Mythmaker's Nature Learning Journey...

[Mythmaker]

usually camera LCD shows photo sharper than computer.
if I have 10 shots that looks good on my camera, most of the time on my computer will be less keeper.

Yah usually that's the case...

I did some controlled testing at home, comparing my 550D's LCD vs the 7D2's LCD. I shot some Chinese characters from a toothpaste's ingredient list at a very long distance with the 150-600mm. I realise that for complex characters, the 7D2 have a tendency to smudge the entire character, making it unrecognisable. 550D can barely make out the words. If it's a simple character with lesser strokes, the 7D2 displays marginally better than the 550D. The 7D2's LCD is also higher in contrast (both camera's picture style is set at neutral).

I also discovered that when VC is enabled on a tripod, it is definitely not as sharp as VC disabled. I thought the firmwares would be intelligent enough to recognise whenever it's mounted on a tripod by now, but I guess not :/

 

[Mythmaker]

#40

Watching the Sunset​

(Crested Goshawk)

 

[Light Machinery]

Excellent composition. :thumbsup:.

 

[Mythmaker]

Excellent composition. :thumbsup:.

Thanks LM!

Decided to go birding at sunset rather than sunrise that day

 

[Mythmaker]

#41

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Another shot of the Crested Goshawk... though I'm not sure whether to file this under "Landscape" or "Wildlife" haha...

The haze actually makes a pretty nice background.

 

[Turbonetics]

#40

Watching the Sunset​

(Crested Goshawk)

Nice feel

 

[Mythmaker]

Nice feel

Thanks alot Turbo!

 

[Mythmaker]

#42

Collared Kingfisher​

Personally, I feel that I still have a long way to go in terms of shooting and processing. I'm just nowhere close to standard I expect myself to be. No matter what I try, I still can't bring out the details beautifully like what UncleFai did for his bird portraits. Nor can I capture the decisive moment during the hunt, or anything remotely interesting. Or even a decent high quality shot of a kingfisher in flight.

Hence, what resulted is a ton of still images when all the "moment" shots failed. Portraits like this ain't action pack or anything interesting, but they do give me something to practice on. Hopefully one day, I'll achieve something close to Marco Redaelli's standard of action shots and Chen FuYi's beautiful gallery of fine art portraits.

 

[Light Machinery]

More practice & you will get there eventually.

 

[Mythmaker]

More practice & you will get there eventually.

Thanks LM

I certainly hope it's something that is possible to achieve with practice and hard work haha.

 

[Wang TH]

Some really nice shots here!

To get details, you need to get close to the bird. Besides knowing the behavior, another key factor is knowing where to shoot them near.

One way of getting close, move slowly, step by step. When it is not looking at you, close in.

You need to try out to see how friendly the bird can be.

 

[Turbonetics]

#42

Collared Kingfisher​

Personally, I feel that I still have a long way to go in terms of shooting and processing. I'm just nowhere close to standard I expect myself to be. No matter what I try, I still can't bring out the details beautifully like what UncleFai did for his bird portraits. Nor can I capture the decisive moment during the hunt, or anything remotely interesting. Or even a decent high quality shot of a kingfisher in flight.

Hence, what resulted is a ton of still images when all the "moment" shots failed. Portraits like this ain't action pack or anything interesting, but they do give me something to practice on. Hopefully one day, I'll achieve something close to Marco Redaelli's standard of action shots and Chen FuYi's beautiful gallery of fine art portraits.

The photos by Chen FuYi are simply amazing and beautiful and I wonder if he did major photoshop to his shots or not?
U mentioned high quality shots of kingfishers in flight, but what is your definition of high quality if I may ask u this?
If u asked me about high quality, my definition is to look at the photos close up and the thing about 500PX is that photos seems to be resized and can't view in close up or original file size?

 

[Mythmaker]

Some really nice shots here!

To get details, you need to get close to the bird. Besides knowing the behavior, another key factor is knowing where to shoot them near.

One way of getting close, move slowly, step by step. When it is not looking at you, close in.

You need to try out to see how friendly the bird can be.

Thanks for sharing!

How do I know if the bird is looking at me? The eyeball is totally black... hmmm how to tell where it's looking?

I'm also not very sure if going closer will solve the problem entirely, but you're right that it will probably help alot

This was shot even closer than #42, but it doesn't seem to have the same level of details... maybe it's the slow shutter speed (1/1250 vs 1/25) or maybe it's the higher ISO (2500 vs 3200). Both #42 and this are not cropped... maybe it's time to review my shooting settings again, they should be part of the problem. Maybe firing a flash with an extender will help alot in bringing out the details?

The photos by Chen FuYi are simply amazing and beautiful and I wonder if he did major photoshop to his shots or not?
U mentioned high quality shots of kingfishers in flight, but what is your definition of high quality if I may ask u this?
If u asked me about high quality, my definition is to look at the photos close up and the thing about 500PX is that photos seems to be resized and can't view in close up or original file size?

Probably hours into the post processing haha, which makes it more fine art than documentary.

My definition of high quality shots is the bird (or eyes) must be in focus and the bird would cover at least 30% of the frame. I'm not a pixel peeping guy, so long as it looks okay full screen on a 1080p screen, it should be enough for a 8R print for me

If you need to view images close up in 500px, there are extensions in chrome to dl the photo... but yah, the entire process is more troublesome than flickr. But flickr always messes with the resizing sharpness...

 

[Turbonetics]

What do u mean by Flickr messes with the resizing sharpness?
So far my photos in Flickr looks very similar to my Jpeg ones.
Actually both your collared KF looks good to me in details here.

 

[Wang TH]

Slow shutter speed needs subject to be really still otherwise blurring may appear. Depending on your tolerance of noise, iso needs to adjusted accordingly, again shutter speed will be affected. If high Iso is needed, make sure you get close enough, less cropping means better IQ. Comparing sharpness with prime big guns is pointless because it really shows in the feather details. That being said, tamron is already very good. Enjoy shooting and analyze less means less wallet damage.

 

[Mythmaker]

What do u mean by Flickr messes with the resizing sharpness?
So far my photos in Flickr looks very similar to my Jpeg ones.
Actually both your collared KF looks good to me in details here.

When flickr resizes the photo for viewing (i.e when you are not viewing at 100%), the sharpening algorithm seems to have a tendency to over-sharpen the photo.

I have been doing some research over the past 3 weeks, asking some of the veterans here and elsewhere for advice as well as testing some settings and gears out in the field. I think the problem lies with the lens; it simply does not have the resolving power that I seek at 600mm. It never occurred to me but I finally looked at the MTF chart for the Tamron 150-600mm yesterday and the resolving power at 600mm with f/6.3 is indeed abysmal. As I hardly ever crop my photos, when the bird is at the mid-corner of the frame, the resolution gets alot worse.

I have a couple of solutions in mind and will be testing out whenever I'm free, such as shooting with a flash, or f8, or f6.3 and crop. I'll update here once I have reached a conclusion.

Slow shutter speed needs subject to be really still otherwise blurring may appear. Depending on your tolerance of noise, iso needs to adjusted accordingly, again shutter speed will be affected. If high Iso is needed, make sure you get close enough, less cropping means better IQ. Comparing sharpness with prime big guns is pointless because it really shows in the feather details. That being said, tamron is already very good. Enjoy shooting and analyze less means less wallet damage.

Thanks! The feather details is what I'm looking at. I have been working and reworking my workflow as well, trying to bring out the feather details.

 

[Mythmaker]

#43

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Tired of shooting birds for 3 weekends straight, we went to the zoo over the weekend

In Liew Tong Leng's sharing of Travel Photography a couple of months ago, he touched on the factors that makes a good photo.

L - Light
C - Composition
M - Moment

So far I've only been concern with composition and moment, because light can always be saved in photoshop (if it's not too terrible). But I think the time has come for me to concentrate on light. So I went to the zoo focusing on light and composition, while ignoring "moment" for the time being. Armed with "Out of the Wild" book by Boza Ivanovic, the next few photos will be processed in the same way I guess.

 

[Mythmaker]

#44

​

 

[Turbonetics]

When flickr resizes the photo for viewing (i.e when you are not viewing at 100%), the sharpening algorithm seems to have a tendency to over-sharpen the photo.

I have been doing some research over the past 3 weeks, asking some of the veterans here and elsewhere for advice as well as testing some settings and gears out in the field. I think the problem lies with the lens; it simply does not have the resolving power that I seek at 600mm. It never occurred to me but I finally looked at the MTF chart for the Tamron 150-600mm yesterday and the resolving power at 600mm with f/6.3 is indeed abysmal. As I hardly ever crop my photos, when the bird is at the mid-corner of the frame, the resolution gets alot worse.

I have a couple of solutions in mind and will be testing out whenever I'm free, such as shooting with a flash, or f8, or f6.3 and crop. I'll update here once I have reached a conclusion.



Thanks! The feather details is what I'm looking at. I have been working and reworking my workflow as well, trying to bring out the feather details.

Good luck and hope to see your reviews soon.
My advice is try to avoid using flash if possible,but if u must use a low power as fill-in. Do note that flash may caused the bird feather to look glossy/shiny which is not natural-looking to some people.
And lastly if the details are not present in the photo itself, no matter how much PP work u do is pointless IMO

 

[Mythmaker]

Good luck and hope to see your reviews soon.
My advice is try to avoid using flash if possible,but if u must use a low power as fill-in. Do note that flash may caused the bird feather to look glossy/shiny which is not natural-looking to some people.
And lastly if the details are not present in the photo itself, no matter how much PP work u do is pointless IMO

Thanks for your advice! Will note on the flash

Raw files actually hides many details. After Justin Ng pulled the milky way out for Singapore landscapes, I started to believe anything is possible haha.