Eagle in Flight - Help please

[NorthernFocus]

Dan you are confusing me.

Shooting with an FX lens on a DX format body makes the outer edges of the image to ” fall off” the sensor. Shooting a DX lens on an FX body you have a DX crop on a FF sensor. Why?

Why do I get so much vignetting on my DX camera when shooting with a DX lens, wide open? Will I get the same vignetting shooting an equal quality FX lens on a DX body?

Is Christina’s lens an FX lens or a DX lens?

Thanks for the helpful hints.

Welcome, I spend most of my life in a state of confusion

Unless Tamron makes two versions of the 200-400 it is a full frame lens. The specs indicate a 12 degree angle of view at 400mm which is correct for full frame. It is 8 degrees at 400mm for DX. Therefore as you stated the outer edges of the image don't fall on the sensor. When you look at MTF charts for full frame lenses they are graphed from 0 to 22mm on the x axis. That corresponds to the diagonal distance from center of the frame. The drastic fall of in sharpness typically occurs in the outer third from 15-22mm range. Nikon DX sensors only use the image from 0-14.5(nominally). Of course one can always find exceptions to general statements like this but statistically this is true more often than not.

A general statement can't be made that you will get less vignetting with an FX lens vs a DX lens. It is accurate to say that for a given FX lens you will get less vingette effect on a DX body than the same lens on an FX body.

For these reasons as previously stated, it is possible to get good sharpness and little vignette with less than top quality FX lenses used on DX bodies. Unfortunately poor contrast, poor color rendition, and high chormatic abberation are also typically characteristic of lower quality lenses and will be the same regardless of format.

Two examples of this are the Nikon 300mm f4 and the Sigma 100-300mm f4 both of which are tack sharp on DX bodies even when used with 1.4x extenders.

[BCrose]

Hate to throw you a curve with somewhat different advice for focusing but I do not use the method above and I shoot a lot of BIF.

I use AF-C and back button focus. But I set my shutter to RELEASE and not FOCUS. When tracking a BIF with AF-C the camera will attempt to follow the subject and continuously change focus. Using the RELEASE method will allow you to shoot as many shots as you like as you track the bird. Setting it to FOCUS and you may never get the camera to fire. I often take 20 frames to get 4 or 5 in sharp focus. The others are usually very close and useable images especially if sharpened later in editing.

Also, setting your EC to a + number is going to ensure that any part of the bird that is white will be totally blown out. For Bald Eagles I actually set my camera to a -.7 or -1 so that the bright white feathers are not overexposed.

[NorthernFocus]

Thank you Andre... I can't find either A1 or A2 or AF-S or AF- C mode priority in my camera menu. I am pretty sure that I do not have this set because I can click the shutter button even if I haven't achieved focus... Perhaps I'm missing something obvious?...

Christina, from a practical standpoint when shooting moving target I've found focus priority to be more frustrating than useful. That is because unless you can hold the focus point dead on your intended target all the time, the camera will still lock on to something else and fire. So you will still end up with some number of out of focus shots. On the other hand, if you do get focus lock but then the camera loses lock momentarily, it won't fire the shutter even though your target may still be within your DOF and would have produced an acceptably sharp image. When I review images with either ViewNX2 or CaptureNX2 I always turn on the focus point indication. A high percentage of in focus images don't show a focus point which means that the camera was not detecting focus lock. In all those cases the shutter would not have fired had I been shooting focus priority.

The only thing you stand to lose by shooting in shutter priority is that you may have more OOF shots to delete. What you can potentially lose shooting focus priority is acceptably in focus shots that will never be captured because the shutter wouldn't fire. Of course you'd be none the wiser I suppose because you'd not have them. But don't fool yourself to think that everything you shoot will be in focus if you shoot focus priority. SOMETHING will be in focus. But it may not be your bird.

Many of these whiz bang features of modern DSLRs are wonderful from an engineering standpoint but don't hold up in every real world situation. Unfortunately you have to sort through and figure which ones work for YOU in YOUR shooting conditions and which ones don't.

It's our job to make sure you get as confused as the rest of us

ON EDIT: Monte posted while I was typing. Yes, what he said much more succinctly than I did

[Brownbear]

Monte and Dan...

I adore both of your bird shots so I will just continue shooting the way I have been and not worry about finding that autofocus thing.. Good to know. Thank you so much. (Andre, thank you for sharing as I know you are trying to help me with my photography.)

Monte, I have a lot of birds where the white portion is overexposed, so thank you for sharing that...

Dan, I usually use manual for birds in flight... are you saying I should try shutter priority or are you just using this term to describe focusing? (with shutter priority my birds turn out dark)

Dan and Monte... Lots of great information for me to digest.. yes, I'm confused but I'll just read your posts a few times until it sinks in.

[NorthernFocus]

...Dan, I usually use manual for birds in flight... are you saying I should try shutter priority or are you just using this term to describe focusing? (with shutter priority my birds turn out dark)...

Sorry, I'm refering to focus. I think the correct term is "shutter release" as opposed to "focus release". Nikon terms ....

[Brownbear]

thank you for clarifying and keeping me on my toes

Sorry, I'm refering to focus. I think the correct term is "shutter release" as opposed to "focus release". Nikon terms ....

[splashy]

I didn't realize/know that this camera has a noisy sensor.
Still, you better have a sharp picture than a bit of noise in the picture.
LR 5 does take care of noise if it's not very bad.

Seems for now, Cristina needs to find a spot with a light colored soil and have the eagle to fly there.

[pnodrog]

Expose for the bird - blow out the sky and take a correctly exposed sky shot once the bird has flown away. Merge shots using a mask slightly smaller than the bird and set blend mode to darken. You are basically trying to take an HDR shot of a moving subject. Works fine unless you have a white or very light coloured bird but then exposure is not as difficult.

[NorthernFocus]

Expose for the bird - ....

The clearest and most useful advice yet.

[Dave Humphries]

I have spent a few weekends recently learning the D7100 modes with my 70-300mm lens on Red Kites.

Each of 3 session was between 1 & 2 hours and the average shooting rate was about 500/hour - although perhaps I need to be more disciplined.
The weather varied; two days were 50/50 sunny intervals, one day was 90% cloudy.

What have I learnt? Ordered by importance to achieving a good result.
Don't shoot when they are too far away (OK, I am very lucky, where I shoot these, if you wait eventually the action happens so close you have to zoom out to avoid clipping wings, tails or heads)
Get the eye(s) in shot, ideally with a catch-light
Don't shoot against white/grey cloud (and don't blow it if you do because it destroys the edge of wing/body detail)
Shoot when the subject is lit by directional light (90% of time this means it needs to be in the sun - and against a blue sky)
Do not over expose the subject either (it destroys sharpness)
VR off assuming the shutter speed is over 1/1500s - I believe the rapid panning necessary to follow 'jinking' birds of prey, especially when they are directly overhead can seriously confuse the VR system
ADL off (having it on just puts a halo of over exposure around the bird)
Aperture f/8, even f/11 (I find f/5.6 lacks contrast on my Nikon 70-300mm)
ISO 1000 max., (although - if something has to 'give'; noise is better than some other artefacts)
Set Manual Exposure to what a test shot reveals is best on low contrast jpg histogram (this has been covered elsewhere recently)
Focus: AF-C, 3D Tracking (or Dynamic using 21 or 51 points), Re-Focus delay with Lock-on: Off

My latest results (around a thousand shots) with a1/a2 Release modes set to Focus does seem to bear out Monte's advice - not so much because I missed shots, they just (somehow) weren't sharp.

One thought on you possibly buying the D600 Christina; you'll lose the crop factor advantage of DX format.

Hope that helps, although bear in mind this is quite specialised advice that suits my specific subject, location, camera and lens.

I was going to post a link to an example or two, but it's late, maybe tomorrow.

Cheers,

[AB26]

I am also leaning toward the Sony A77 because of the image stabilization.

Christina,

I do not want to start a Sony - Nikon debate. I do have a Sony camera with an EVF.

The Sony is a brilliant piece of equipment and I love Sony. One little word of advice – be aware of what you get when buying a camera with an Electronic Viewfinder.

At a camera show I was playing around with several Nikons. The D800, D600 and others. Walking over to the Sony stand I picked up the A99 and looked trough the viewfinder. OOPS, the EVF is sluggish to refresh under low light.
Shooting action, like BIF, you will need a lot of practice to get the shot. What you see-in the viewfinder is not reality, whilst shooting bursts. The image you see in the viewfinder is the last captured image and not what is actually happening at that moment. You need to compensate and predict where your subject will be with the next shutter release. Tracking an object is not easy with the Sony. Another point you have to carefully consider is the loss of light to the sensor trough the SLT system.

As I said, a wonderful piece of equipment and definitely to be recommended for those whom wish to learn all about exposure.

For fast moving objects, I would rather go for a camera without the EVF.

[NorthernFocus]

...For fast moving objects, I would rather go for a camera without the EVF.

I second what Andre is saying. I have a Nikon V1 with EVF. The camera will shoot insane frame rate but it is moot because as soon as you press the shutter you can't see what your shooting at any more. You see what the last frame looked like, not what the next frame is going to look like....

[AB26]

I often take 20 frames to get 4 or 5 in sharp focus. The others are usually very close and useable images especially if sharpened later in editing.

Monte,

I would rather miss the shot than missing either focus or exposure. Bad habit of mine to always want to get the exposure and focus right before shooting. See, I am not a PP expert and I have to get it pretty close in camera otherwise I have to re-shoot.

[NorthernFocus]

I have spent a few weekends recently learning the D7100 modes with my 70-300mm lens on Red Kites.

Dave, one caution with your findings is that what works in one situation doesn't work across the board. For example, shooting BIF with the sky as BG is different than shooting with a hillside as BG. The camera sees it differently.

My latest results (around a thousand shots) with a1/a2 Release modes set to Focus does seem to bear out Monte's advice - not so much because I missed shots, they just (somehow) weren't sharp.

Yet something was sharp or the camera wouldn't have allowed the shutter to fire. One nuance to any of the dynamic focus modes on D7100/600/etc, is that you can't see in the viewfinder which focus point the camera is actually using when you push the shutter button. It may not be focusing where you think it is focusing. Look at your images in ViewNX2 with focus point turned on to see which focus point was active when the shutter fired. When I do so sometimes I find that the active point isn't on the bird but on the clear blue sky. Huh?

I did some testing a while back to try to understand dynamic focus a bit better. When I get some time I'll try to dig up the image files and start a thread and post my findings.

One thought on you possibly buying the D600 Christina; you'll lose the crop factor advantage of DX format.

Weeell.... kind of. It wouldn't be as advantageous as a D7100 but in DX mode it would be almost exactly the same as the current D80 that she is shooting i.e 24MP/2.25=10.7MP. So not a step backward in resolution, just not any more effective reach than her current rig.

[Brownbear]

Good morning, and thank you to all.

Splash, L. Paul, Monte, Andre, Dave and Dan... I will visit the heron tree again, likely a few times and try out all your suggestions and recommendations. Hopefully I will see the eagle again and have another chance to photograph it. If I find him and manage a better eagle shot I will post.

Andre & Dan... That is great to know about the Sony and EVF. Thank you.

Dave, thank you for sharing your experience. It's a great reference and I just might end up with a D7100 one day. I did not know that about white clouds... interesting. What is ADL?

[Dave Humphries]

What is ADL?

Active D-Lighting - I'm not sure if D80 has it, my D5000 does, but that's a generation later than a D80.

It is supposed to increase Dynamic Range - "great" I thought, I'll try that on the birds ...

... in practice; if I put ADL on "Auto", it didn't seem to do anything beneficial with the underside of a bird against a blue or white sky.
If I forced it to "High", it just created a halo around the bird by reducing the exposure in the sky that wasn't near the bird and letting that bit of sky immediately surrounding the bird, blow.

I'm sure it is useful for some subjects, just not BIF 'wrong tool for job', as they say.
It would obviously handle a more traditional scene, with the darker subject predominating, better.

Cheers,

[Mike Buckley]

The D80 doesn't have Active D-Lighting. It only has D-Lighting as a post-processing menu item, which is similar in effect but not quite the same.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for taking the time to reply

Dave, one caution with your findings is that what works in one situation doesn't work across the board. For example, shooting BIF with the sky as BG is different than shooting with a hillside as BG. The camera sees it differently.

Absolutely, I am well aware of that, but perhaps I didn't make it obvious enough for others that may assume, as you did, that I was generalising. I am very definitely only talking about BiF with sky background.

Yet something was sharp or the camera wouldn't have allowed the shutter to fire. One nuance to any of the dynamic focus modes on D7100/600/etc, is that you can't see in the viewfinder which focus point the camera is actually using when you push the shutter button. It may not be focusing where you think it is focusing.

Sometimes I could see a sharp insect

I agree, although if you use AF-ON, it over-rides those selections anyway (it always takes the shot).
However, I deliberately wasn't using AF-ON on the last shoot, so it surprised me how many weren't sharp, but the weather was worse, only 5-10% of shots with sun.

Look at your images in ViewNX2 with focus point turned on to see which focus point was active when the shutter fired. When I do so sometimes I find that the active point isn't on the bird but on the clear blue sky. Huh?

I do do this - and the softness is equally present on shots where the focus point is positioned over a bit of bird and also when over 'clear sky'. As you say

It is far worse in flat, low contrast, lighting though; shots in sunshine have a much greater chance of being well focused - and look nicer anyway.

Hence my general advice on subject, background and lighting being higher priority than all the technical issues.

Cheers,

[Brownbear]

I returned to my heron tree this morning to try some shots with my D7100 and new lens... Sadly it seems that most of the herons have departed for someplace else and I think I've learned my lesson about trying to shoot in backlit conditions... Anyway once again I was set to photograph the herons and my eagle came by, almost flew over my head, too close for me to capture all of it in one shot...

Unfortunately I had the extender on my camera which meant I had less light... I think if I did not have the extender on my camera I might have managed a decent shot!

Joe if you are reading this I tried auto iso set to a maximum of 1000... Manual SS 200 A 6.7 (less than 4 because of the extender) Exp. Comp +1, and matrix metering... I used the brush in LR to lighten up the underside of the wings but the noise is too high (partly because I underexposed the eagle) so I down loaded the trial of Topaz denoise and tried it on these shots. It works but I don't think my eagle photo looks real, ie over processed, and not natural looking so right now I am of the mind that it will work better to get closer and forget about the extender and denoise programs... It was my first try at this type of edit so it might just be my post processing skills still need work.

Not denoised...



Denoised



Not Denoised



Denoised and added contrast



Anyway I promised I would post if I managed another eagle shot... If anyone has any words of advice for me on using these denoise programs and how I did with denoising these photos I would appreciate it... With respect to eagles I think they visit an area near Squamish every year around fall, so I will visit this spot (and avoid backlighting) and hopefully return with an eagle shot that is half as beautiful as Dan's and Monte's... and looks real instead of processed... anyway I think these shots are at least a little sharper. So no more eagles from me until then..

[Brownbear]

I visited a bird of prey sanctuary today... so here is a better eagle shot for now, only because I was able to get closer... One day I will manage one in flight.

Unfortunately I missed the in flight opportunity and I only have the jpeg because my new camera wouldn't focus and I couldn't figure out why. I thought I might have broken my camera and in the process I reset my camera to the standard settings. I eventually figured out that I had set my lens to manual focus the day before and I forgot to change it back to manual focus.

The image was underexposed so I lightened it up and used Topaz denoise with a very light touch and it seemed to work fine. So I think the denoise programs work fine if it is just a light touch.