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Archive 2012 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

birdied
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Put the 1.4 TC on the 500mm this morning after my attempts at fine tuning and hit the backyard.

It appears , at least to my untrained eye, that it is better. However, I would appreciate your opinions on that.

Some of the shots were underexposed. Got noise and loss of detail bringing them up, but I was really checking the focus point.

The focus point on these is the eye.

Appreciate all your help guys. This is new territory for me . I was a bit unsure I was doing this correctly.

Thanks for you input.

Birdie

Aug 13, 2012 at 08:00 PM

Rob Tillyer
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

They look bang on from here, nice work.

Rob

Aug 13, 2012 at 08:10 PM

sritri
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

They look perfect Birdie. On the Cardinal in #2 the focus was not on the eye I guess ?

Aug 13, 2012 at 08:17 PM

KCollett
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

They look good to my tired old eyes. Nice images Birdie.

Aug 13, 2012 at 09:28 PM

Tim Kuhn
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

I'll do my best to help you out Birdie, I do hope none of it comes across as being harsh

1 I'll take your word that you lost some on this one, there is a fair amount of oddness going on. That said I do think the eye area is in focus and sharp. The pupil looks great.

2 This looks a tad like front focusing to me, certainly acceptable but to my eye bits of the body closer to the camera are in better focus than the eye.

3 This one I do love, I just don't think you hit the eyes with the focus. That really would have made all the difference in this one. To me it looks like you composed like a macro, I think that is a wonderful idea, it's just that the eyes aren't in focus

4 pure beauty. The focus looks great but this wouldn't be a good image to judge that on, the body is so small that a small amount of front or rear focusing might not be visible.

One thing to keep in mind with TC's (

I'm not a big fan of them ) is that you lose a lot of DOF. Stop it down some to compensate

Tim

Aug 13, 2012 at 09:46 PM

Karl Witt
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

This might be interesting to see on the EXIF I pulled on these:

#1 Focus: At 12m, with a depth of field of about 7.7cm, (from about 3.8cm before the focus point to about 3.9cm after)

#2 Focus: At 9.4m, with a depth of field of about 4.8cm, centered on the focus point

#3 Focus At 5.6m, with a depth of field of about 16mm, centered on the focus point

#4 Focus At 6.0m, with a depth of field of about 1.8cm, centered on the focus point

I'll take a chance from what I see and disagree with Tim on #3, I think the outside curvature of the left eye is the focus point and is sharp, the lack of surrounding detail is deceptive.

I also don't think that the repetitive accuracy of AF on many cameras is precise. Many threads speak of what we see as the focal point by the highlighted area is not an accurate rendition of what the camera actually sees.

I find these all acceptably sharp and more sharpness may come from a different way of saving and processing your files.

Karl

Here is a question I have for you and others, is this rendition sharper than yours?

Aug 13, 2012 at 10:14 PM

birdied
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Thank you Rob very much.

Shreeni, it appears the focus point is just a hair off the eye

Ken, thank you. My eyes hurt after all of this

Tim, thank you so very much for your detailed comments, there is nothing harsh at all . I appreciate the honesty and the willingness to help. I did not realize that the TC's decrease dof, but that explains a lot. I was wondering why I was not getting the results I usually get a certain apertures. Man oh man , so many variables !! I just need to get a longer focal length, that would be one solution ,

.

Birdie

Aug 13, 2012 at 10:32 PM

birdied
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Karl , I guess there is no way getting around the math

Understanding the science certainly helps the art. Not only do I need to work on the art, but it would appear as importantly the science.

Yes, your redo appears much sharper. Now you know that I am going to ask you -- what did you do?
What I did was --
Open in Lightroom 4
Did the exposure adjustments and cropping in Lightroom 4

Move to CS5 for further adjustments
Noise Reduction using Topaz
Sharpening using -- Smart sharpen
Curves adjustments and /or levels adjustments
Vibrance and Brightness adjustments
( On a couple of the photos , I used viveza 2 for some contrast ,brightness , etc. adjustments ) The Cardinal I did not use viveza 2.
Resize and output sharpness using Nik Software ProSharpener 2
Save for web setting in CS5.

Thats about it.

Your redo certainly leaves me wanting to know how did you do that

Birdie

Aug 13, 2012 at 10:48 PM

kaycephoto
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

these photos are very sharp, great shots Birdie!

as stated earlier, processing/resizing techniques can take you the rest of the distance - esp for web viewing

Aug 13, 2012 at 10:51 PM

DonGut
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Aug 13, 2012 at 11:06 PM

jodelak
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

I agree with Tim, all the points he brought up. I also liked Karl pp, it is a bit sharper but the beauty of the picture is the same, imho. With all that said, these set is superb, image quality that will take me years of experience to accomplish

Aug 13, 2012 at 11:07 PM

kmunroe
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

DonGut wrote:
Those guys are good; all legit comments. I think we are often way too critical of our own work. Yes we can get picky, but the overall image and initial impression is what counts. All of your images look great. It's only the micro analysis that brings out any criticism. I think your focus is more than acceptable. Personally I like TC's but you have to trade off something for using them.
Good work by the way.
Don

+1

Aug 14, 2012 at 03:22 AM

Karl Witt
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

birdied wrote:
Karl , I guess there is no way getting around the math

Understanding the science certainly helps the art. Not only do I need to work on the art, but it would appear as importantly the science.

Yes, your redo appears much sharper. Now you know that I am going to ask you -- what did you do?
What I did was --
Open in Lightroom 4
Did the exposure adjustments and cropping in Lightroom 4

Move to CS5 for further adjustments
Noise Reduction using Topaz
Sharpening using -- Smart sharpen
Curves adjustments and /or levels adjustments
Vibrance and Brightness adjustments
( On a couple of the photos...Show more →

'Percreived' sharpness Birdie, I did NO SHARPENING to your image at all

I merely selected the eyeball and used Curves to lighten it.
Next I selected the eye and a patch around it and added '8' on Contrast........That's it!

Noise reduction, is this on entire image when you do it or selective to areas and BG??

I am extremely happy with my Canon 1.4TC on the Canon 400 F5.6L, would I prefer a Canon 500 f/4L over that combo.................Yup

How likable an image and how sharp an image is can be two entirely different things. Do continue to work for the best setup from your gear, Do continue to keep the overall look of an image in mind too.It is not a good thing for us photographers when we lose confidence in our gear as we tend to blame it rather than ourselves

Before you change much more, I would repeat your procedures and see how things look, I don't believe any two shots that you allow the camera to re-auto focus on could be identical, close yes but identical no. If you see a continuous pattern that you don't like or understand then perhaps you tinker a bit more.

Have fun, your images are always very delightful to my eyes

Karl

Aug 14, 2012 at 09:35 AM

UKbadger
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Karl

that is one very cool PP lesson!

UKB

Aug 14, 2012 at 11:06 AM

Charlie Shugart
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

First- as usual, Birdie, all of these are excellent!
I'll leave the tech discussion to others because I know zip about it.
All of these look a tiny bit soft to me, and since we're splitting hair-like feathers here (

), here's my two cents worth:
Below: With your first image, I used 50% auto color, and 75% overall sharpening.
Is the difference noticeable to anyone besides myself?
Charlie

Aug 14, 2012 at 01:30 PM

waldr_p
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Well others have said it all about the focus Birdie, I'll just say that these are another fine set from you!

Paul.

Aug 14, 2012 at 02:19 PM

Shasoc
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Birdie, you did a very good job on the MA. These look a lot better than the previous ones.
@ Charlie. Your image looks over-sharpened on my monitor.
Socrate

Aug 14, 2012 at 03:19 PM

surfnron
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

These are great as is Birdie, but as others have pointed out, could be just a tad better.

Karl, you devil,

my thought when looking at the shot was that you just tinkered with the eye, and for once, I got it right...

Ron

Aug 14, 2012 at 03:31 PM

Charlie Shugart
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

Must be time to recalibrate my monitor

.
Or maybe my spectacles

.
Or my eyes?

.
Charlie

Shasoc wrote:
Birdie, you did a very good job on the MA. These look a lot better than the previous ones.
@ Charlie. Your image looks over-sharpened on my monitor.
Socrate

Aug 14, 2012 at 03:43 PM

birdied
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Opinions if I did my TC adjustment correctly please

these photos are very sharp, great shots Birdie!

as stated earlier, processing/resizing techniques can take you the rest of the distance - esp for web viewing

Thanks Kayce! I am open to any teaching on proper ways to process and resize

Those guys are good; all legit comments. I think we are often way too critical of our own work. Yes we can get picky, but the overall image and initial impression is what counts. All of your images look great. It's only the micro analysis that brings out any criticism. I think your focus is more than acceptable. Personally I like TC's but you have to trade off something for using them.
Good work by the way.
Don

Thank you Don, and I agree that I am probably my own worse critic. However, asking you guys for input , education and guidance is helping me see things in a whole new way . Hopefully I can take away something and use it to educate myself and hopefully make some improvements.
I have learned much about TC's with this experience . I now have a better idea of what to expect when using one if nothing else .

I agree with Tim, all the points he brought up. I also liked Karl pp, it is a bit sharper but the beauty of the picture is the same, imho. With all that said, these set is superb, image quality that will take me years of experience to accomplish

I am learning a lot with this post and I appreciate that your very kind words.

+1

Thank you Kenny. I agree with Don also , but yet strive to do better

Aug 14, 2012 at 04:49 PM

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