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pic of a bird at the back fence ...

That's pretty darned good Shane, not sure about the frame though. How far away was that fence?

Nice shot of a Noisy Miner. Much prefer these and the Bell Miner, over the Common Indian Myna.

great habitat shot of the noisy minor.

dont like the frame though. would lose that

Is that full frame with the 600??

i cropped about 20% off the top and left side ...
the bird was about 10 to 15 metres away.
heres a different frame i did at the same time as i wasn't sure about the first frame myself

and the uncropped, unframed version ...

Something doesn't look right for a 600F4?

Soft?

looks softish to me too, but wasnt sure whether enough usm was used.

I would have thought that softness may well be a symptom of a long lens if it wasnt supported well, or slow shutter etc.

wonder what you consider not right darryl??

Steve

its probably because its only 41 kb
pic was taken wide open at f5.6 1/180 iso 200 under a grey sky which also probably didn't help

if possible you try to use one over the focal length when using long lenses.
whilst it predominantly applies to hand holding, its worth keeping in mind.

I did tests ages ago with some high magnification lenses and found that even mirror slap caused issues. for that reason some cameras offer mirror lock up.

as far as sharpness goes. you would know how sharp the original image was.
I find that when resized for the web, different amounts of USM or similar methods are required to make images look their best.

Steve

I'd say it comes down to support, and shutter speed more than the amount of kb storing the image.

As for shutter speed, with non IS/VR lenses it's important to follow the rules of 1/focal length or make sure the subject is still and you have good technique. Steve, you would of seen Mike's shot on NSN at 1/4 using a 500 but using IS lenses.

Shane,

Nice shot of a Noisy Miner. Bird is side on, looking at camera and looks good amongst flowers. Background is quite interesting as well.

Yes, it is slightly soft and no amount of sharpening will bring it back to perfect sharpness, unfortunately. I also agree that one of the most common problems with long, heavy lenses when shooting birds is mirror-slap, even when using a tripod. Many pro bird photograhers use bean bags to counter this problem. These bean bags are either home made bags (i.e. washing or laundry bags filled with rice or seeds) or they can be commercially bought. The idea of the bean bag is to cradle the lens in them on the ground or on a platform and use them as 'shock absorbers'.

Regardless of slight softness, shot still works well.

Cheers

Michael

its definately a challenge trying to move this lens around on a ball head as it wants to fall to the side or down in front everytime you try and move it.
from memory i had the ball loose as i was trying to follow the bird as it flitted around and because of the large aperture it would quickly go out of focus so i had one hand on the focus ring trying to steady it and focus it at the same time.
The lens weighs 3.2 kg and is 480mm long so its quite a handfull to manually focus.
I guess thats part of the fun and challenge of photography

Darryl:

I havent seen that shot you are talking about.

The shot does still work, its just not as tack sharp as it could be.

I agree that good technique definitely helps. Image stabilisation or not.
good technique will always get you a stop or two

Steve

Big Red wrote:its definately a challenge trying to move this lens around on a ball head as it wants to fall to the side or down in front everytime you try and move it.
from memory i had the ball loose as i was trying to follow the bird as it flitted around and because of the large aperture it would quickly go out of focus so i had one hand on the focus ring trying to steady it and focus it at the same time.
The lens weighs 3.2 kg and is 480mm long so its quite a handfull to manually focus.
I guess thats part of the fun and challenge of photography

G'day Shane,

I'm glad to hear that you're out exercising it already. As I mentioned in another forum the mirror slap on your camera is very minimal, I suspect that you just need to slow down concentrate on focus and stabilise yourself before you squeeze the shutter button. CA looks pretty well controlled for a wide open shot, I've never had the pleasure to use that particular lens model.

Cheers,

hi rob,
wasnt much to shoot at this arvo.
I tried the Tamron 1.4x TC on it and took a test shot of a dead tree about 50 metres away using mirror lock up and it seem pretty good.

Big Red wrote:hi rob,
wasnt much to shoot at this arvo.
I tried the Tamron 1.4x TC on it and took a test shot of a dead tree about 50 metres away using mirror lock up and it seem pretty good.

Have you got yourself a Pentax-F AF Adapter 1.7X yet? Though it looks plasticy it's a very sharp high contrast chunk of glass with the added bonus that it will provide reliable AF capability to any lens as fast or faster than f2.8. It should still work quite well as a straight TC with your f5.6 lens though AF may be unreliable.

Cheers,

I sorta like this shot. It reminds me of a stylised Chinese shot. I'd make the framing a deep red on the inside (and wider) and a shiny black on the outside. Maybe I'd make the OOF background look like Chinese paper with some vertical Chinese characters down one side. LOL...maybe too much Chinese NY going on in my head

havent got the 1.7X yet ... one day one of them will pop up at the right price.
last one i saw was 350 bucks.

the 1.4X works on an f4 lens ok
On the A*600 it shows up the aperature as 2.8 still exposed correctly though.

I guess the pic does have an oriental look about it

Big Red wrote:havent got the 1.7X yet ... one day one of them will pop up at the right price.
last one i saw was 350 bucks.

the 1.4X works on an f4 lens ok
On the A*600 it shows up the aperature as 2.8 still exposed correctly though.

I've bought a few Pentax 1.7AF TCs over the years, as cheap as US$30, you just need to keep your eyes peeled, one of mine came with an A50/1.4 for US$60.

The 1.7AF TC transmits the new aperture value to the camera body, so all the lens aperture range +1.5 stops appears in the display, the X-L and X-S TCs report the lenses f-stop sans convertor loss however as metering is through the lens the each type will still meter correctly.

Cheers,