Try to guess which photos were taken handheld, with monopod or tripod, with or withou

[Panama Hat & Camera]

Try to guess which photos were taken handheld, with monopod or tripod, with or without IS.

I took six photos of a neon sign (at night) of a hotel that was 670 m (2200 ft) away from me.

All the pictures were taken in manual mode (1/10 - f/7.1 - 6400 ISO - 1200 mm FFE), with manual focus, but two photos were handheld, two with monopod and two with tripod, with and without IS.

All the photos are SOOC (jpg) and sharpened after downsizing with unsharp mask (settings of 150%, 0.3 radius and a threshold of 4). All the photos are very noisy because of the high ISO (for a superzoom camera).

The tripod (aluminiun) is a Velbon SE-3 (from the eighties) and weighs 3.2 kg (7 lb). The monopod (aluminiun) is a Velbon UP-400DX and weighs 750 g (1.65 lb). The camera is a Canon SX50 HS and it weighs 595 g (21 oz).

The seventh picture (jpg SOOC) was taken with a Canon S100 in automatic mode with a focal length of 50 mm FFE and serves only to show how far was the neon sign, which is on the right side of the highest building.

The answers are after the seventh photo.

Cheers,
Antonio

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


#7 - Canon S100 (automatic) - 1/8 - f/4 - ISO 1600 - 50 mm FFE



The answers are:
#1 - With monopod, IS on;
#2 - With tripod, IS on;
#3 - Handheld, IS off;
#4 - With tripod, IS off;
#5 - Handheld, IS on;
#6 - With monopod, IS off

[pnodrog]

The most interesting thing is that handheld with IS on is better than monopod with IS off. The rest are more or less as I would expect.

[Mike Buckley]

The whole point of using a tripod insofar as stability is concerned is to be able to make the largest possible print, not for presenting small files of photos on the Internet. So, to my way of thinking, your comparisons would be a lot more valid if you were showing crops of the images at 100% of the full-size file.

[revi]

I agree with Mike wrt the tripod, for the monopod, I tend to see it as a compromise: I need a longish time, but cannot use a tripod.
Otoh, the tripod shots would make a good baseline for the others, where (given the settings) a usable shot would be all I dared aim for.

What I'm more 'concerned' about is that he only took 6 photos, one for each set of conditions. That might very well explain why the monopod w/o IS did worse than handheld with IS.
And at 1200 eq. focal length, 1/10s is way beyond the 'safe' value (something like 7 stops?), and even well beyond what manufacturers promise for IS.

[Panama Hat & Camera]

The most interesting thing is that handheld with IS on is better than monopod with IS off. The rest are more or less as I would expect.

L.Paul,
During two weeks, I took many photos with (and without) monopod, with the IS turned off/on and the conclusion was the same: the IS of SX50 HS is really very good and surpasses the monopod.
For example: trying to use ISO 80, I took a photo (handheld) of the moon with 1200 FFE and with shutter speed equal to 1/200 (you can see it @ The Moon @1200mm FFE). I tryed 3 times to obtain a good result. With a monopod, I certainly would get a good result in the first attempt
But, I liked very much my monopod. It is a very useful tool, that I've toted with the camera most of the time.

Cheers,
Antonio.

[Panama Hat & Camera]

The whole point of using a tripod insofar as stability is concerned is to be able to make the largest possible print, not for presenting small files of photos on the Internet. So, to my way of thinking, your comparisons would be a lot more valid if you were showing crops of the images at 100% of the full-size file.

Mike,
You are totally right and I liked very much of your suggestion. I will take a new set of photos and I will present part of each image with 100% crop. I won't use these photos because they are very noisy.
My goal was to show the benefits of using the monopod even in extreme situations (please see my answer to L.Paul).
Thank you very much for your comments.
Antonio.

[Panama Hat & Camera]

I agree with Mike wrt the tripod, for the monopod, I tend to see it as a compromise: I need a longish time, but cannot use a tripod.
Otoh, the tripod shots would make a good baseline for the others, where (given the settings) a usable shot would be all I dared aim for.

What I'm more 'concerned' about is that he only took 6 photos, one for each set of conditions. That might very well explain why the monopod w/o IS did worse than handheld with IS.
And at 1200 eq. focal length, 1/10s is way beyond the 'safe' value (something like 7 stops?), and even well beyond what manufacturers promise for IS.

Remco,
Really I took two photos for each situation (total twelve pictures) and the results were the same.

I know that I've forced the IS of my camera far beyond the limits provided by the manufacturer. But, it was on purpose because I would like to know how much the monopod could help me on this situation.

As I explained to L.Paul, during two weeks, I took many photos with (and without) monopod, with the IS turned off/on and the conclusion was the same: the IS of SX50 HS is really very good and surpasses the monopod.
For example: trying to use ISO 80, I took a photo (handheld) of the moon with 1200 FFE and with shutter speed equal to 1/200 (you can see it @ The Moon @1200mm FFE). I tryed 3 times to obtain a good result. With a monopod, I certainly would get a good result in the first attempt
But, I liked very much my monopod. It is a very useful tool, that I've toted with the camera most of the time.

All the best,
Antonio.

[revi]

Remco,
Really I took two photos for each situation (total twelve pictures) and the results were the same.

But that's not what you said in your initial post... And as that post was all the data you gave, I had to draw conclusions from that.

I know that I've forced the IS of my camera far beyond the limits provided by the manufacturer. But, it was on purpose because I would like to know how much the monopod could help me on this situation.
(...)
But, I liked very much my monopod. It is a very useful tool, that I've toted with the camera most of the time.

All the best,
Antonio.

I agree it is a very useful tool.
But I do agree with Mike that it's not equivalent to a good tripod if you really want the best possible result.

[ajohnw]

This shows about a pixel of shake -maybe- due to the shutter on a Pen. Manforotto tripod, IS off, delayed shutter release used, 300mm in 35mm terms, taken from around 30m. I didn't bother to keep the one where the IS was on. It was hopeless.

The small squares are pixels and this is what the sensor records before processing the colours. I was more interested in the lens performance really and out of interest this one is fairly good especially for a zoom..



John
-

[Panama Hat & Camera]

But that's not what you said in your initial post... And as that post was all the data you gave, I had to draw conclusions from that.


I agree it is a very useful tool.
But I do agree with Mike that it's not equivalent to a good tripod if you really want the best possible result.

Remco,
Excuse-me, you are right. In the next threads, I will be more accurate on my informations.
Cheers,
Antonio.

[Panama Hat & Camera]

The whole point of using a tripod insofar as stability is concerned is to be able to make the largest possible print, not for presenting small files of photos on the Internet. So, to my way of thinking, your comparisons would be a lot more valid if you were showing crops of the images at 100% of the full-size file.

Mike,
In view of your suggestion, I took new photos and I'm presenting one cropp 100% of each one. All photos are SOOC (RAW converted JPEG without adjusts using Digital Photo Professional, from Canon) and cropped to 1600x 1000 without any sharpening.

The distance between the subject and camera was 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in)

Once more I forced very much the IS of the camera (it was on purpose). Exif data of photos #1 to #6 are
1/6 - f/6.5 - ISO 80 - 1200 FFE - manual focus.

#1 - With tripod, IS on, RAW, 1600x1000


#2 - With tripod, IS off, RAW, 1600x1000


#3 - Handheld, IS off, RAW, 1600x1000


#4 - Handheld, IS on, RAW, 1600x1000


#5 - With monopod, IS off, RAW, 1600x1000


#6 - With monopod, IS on, RAW, 1600x1000


The seventh picture came from the same original RAW file of #2, but it suffered a basic PP and was sharpened after downsizing with unsharp mask (settings of 150%, 0.3 radius and a threshold of 4).

#7 - With tripod, IS off, RAW, 1333x1000


Cheers,
Antonio.

[Mike Buckley]

I'll take the chocolate raspberry, please.

This set is far more informative because you used 100% crops.

[Otavio]

This set is far more informative because you used 100% crops.

Antônio,

I agree with Mike on the above.

You set up a "mini DPreview style" test! It proves the IS really is of major importance, specially on "hand held mode".

Very nice!

Cheers,

[Panama Hat & Camera]

Antônio,

I agree with Mike on the above.

You set up a "mini DPreview style" test! It proves the IS really is of major importance, specially on "hand held mode".

Very nice!

Cheers,

Otavio,
Thank you for viewing and commenting.
The IS really is of major importance, specially on "hand held mode" (and the combination of monopod with IS is fantastic).
Cheers,
Antonio.

[Panama Hat & Camera]

I'll take the chocolate raspberry, please.

This set is far more informative because you used 100% crops.

Mike,
Sorry, the only options on the box are: milk chocolate truffle, extra dark chocolate truffle, white chocolate truffle, hazelnut truffle, dark chocolate truffle and vanilla truffle.
Cheers,
Antonio.