Two Approaches to long bird shots

[Tronhard]

Seeing as Spring has finally sprung, I decided to head to the local park to capture some images of herons nesting. I decided to try an experiment, using two completely different approaches to getting the shots. I was using two different camera configurations: First a Canon SX60HS, with it's equivalent 21-1390mm lens, but a tiny sensor. Second a Canon 7D Mk II, with the Canon 100-400 Mk II lens, and a 1.4Mk III extender, effective focal range 224-896mm.

I was shooting the same birds with both cameras - the birds generally 100-150m away and all shots were hand-held.
In PP I cropped from 4x3 to 16x9 (to fit my screen display) corrected for some exposure variations and a minimal amount of sharpening. Doubtless the larger sensor camera has much more potential of PP, but that wasn't my intent at this stage.

I was frankly impressed with the SX60HS' results considering the major difference in investment...

As an experiment try running the slide show feature before you look at which camera did what and see if you can tell the difference WIHOUT going into the light box...

First the SX60HS shots:










Now the heavy hitter: The Canon 7D Mk II











CC's welcome!

[Shadowman]

Nice series, I really like that last one.

[Tronhard]

That was hubby being booted out of the nest by his mate, who was one of the early birds to be brooding.

So, did you try the slide show? If so was it obvious when the SX60HS ended and the 7D started?

Nice series, I really like that last one.

[Cantab]

Trev, a very very interesting experiment. I ran the slide show and failed to identify which pictures were by which camera.

Looking at them when everything was revealed, my sense is that the SX60HS photos are brighter but was that perhaps a function of changing light or perhaps unintentional variations in exposure adjustment in pp??

Welcome back to the Island!

[RandyRFJP]

All great photos, Trev. It was not obvious to me when you switched cameras. The Canon SX60HS performed very well, in my opinion. How does it perform at longer focal lengths?

[Tronhard]

Great to know it wasn't obvious. Both cameras were working at their maximum focal lengths, so the SX60HS was at equivalent 1392.. and the 7D was working at equivalent 896mm. I think the important thing is to give the small sensor plenty of light, at dimmer lights it shows a lot more noise.

[Tronhard]

Gidday Bruce!

Thanks for your feedback. I think most of the difference is the changing light, but that said there is probably a lot more glass for the light to go through on the 100-400 with extender. It seems to me there is more colour depth in the L series lens (one would hope), but there may be some variation in PP too...

I have to say that my impression in this scenario is that, given decent light, the SX60HS gives great bang for the buck if you are a birder and don't intend to make huge prints or pixel peep too much. The iS worked really well in both cameras considering all shots were hand held at max focal lengths.

Good to be back in time for the sunshine to start up again!

Trev, a very very interesting experiment. I ran the slide show and failed to identify which pictures were by which camera.

Looking at them when everything was revealed, my sense is that the SX60HS photos are brighter but was that perhaps a function of changing light or perhaps unintentional variations in exposure adjustment in pp??

Welcome back to the Island!

[rpcrowe]

Great test... The Canon bridge cameras do a very nice job of capturing when there is enough light and when the final product is for the Web.
I have a SX-50HS and my son-in-law photographed an African safari with his SX-50HS (which I recommended he buy one - since he did not want to borrow a DSLR from me).
His images were pretty nice...

[Tronhard]

Thanks for your feedback Richard. Yep I think we both agree on the conditions to make the SX## series work. The zebra images look great. I don't print but I DO put my images on my 60in LED screen and they stand up pretty well.

I might add that for those images I posted I did not alter the native resolution of the images, but the 7DII images were all cropped a bit as I mentioned to get the 16:9 and they were all cropped a LITTLE to get better composition - it's not easy getting that right, hand-held at 1000+mm!

[Wavelength]

I could distinguish the change in the slide show, but probably due to a difference in settings, but having said that i appreciate the quality of the cheaper one in its run against the master one

[Tronhard]

Thanks for your comment Nandakumar! Given enough light, and as long as you don't want large prints, I think that the cheap option is a valid tool for the casual or beginner bird or wildlife photographer.

To provide a comparison of the investments required, I looked up the costs for gear here in Canada, including only GST but not PST.
The Canon Powershot SX60HS costs .............................. $560
The Canon 7DII+100-400MkII+1.4MkIII ..................... $5,542

That is a significant difference... an amazing 10x increase in cost for the higher quality option!

I could distinguish the change in the slide show, but probably due to a difference in settings, but having said that i appreciate the quality of the cheaper one in its run against the master one

[Dave Humphries]

Very interesting Trev, thanks for posting.

The answer lies in the difference in DoF between these two (click to see in LyteBox)

I have to get them next to each other to compare

When I was regularly shooting birds at a distance, I went this route too (i.e. bridge camera rather than £2,000+ long lens).

Except being a Nikon shooter (for menu consistency), I went with the Nikon P510 instead of the Canon SX?? - this turned out to be a big mistake because the AF on the Nikon equivalent to the SX?? series is truly awfully frustrating to use. Apparently the SX50 and SX60 are nowhere near as bad as my experience.

However, the other thing I found was that the atmospherics between me and the subject can often scramble the IQ too, by how much depends upon the weather.

That said, it looks like the quality of yours are better than I could have achieved, even it had focussed before the bird flew off!

Cheers, Dave

[Tronhard]

Some good points Dave. I totally agree about the atmospherics - even with the expensive configuration, heat interference, dust or very poor light can really screw around with long shots from ANY camera, and as I said I was shooting between 150-200m away. Luckily the day was crisp and cool so humidity and heat distortion were not an issue (especially since the darned birds sat up so high ). Back in NZ I would dump a lot of long shots because of the atmospheric conditions.

Very interesting Trev, thanks for posting.

The answer lies in the difference in DoF between these two (click to see in LyteBox)



I have to get them next to each other to compare

When I was regularly shooting birds at a distance, I went this route too (i.e. bridge camera rather than £2,000+ long lens).

Except being a Nikon shooter (for menu consistency), I went with the Nikon P510 instead of the Canon SX?? - this turned out to be a big mistake because the AF on the Nikon equivalent to the SX?? series is truly awfully frustrating to use. Apparently the SX50 and SX60 are nowhere near as bad as my experience.

However, the other thing I found was that the atmospherics between me and the subject can often scramble the IQ too, by how much depends upon the weather.

That said, it looks like the quality of yours are better than I could have achieved, even it had focussed before the bird flew off!

Cheers, Dave

[Tronhard]

Further to Dave's comments about DoF, I just compared the EXIF data for the two images and discovered that the two shots were taken with an f8 aperture.

[Dave Humphries]

Further to Dave's comments about DoF, I just compared the EXIF data for the two images and discovered that the two shots were taken with an f8 aperture.

Since the sensor size difference is about four times and the light about the same, that means "f/8" gives 4 stops more DoF on the SX60 - all other things being equal - which I know they're not, but they're not 4 x different, so that's why I didn't even consider the need to look at aperture, the sensor size difference overwhelms other factors.

Of course, what's (not) in the frame won't always reveal this, that's why I chose those shots over the ones against the sky.

e.g.

or

[Tronhard]

Ha! That harkens back to the interesting debate I initiated on equivalence. I think the difference in the two is a function of my PP to a fair degree, but you're absolutely right about the DoF question. I think is pretty well accepted that the larger the sensor the shallower DoF performance is achievable.

This exercise links to my newer post on Inferior Images, which explains itself and my interest in the general performance of the two systems.

There is some context to this... in my post Inferior Images

Since the sensor size difference is about four times and the light about the same, that means "f/8" gives 4 stops more DoF on the SX60 - all other things being equal - which I know they're not, but they're not 4 x different, so that's why I didn't even consider the need to look at aperture, the sensor size difference overwhelms other factors.

Of course, what's (not) in the frame won't always reveal this, that's why I chose those shots over the ones against the sky.

e.g.

[Cantab]

Thanks for your comment Nandakumar! Given enough light, and as long as you don't want large prints, I think that the cheap option is a valid tool for the casual or beginner bird or wildlife photographer.

To provide a comparison of the investments required, I looked up the costs for gear here in Canada, including only GST but not PST.
The Canon Powershot SX60HS costs .............................. $560
The Canon 7DII+100-400MkII+1.4MkIII ..................... $5,542

That is a significant difference... an amazing 10x increase in cost for the higher quality option!

Trev, this is a seriously interesting thread -- particularly the price for the SX60. My recollection is that it was somewhat more expensive than that last summer but that may be my faulty memory.

[dem]

I was sure that the first image came from the DSLR and then the next 3 came from the bridge camera. It is noticeably sharper than the other 3 and does not seem to show any CA. Trev, did you process it differently from the other 3 shots? Less cropping perhaps?

[Tronhard]

Hi Bruce:

The difference in pricing between the two configurations is extremely striking! As far as the price for the SX60HS goes, like many cameras I think the price edges down as they age, and this one is now heading for a 18 months old. I have a feeling they issue a new one every three years, so it's in mid-life.

Trev, this is a seriously interesting thread -- particularly the price for the SX60. My recollection is that it was somewhat more expensive than that last summer but that may be my faulty memory.

[Tronhard]

Hi Dem: Good Question, hopefully this helps ...

Here is the original shot from the first print, done on the SX60HS, as it came from the camera with absolutely no processing at all



Here is the same one that I provided after processing:



Here is much the same shot, without processing from the 7D kit:



This is it WITH processing:



This is the SECOND SX60HS image WITHOUT processing:



This is the SECOND SX60HS image WITH processing



Does that help?

I was sure that the first image came from the DSLR and then the next 3 came from the bridge camera. It is noticeably sharper than the other 3 and does not seem to show any CA. Trev, did you process it differently from the other 3 shots? Less cropping perhaps?