This probably may not interest too many, but I've been wanting to shoot 'long' landscapes, etc. When shooting at 400mm, in hot and humid weather, it's amazing what effect the atmosphere will have on a shot.
I've always wanted to get this shot, but it's harder than it looks. The railroad tracks are way above the road that runs beside it, but there is one place where a slight hill elevates you to the same level as the tracks. Anyway, this is a fairly sharp curve, and the train has just come across the Satilla River, in a 45mph zone. I was a little over a quarter of a mile away, and wanted to show the train coming out of the wall of trees and greenery.
Anyway, what I wanted to show is, some people complain about sharpness of a long lens, when in fact it may just be atmospheric. Today was very hazy, and you can see some of that here. However, by looking at the crop, you can actually see the bending/breaking of the light due to heat, humidity, etc.
Now here's a 100% crop. Before you jump to conclusions, what you see here is not the lens, but the atmosphere causing the distortion of light. It's kind of the opposite of macro, in that you have a whole 'nuther set of problems when you're going long. http://www.jackobrienphoto.com/images/fm/80400images/_DSC0019CropWeb.jpg
I am still quite amazed and impressed with this lens, plus, I like the look of the atmospheric distortion. For these types of images, it adds to the look of heat
jmcfadden wrote:
yep Jack , shooting long lens stuff for sharpness over a long distance in the mid day sun Everything will look fuzzy , but hey fuzzy is good 'no
I love this one bro
J
Thanks John! I wish I could move these tracks, they run north and south, and the trees on the east and west side throw the tracks into a black hole when the sun is low in the sky! The light is much better in winter though....
I'm not much of an expert on long lenses having just got my first one a few weeks ago (Sigma 500mm/f4.5) but the atmosphere is a bugger. I use a scope for birding with a few Pentax eye pieces and the atmosphere is almost always the limiting factor. Put a 40x much less 50x-60x eyepiece on an otherwise flawless 80 or 85 scope and you get problems real fast.
I'm not much of an expert on long lenses having just got my first one a few weeks ago (Sigma 500mm/f4.5) but the atmosphere is a bugger. I use a scope for birding with a few Pentax eye pieces and the atmosphere is almost always the limiting factor. Put a 40x much less 50x-60x eyepiece on an otherwise flawless 80 or 85 scope and you get problems real fast.
Those 80-400 shots look nice though Jack.
Cheers,
Craig Ryder
Thanks Craig. I was pretty naive about this until I saw what Glenn Davy was doing with his. I was trying to see it for myself today, and it's amazing because you can see it in the finder. Anyway, cleaner colder air in the winter will help this a lot.
I too love this lens and I am very happy I purchased it. I took this shot when we had a fire at my Condo complex. I was home that day, and rushed over with my D70 and shot away. There was no haze problem, but some of the firefighters were overcome with the heat. This is my first post here. I only did minor sharpening and only a little lighting up the image. It was shot in raw. and hand held.
