EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM (Tested)

[bedantabd]

Hi guys, for trying out the new lens, I have been shooting birds in our park since I received it a couple of weeks back. Here are some pictures taken with the lens. Would like to get feedback on the performance of the lens as well as the man behind the camera. Comments particularly on composition / lighting / post processing are welcome. Thanks in advance.

1. Barn Swallow:



2. Green Bee-eater



3a. Kingfisher (back):



3b. Kingfisher (front):



4a. Wagtail:



4b. Wagtail:



5. Egret in flight:

[Otavio]

Hi Bedanta.

Very nice job! I am also buying a 70-300mm lens and your pics help me to confirm this lens is long enough for the purpose I want (which is this same type of pictures).

The first one seems (to me) not as much detailed as the other ones. I think the DoF is too small, as the bird's tail and the part od the head behing his eye is out of focus. Maybe increasing the DoF a bit would give a better result. You used F5.6 which is the maximum aperture for the 300mm of focal length. I think a F8 would be ok. Anyway, this is personal and you might like it the way it is.

The other ones are very detailed. I also liked the composition. Great job and thanks for sharing!

Regards,

Otávio

[Radu Dinu Cordeanu]

Taking into account the firs image only I should say I never buy itbecause it is soft enough at 300mm.But applying high-pass filter first at 250 pixels radius and changing the blending mode at soft light and then again but at 3.5 pixels radius and a blending mode at hard light it obtains a different image.
now with high pass filter

and now without

Looking at the rest of the shots I think it was a small failure of the man easily to be corrected
Thank you
Radu

[Bobobird]

Very nice set of shots.

I will give the the slightly soft #1 as a man issue rather then lens issue. Radu has however found a way to a very good fix.

Btw would love to have a park such as this to wander around in.

[bedantabd]

Hi Bedanta.

Very nice job! I am also buying a 70-300mm lens and your pics help me to confirm this lens is long enough for the purpose I want (which is this same type of pictures).

Thanks Otávio,

I have taken around 1000 shots with this lens and my personal opinion about the lens is that it works very well under the following conditions:

1. light is very good: all the images (except #1) were taken under direct sunlight.
2. less camera to subject distance: you need to be pretty close to your subject even at 300mm, all the images (except #5) were taken from a distance of 10-15 ft.

So, keep these in mind before deciding to buy this lens.

The first one seems (to me) not as much detailed as the other ones. I think the DoF is too small, as the bird's tail and the part od the head behing his eye is out of focus. Maybe increasing the DoF a bit would give a better result. You used F5.6 which is the maximum aperture for the 300mm of focal length. I think a F8 would be ok. Anyway, this is personal and you might like it the way it is.

No, I also don't like it much. Actually, all the images were taken at 300 mm with Av mode at f5.6to get the fastest shutter speed / blur the background. So, DoF is really small and locking focus on the tiny heads / eyes of these constantly moving creatures is really difficult. Anyway, I'll definitely try to shoot at f8 next time to see the results.

[bedantabd]

Taking into account the firs image only I should say I never buy itbecause it is soft enough at 300mm.But applying high-pass filter first at 250 pixels radius and changing the blending mode at soft light and then again but at 3.5 pixels radius and a blending mode at hard light it obtains a different image.
now with high pass filter

and now without

Thanks Radu, you did an excellent job in improving the sharpness of the image. Though I prefer to get it right in camera itself, but this technique will definitely help me to strengthen my processing skills. Can you elaborate the workflow of using this high pass filter tool (I have read about it before, but never tried myself)?

Looking at the rest of the shots I think it was a small failure of the man easily to be corrected

Could you please elaborate how I can correct 'the small failure of the man'?

[bedantabd]

Very nice set of shots.

I will give the the slightly soft #1 as a man issue rather then lens issue.

Thanks Bobo, looks like I should not have posted that image under a lens testing thread. In fact I'm not even qualified to test a lens.............Anyway, this will definitely help me improving my techniques.

Very Btw would love to have a park such as this to wander around in.

Apart from this park in the township, there is also a natural water body which attracts a large number of birds(local as well as migratory); particularly during the winter season (which I'm eagerly waiting for). Next I will post some of the images taken at that location. According to a database created by one of the bird lovers, around 1500 different types of bird were spotted in our township (including migratory).........

[jeeperman]

Bendanta, Some good work. While you are trying things out....try this.....Go to F8 rather than F5.6 and if you need a bit faster shutter try bumping the ISO to 400. F8 should be a sharper area of your lens and give you enough DOF to get the whole bird sharp and keep the background oof.

Sorry had not read everyones post and F8 was suggested already.

[bedantabd]

Bendanta, Some good work. While you are trying things out....try this.....Go to F8 rather than F5.6 and if you need a bit faster shutter try bumping the ISO to 400. F8 should be a sharper area of your lens and give you enough DOF to get the whole bird sharp and keep the background oof.

Sorry had not read everyones post and F8 was suggested already.

Thanks Paul,

Will definitely try f8 at higher ISO and come back with the results. Looks like f8 is the so called sweet spot for this lens..............

[Radu Dinu Cordeanu]

Thanks Radu, you did an excellent job in improving the sharpness of the image. Though I prefer to get it right in camera itself, but this technique will definitely help me to strengthen my processing skills. Can you elaborate the workflow of using this high pass filter tool (I have read about it before, but never tried myself)?



Could you please elaborate how I can correct 'the small failure of the man'?

Emotions,to control emotions when 1.the focus way/point is choosing may be to use a kind of auto focus which Nikon names it 3D which keep the focus closed to the subject movements 2.when the button is pushed,don't afraid by noise.All of us fail and so what,we learn entire life.
Thanks again
Radu

[bedantabd]

Hello folks, hope all of you are doing fine. Posting here after quite a long time.

This is a thread I started almost 6 years ago with a couple of my initial bird images taken with my first DSLR (Canon 550D) and EF 70-300 mm combination. Later I added to my kit the Tamron 150-600mm (G1) which I primarily used to shoot birds. Below are couple of Kingfisher images taken with this lens. I am pretty much happy with the performance of this combination for stationary bird portraits, but find it difficult to get the same results for BIF.

So, for quite a long time now, I have been planning to upgrade to 7D Mark-II and Tamron G2. Will this be a good combo? Should I go for 7D Mark-II or wait for 7D Mark-III?

Note: Since last month, my 550D is lying dead after taking a dip in sea water!!

[Geoff F]

There is some talk of a Mk III 7D which will have improved noise reduction, which is a bit of an issue with the Mk II although admittedly that one is better than the Mk I in this respect. If so, the new Mk III would be getting close to a 5D with a crop sensor. This should be a worthwhile improvement for bird photography where you often have to increase the Iso to obtain sufficient shutter speed. However, like all new model talk, we will have to wait and see what happens.

With these images, the first one has already been discussed so I will just mention a couple of slight edits which I would do. Clean up the bottom left corner of #2 and remove that twig which is at an awkward angle in #3. Otherwise they look fine to me.

Incidentally, for bird shots with my 7D Mk II my usual lens is a Sigma Sport 150-600 which works well enough for those longer distance situations, although it is heavy and slow to autofocus. F8 to F11 depending on the light level is my normal setting. Somewhere I have an old Canon 70-300 lens but I haven't used it for some time. It was OK when you could get close, such as harbour gulls etc but I found it was never big enough for those longer distance shots which account for 90% of my bird work.