Tonight I went out to capture a full moon. For the first time, I see a significant difference between the 600/4 and then adding the 2x TC. I used a 10 second timer for both. Steady shot was turned off.
Just returned from a week of tracking and photographing otters on the Inner Hebrides. Wet and windy conditions for long periods but so enjoyable to spend time around these engaging subjects.
rji2goleez wrote:
Tonight I went out to capture a full moon. For the first time, I see a significant difference between the 600/4 and then adding the 2x TC. I used a 10 second timer for both. Steady shot was turned off.
Curious as to which image (bare lens or 2x) looks better to you? Based on these jpegs reduced for web, I'd say the bare lens is showing a bit better contrast and a little more detail in the outer craters. However, I'd think a few small adjustments to the 1200mm shot would even things out. But it also sort of looks like the bare lens shot is slightly over-sharpened seen on those outer craters??
Is the 1200mm shot looking better or worse when viewing the full size file at home?
rji2goleez wrote:
Tonight I went out to capture a full moon. For the first time, I see a significant difference between the 600/4 and then adding the 2x TC. I used a 10 second timer for both. Steady shot was turned off.
The metadata seems a bit strange to me. You do not seem to have done an equivalent exposure.
arbitrage wrote:
Curious as to which image (bare lens or 2x) looks better to you? Based on these jpegs reduced for web, I'd say the bare lens is showing a bit better contrast and a little more detail in the outer craters. However, I'd think a few small adjustments to the 1200mm shot would even things out. But it also sort of looks like the bare lens shot is slightly over-sharpened seen on those outer craters??
Is the 1200mm shot looking better or worse when viewing the full size file at home?
The 1200mm shot is definitely looking worse to me and tried shooting at 1200mm a variety of ways such as varying ISO and shutter spped, Steadyshot on and off, etc. The 600mm shot may be a bit over sharpened and it is cropped significantly more but it is still sharper.
dclark wrote:
The metadata seems a bit strange to me. You do not seem to have done an equivalent exposure.
You're right Dave. See my post just above. I was trying all kinds of variations to see if it had an impact on overall sharpness but all the results were the same.
rji2goleez wrote:
The 1200mm shot is definitely looking worse to me and tried shooting at 1200mm a variety of ways such as varying ISO and shutter spped, Steadyshot on and off, etc. The 600mm shot may be a bit over sharpened and it is cropped significantly more but it is still sharper.
Thanks for the reply. I've recently been doing some controlled tests on the Sony TCs on the zoom lenses and in a lot of cases am finding similar where a deeper crop into the bare lens is just as good as the TC shot. In my tests it depended on how much the crop was on the bare lens file and how high of ISO I had to compensate with for the light loss of the TC.
I routinely tear my hair out trying to decide if TCs are worth it most of the time.
If you have a chance to try the moon again maybe try to even the exposures. The bare lens is stopped down 2 stops from wide open which may be helping it compete with a wide open lens with the 2xTC. Maybe stopping down the 1200mm shot or shooting wide open with the bare lens would even things. I'd keep ISO constant and just vary the SS as you should have enough SS for a moon in full sunlight.
It's clear to me that the lens with the 2x TC yields sharp images. This image was taken during the same session. Of course, there's no controlled testing here but this scene was in near darkness except for the car lights. Focus was on the orange ice house. I could hardly see the tents and icehouse closest to me until I got back to the computer.
's up to all posters!
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