Canon 7D Mk II

[3dogs]

A couple more images: Reed Bunting and Sharing a thistle.

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Some settings details please, certainly appears to show versatility of range....are they hand held?

 

[Emulator]

Most are monopod, my policy is at least 1/1000 for birds, they are always moving, aperture priority set 2 or 3 stops from maximum and ISO as required. Usually the 100-400, but of course the 70-200 will feature as well now.

 

[3dogs]

Most are monopod, my policy is at least 1/1000 for birds, they are always moving, aperture priority set 2 or 3 stops from maximum and ISO as required. Usually the 100-400, but of course the 70-200 will feature as well now.

I am finding the 100-400 has the unfortunate downside of being a great film lens that did not continue that performance into digital. Initially with the low rez digital cameras it appeared to be ok, not great, but with the 5D2 its really soft when challenged......its my understanding that and the dust sucking push pull were the main reasons Canon made a new version different glass and rotating rather than push pull.

 

[Emulator]

Yes, there is that inherent dust problem, but I always leave it set to 400, so I have avoided the issue. The results as you can see are OK for me.

 

[The Hat]

A Question for you photo guru guys:

What exactly do you do to sharpen an image and why, as most know I don’t do photo editing, so be gentle please..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I use DxO as the RAW converter, and use their lens correction modules which compensate lens related deficiencies e.g. color fringing and sharpness variations from the center to the edges. And I use some sharpening at print time with Qimage since the overall contrast of a print is lower than of a displayed image. In a few cases I use some Topaz filters to intentionally overdo sharpening, local contrast etc. I won't call such filters 'creative' really, the effects are visible as they are supposed to in those cases.

 

[3dogs]

A Question for you photo guru guys:

What exactly do you do to sharpen an image and why, as most know I don’t do photo editing, so be gentle please..

First part of the answer is in the lens. If the lens does not resolve images well all that comes after will do NOTHING. Next is camera shake...any movement, even the shutter activation causes shake. Again if the lens aint up to it and you have camera shake you are NEVER going to get SHARP.
Next, the longer the lens the harder shake is to counter.
So now we have an image and it is made with an average quality lens, and by that I mean lenses at a price point that have joe average glass eyed deciding to spend that much, so around A $2000. It was shot on a top end rock solid tripod, with the mirror locked up and in good light so you are able to use the sweet spot for that lens. In other words abslutely everything that can be controlled has been.
The camera is a top end Enthusiast DSLR either full frame or crop. The captured image graded against the very best optics and the very best sensor will yield an image that scores around 20/100 where the very best will, for the purpose of this discussion be used as the high mark at 100.

Sooo, now we have an image. I am not going to adderss which processing engine is used because we are going to do the same in all of them, and it is the only thing that can be done, that is increase contrast at the edges to give the illusion of sharpness, in other words to hide the inability of the lens to resolve fine detail

I was shatteted, gobsmacked in fact to have one of my "sharpest" images sat next to an image made on a camera lens combination that cost half of what I paid for my farm. There they were side by side on a split screen.

Sharpening is enhancing edge contrast to hide defficiencies........damn hard job if the glass is not up to it, made harder by vibration and failure to focus on a key area ( like the eyes in a portrait) for example that sets our brain to making compensations and assumptions.

 

[Emulator]

The proportion that the final image represents of the original image, also has a significant affect on the apparent sharpness and as I said before, even with a monopod, you can see this guy still has problems.

 

[3dogs]

The proportion that the final image represents of the original image, also has a significant affect on the apparent sharpness and as I said before, even with a monopod, you can see this guy still has problems.

Yes well, we spend what we can and then do all we can to put it in the can......then we use our skills to fudge the image in our chosen image processor . I find the Topaz suite as good as any to get acceptable results.

I am in hopes that I answered @TheHat because for me image making is less about pixel peeping and more about Art...that is knowing and working with the components available at the time, then using a few optical 'tricks' to get a particular outcome.

 

[The Hat]

Nice going guys and thank you, so I need not worry then because, you can’t make a sows ear into a silk purse even if you sharpen the hell out it.

I don’t have any of the fancy bells and whistles on my camera, (Lumex FZ48) and if I did they’d be wasted on me, because frankly I don’t know enough to tinker with it and usually just press the shutter set to auto.

I don’t even bother to check how good an image looks, I just hope when I turn on the darn thing there’s enough battery left to take the odd few shots, more wishful thinking on my part and not what you’d call a keen photographer.

For me a photo should be a snap shot of time, with more emphasis on content rather than quality, then your imagination could allow you back into that photo scene when viewing it later, as I said timeless..