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Archive 2016 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag

  
 
klb1122
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


I was finally convinced to pick up the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 and took it for a test drive a few weeks ago. These are all from the south side of Lake Livingston, taken the same day, just wandering around. At the end of the day, as the sun was setting a bald eagle came out of nowhere and did a fly over. I was a bit unprepared, but did what I could. I only got one shot at it. I'm a happy camper with this lens.

15 total photos.





#1






#2






#3






#4






#5



Edited on Mar 30, 2016 at 09:14 PM · View previous versions



Mar 30, 2016 at 09:08 PM
klb1122
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Continued...




#6






#7






#8






#9






#10




Mar 30, 2016 at 09:10 PM
klb1122
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Final 5...




#11






#12






#13






#14






#15




Mar 30, 2016 at 09:12 PM
jcnemy
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Nice shots!

Love the eagle pics.

Looks like the 200-500 is treating you well and this post keeps my desire itch for this lens active.

Thanks for sharing

JC



Mar 30, 2016 at 09:16 PM
KCollett
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


A varied collection with some good captures in there.


Mar 30, 2016 at 09:48 PM
rxgolf
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Looks like you had a busy opening day. There are some beautiful colors in your set!
Good job!
Greg



Mar 30, 2016 at 09:58 PM
surfnron
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


A nice set Kory. It looks like you got a good copy ~ Ron


Mar 31, 2016 at 06:47 AM
klb1122
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


jcnemy wrote:
Nice shots!

Love the eagle pics.

Looks like the 200-500 is treating you well and this post keeps my desire itch for this lens active.

Thanks for sharing

JC


Thank you. It's certainly a great piece of glass for the money.

---------------------------------------------

KCollett wrote:
A varied collection with some good captures in there.


Thank you!

---------------------------------------------

rxgolf wrote:
Looks like you had a busy opening day. There are some beautiful colors in your set!
Good job!
Greg


Thank you, Greg.

---------------------------------------------

surfnron wrote:
A nice set Kory. It looks like you got a good copy ~ Ron


Thank you, Ron.



Mar 31, 2016 at 10:26 AM
buzzard
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Great set.


Mar 31, 2016 at 10:51 AM
jdc562
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Sorry to be the grinch here, but I disagree with the other comments: most of the bird images displayed here are fairly soft. This may have been a result of the jpg conversions (processing) or in the original shots. Since the shots of the more stationary lizards are much sharper than the flying birds, I suspect it's a combination of a moving camera and moving subject with some kind of less-than-optimum focusing points and capture speeds. Some, but not all, of your shutter speeds are too slow for moving subjects. You could easily be shooting at much higher ISOs to get the faster shutter speeds. Also watch what the camera is focusing on. The very high resolution of the 810 will not be very forgiving of movement blur and less-than-optimum focusing. It's easy to fix these things by more trials and critical examination of your images. To reduce variables in baseline tests, I suggest also using a focus board. The target boards are cheap, or it's easy to make your own--just be sure that both the camera and the board are rigidly fixed (non moving) and the plane of the camera is parallel with the plane of the board.
---John



Mar 31, 2016 at 01:15 PM
klb1122
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


buzzard wrote:
Great set.


Thanks!
---------------------------------------------

jdc562 wrote:
Sorry to be the grinch here, but I disagree with the other comments: most of the bird images displayed here are fairly soft. This may have been a result of the jpg conversions (processing) or in the original shots. Since the shots of the more stationary lizards are much sharper than the flying birds, I suspect it's a combination of a moving camera and moving subject with some kind of less-than-optimum focusing points and capture speeds. Some, but not all, of your shutter speeds are too slow for moving subjects. You could easily be shooting at much higher ISOs to
...Show more

John, no feelings hurt here. I am curious which ones you are seeing as fairly soft? I'm pretty critical of my own images, especially with sharpness. They all appear sharp to me, but I may need to adjust my level of quality control. As I mentioned in the post, the eagle caught me off-guard. I would have certainly raised the shutter speed on those, but I'd rather have something than nothing. Thank you for your feedback.



Mar 31, 2016 at 03:31 PM
birdied
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Nice set ! I think the first egret looks very sharp. Four is fantastic. The lizards look very good. Nice grab on the eagles, are they large crops?

Hope you don't mind , and I will gladly remove the redo if you wish. I played with the first one.
Reduced the highlights and darkened the midtowns a bit in On1 Perfect Effects 10. Also tried to bring out a bit more detail in the whites with Topaz Detail 3.

Birdie







Mar 31, 2016 at 04:07 PM
morris
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Very nice veriority. Focus issues on the great egret. The rest look good.

Enjoy your new lens

Morris



Mar 31, 2016 at 06:05 PM
klb1122
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


birdied wrote:
Nice set ! I think the first egret looks very sharp. Four is fantastic. The lizards look very good. Nice grab on the eagles, are they large crops?

Hope you don't mind , and I will gladly remove the redo if you wish. I played with the first one.
Reduced the highlights and darkened the midtowns a bit in On1 Perfect Effects 10. Also tried to bring out a bit more detail in the whites with Topaz Detail 3.

Birdie


Birdie, I don't mind one bit! Thanks for taking the time. I respect your work and your trained eye. I have a ton to learn with wildlife. I was scared to push it too far with the highlights, but your edit looks much better and still natural. I'm curious if you applied these changes locally or throughout the whole image?

The eagle images are large crops.

---------------------------------------------

morris wrote:
Very nice veriority. Focus issues on the great egret. The rest look good.

Enjoy your new lens

Morris


Thanks, Morris. I went back and re-examined the egret shots. On the first one, it looks like the focus was picked up on one of the flying water droplets. Even at f/7.1 this did cause a problem for focus on the egret's eye. On the second one, I think the large crop was the problem. I appreciate the feedback.



Mar 31, 2016 at 08:51 PM
birdied
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


Birdie, I don't mind one bit! Thanks for taking the time. I respect your work and your trained eye. I have a ton to learn with wildlife. I was scared to push it too far with the highlights, but your edit looks much better and still natural. I'm curious if you applied these changes locally or throughout the whole image?

The eagle images are large crops.


In the On1 plug in, I did them universally, then erased them out of the areas I did not want the adjustment. Normally if I use Photoshop to do them, I select what I want and only do it in selected areas. There are several ways to get the same results, just what works best for you. Not sure what software you use for post work, but I do recommend the On1 Perfect Effects 10 plug in. I don't have the entire On 1 suite, just the perfect effects 10.

Birdie



Mar 31, 2016 at 09:19 PM
jdc562
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


klb1122 wrote:
Thanks!
---------------------------------------------

John, no feelings hurt here. I am curious which ones you are seeing as fairly soft? I'm pretty critical of my own images, especially with sharpness. They all appear sharp to me, but I may need to adjust my level of quality control. As I mentioned in the post, the eagle caught me off-guard. I would have certainly raised the shutter speed on those, but I'd rather have something than nothing. Thank you for your feedback.


Eagles aside, I guess your reply to Morris partly resolves the focus issue. To answer your question, on my 27" hi-res monitor the two egrets and two gulls are all soft, but less so the cormorant, bees, and lizards. It seems strange that you and others think the moving white birds are sharp--maybe you all are viewing smaller and/or lower res images? Your crop explanation to Morris may also explain why one of the egrets (the head shot) also shows some chromatic aberration (blue fringe) on the top edge of the head. As another possibility to examine, I have also seen similar softness in details from over aggressive noise correction and blown whites correction, which may explain the marshmallow-soft look to the egrets' feathers. If you are viewing on a smaller screen, try enlarging the images to see what I see. Birdie's improvements show the egret image contained more potential and you would get even more by working from the original, higher-res image. I nit pick my own images this way to optimize things like my focusing techniques, shutter speeds, exposure settings, IS settings, camera movement, post-processing techniques, lens quality, and calibration of the lens to the camera, all of which are more critical for images from the nit-revealing images from the 810's hi-res sensor. I go with the mantras of test, test, test and practice, practice, practice after soliciting advice from others on this forum whose work I most admire.
---John



Apr 01, 2016 at 12:36 PM
klb1122
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · First Day Out With The Nikon 200-500mm - Mixed Bag


birdied wrote:
In the On1 plug in, I did them universally, then erased them out of the areas I did not want the adjustment. Normally if I use Photoshop to do them, I select what I want and only do it in selected areas. There are several ways to get the same results, just what works best for you. Not sure what software you use for post work, but I do recommend the On1 Perfect Effects 10 plug in. I don't have the entire On 1 suite, just the perfect effects 10.

Birdie


Thanks for the detailed explanation!


---------------------------------------------

jdc562 wrote:
Eagles aside, I guess your reply to Morris partly resolves the focus issue. To answer your question, on my 27" hi-res monitor the two egrets and two gulls are all soft, but less so the cormorant, bees, and lizards. It seems strange that you and others think the moving white birds are sharp--maybe you all are viewing smaller and/or lower res images? Your crop explanation to Morris may also explain why one of the egrets (the head shot) also shows some chromatic aberration (blue fringe) on the top edge of the head. As another possibility to examine, I have also
...Show more

Thanks again for your feedback.



Apr 01, 2016 at 08:50 PM





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