exposure bias is -0.33 they seem quite over exposed or pushed
in post. Not sure why you didn't try spot metering as well.



As I said in my first post, I am just testing to earn how to use my toy.



--
PeterN

On 2016-07-04 17:14:58 +0000, PeterN said:

On 7/3/2016 12:39 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2016-07-03 14:50:06 +0000, me said:

Might I suggest you take advantage of the auto iso feature, set
aperture-priority and a reasonable minimum shutter speed so you are
not forced into such high iso needlessly.

I agree. I think if Peter started using auto ISO with sensible
parameters he would fare much better.

I have been using auto ISO with my X-E2v4.0. That gives me three custom
auto ISO presets and four non-auto presets.
Currently I have those auto ISO presets, set as follows:
Auto ISO 800, default sensitivity ISO 200, min shutter speed 1/80
Auto ISO 1600, default sensitivity ISO 200, min shutter speed 1/80
Auto ISO 6400, default sensitivity ISO 200, min shutter speed 1/80

The suggestion about auto ISO is a good one, however, those shutter
speeds would not work for birds, I will have to modify accordingly.
I also made the mistake of leaving VR on for the inflight shots. When
shooting at high shutter speeds, VR is not needed, and only slows
things down.

That is a minimum shutter speed, it only gets to that speed when the
light is not good enough and the Auto ISO range is topped out.

With auto ISO I find that I am getting shutter speeds in the 1/400 to
1/2500 range with the occasional 1/160.

If you are not comfortable with that then set a good minimum shutter
speed for birds in flight 1/350 to 1/500 should be a good minimum.

As far as VR goes that is up to you, but the latest Nikkor VR handles
panning movement pretty well.


Are these 1:1 crops? Even
though exposure bias is -0.33 they seem quite over exposed or pushed
in post. Not sure why you didn't try spot metering as well.



As I said in my first post, I am just testing to earn how to use my toy.


--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 5/07/2016 3:05 @wiz, PeterN wrote:


As to the image being a super crop, her is the NEF, to play with, for
personal use:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97242118/20160701_nickerson%20birds%20oyster%20cathcers%20t erns_4192.NEF

Ah thanks! No, it isn't a huge crop at all. My bad.
Must have been the combo of sandy background, extra strong sharpening
and high contrast that made me think "noise". It isn't at all.
Thanks for that!
You definitely need to give Focus Magic a try for sharpening. It is so
far superior to all the Photoshop-based unsharp mask methods it's not
even fun to compare. Might help you get rid of the Duck's constant
complaints of over sharpening!



I also have to do super crops - no "super telescope" here, just a
regular 500/8 mirror Nikkor and a CZJena180/2.8 medium format size...


I have, but rarely use, a 500 mirror. For still images it is fine.

Mine is only used for astrophotography. Tried it for other stuff but
it's just too fiddly, between the "doughnut" highlights and the natural
lack of contrast and manual focus. But for astro stuff it's actually
quite reasonable.
This:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater
was taken with the mirror Nikkor and the EM5M2 in sensor-shift 40Mpixel
mode. Far from perfect but I was quite happy with the result. OF course
here, it is seriously downsized because of the FB size limitations. But
I've got it in gurushots as well at 1920 wide and it is quite impressive.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback. I'm very tempted by the D500 to
replace my ageing D80 and D200. Feels like the ideal in the DSLR camp.