mczuman wrote:
Excellent work! I've tried to do the same thing with redwings and had nowhere near the same success!
Thank you so much! It really helps to watch their flight patterns. As I observed them, I noticed some routes that they tended to fly. My hit rate greatly improved when I could predict their flights better.
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louie champan wrote:
What a great set, very well done.
Thank you very much, Louie!
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ElvisD wrote:
Spectacular set. Thanks for posting it.
With the red glint in the eyes and beak, #2 was my first favorite. After seeing the incredible profile shots, I'm not so sure.
Thank you, David! I really like those orange reflections - so glad that you've noticed them! I have a series of these head-on shots but I posted this one for the best reflections.
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pbraymond wrote:
Great sharp captures. Can almost be a study of different wing positions in flight. Especially enjoyed #1 and #5.
Thank you very much, Ray!!
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Photog Guy wrote:
Beautiful set! Great job. Thanks for sharing.
Phil
Thank you, Phil!
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sum1sgrampa wrote:
Beautiful light and colors. Excellent IQ and poses. Wonderful !
Gary
Thank you so much, Gary, really glad you liked them!
Bobg657 wrote:
Just a wonderful set of a very difficult subject! Thanks for posting!
Bob
Thank you, Bob!!
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DivineFocus wrote:
Excellent set of images. Numbers 5, 6, and 12 are particularly nice for the position of the birds. Really well done.
Thank you so much, Dan, much appreciated!
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Merlinator wrote:
Wonderful set of images. Enjoyed them very much.
Thank you!!
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vbnut wrote:
Incredible, you're contributing to my lust for an R5, although the R3 is still in the running. Thanks for sharing these.
I am curious, how much cropping did you do for these (on average)?
Thank you very much! These are around 4,000 pixels across for horizontal images - cropped down from 8,192.
I would not go with an R3 for bird photography. If you're shooting something like perched owls, sure, but in most scenarios with smaller or more distant birds you need more pixels. I discarded a bunch of great shots since I didn't put enough pixels on the bird - but that's exactly what I would be getting from a well-framed R3 shot!
R3 is great for sports photography and photojournalism but even with sports, it is so awesome to shoot a 300 2.8 where in the past I needed a 400 2.8. Having to stick to the mechanical shutter sucks so there are pros and cons there but for birding I'll take an R5 every time.
OSP2017 wrote:
Thank you very much! These are around 4,000 pixels across for horizontal images - cropped down from 8,192.
I would not go with an R3 for bird photography. If you're shooting something like perched owls, sure, but in most scenarios with smaller or more distant birds you need more pixels. I discarded a bunch of great shots since I didn't put enough pixels on the bird - but that's exactly what I would be getting from a well-framed R3 shot!
Great set of images! I'm definitely amazed at the skill it takes to pull this off successfully. I was going to say that you're one of the 10 people the 1200 f/8 is aimed at, but If you're already filling the frame that much then you'd run the risk of clipping parts of the image.
I agree completely about the MP. When you start talking about cropping you lose a lot of MP in a hurry and generally you want to still have the ability to down sample some versus using 1:1. If your image is roughly half width it's half width + half height, so 45MP becomes closer to 12MP. Do that on an R3 at it's about 6MP. That would be about enough detail for an 8 x 10" at 1:1, but if you wanted to down sample you'd probably feel more comfortable turning that into a 5 x 7" or 4 x 6". You can make that R3 get to the same 12MP final image by using a 1.4x TC, but then you're in the same boat as why people chose full frame over crop; it's much harder to track and keep the subject in frame when it's twice as large than it was before.
Kind of related to that idea I was playing around with the math the other day, and it dawned on me why the teleconverters make as big of deal to image quality as they do. Because of the fact that they magnify in both directions, the effective change is resolution is bigger than you might think it is. When we talk about MP in a camera, that is already a multiplication of width x height, so the effective change isn't being doubled. Most people likely equate a 2x TC = double the MP, but it's actually 4x. So an R3 with a 2x teleconverter is the same as a 96MP camera, not a 48MP like you might think. So for proper comparisons you'd want to compare a 1.4x R3 to an R5 and it would be interesting to see how IQ hit from the TC compares to the hit in quality from smaller pixels. If they end up being similar quality then the R5 has the framing advantage, but I'd argue the R3 has the AF advantage because the part of the image you're trying to use for focus is twice as large making it easier to detect contrast. I would definitely also point out if you're an R3 user and you fear going to an R5 would be like taking the 2x TC hit, it's not as dramatic of a change as that. You'd want to compare R3 + 2x TC versus R5 + 1.4. That's where things would become really interesting.
bman212121 wrote:
So for proper comparisons you'd want to compare a 1.4x R3 to an R5 and it would be interesting to see how IQ hit from the TC compares to the hit in quality from smaller pixels. If they end up being similar quality then the R5 has the framing advantage, but I'd argue the R3 has the AF advantage because the part of the image you're trying to use for focus is twice as large making it easier to detect contrast. I would definitely also point out if you're an R3 user and you fear going to an R5 would be like taking the 2x TC hit, it's not as dramatic of a change as that. You'd want to compare R3 + 2x TC versus R5 + 1.4. That's where things would become really interesting....Show more →
Thank you! You cannot really compare them like this as they are both FF cameras and you frame your subjects the same way with them. If I need a 2x extender to fill the frame on the R5, I'll use it, and if I want to shoot wider to show more of a scene, I'll shoot the same way with a lower MP camera.
Prior to shooting with an R5, I shot birds with a 7D2. In theory, it puts slightly more pixels on a bird than an R5. In practice, however, I shoot with a 600 on my R5 where I used a 400 on the 7D2. For distant birds, 7D2 never worked well with a 2x and R5 is totally fine with it so I end up with more pixels per duck in all shooting scenarios. My framing is the same but R5 has more MP.
These are absolutely amazing. The photos are so very clean... what a perfect background!
You've got some amazing wing positions w/ the red epaulets glowing in the light. Images 2 and 12 are my favorites...
p.2 #10 · Red-winged Blackbirds in Flight (Mostly)
OSP2017 wrote:
Thank you! You cannot really compare them like this as they are both FF cameras and you frame your subjects the same way with them. If I need a 2x extender to fill the frame on the R5, I'll use it, and if I want to shoot wider to show more of a scene, I'll shoot the same way with a lower MP camera.
Prior to shooting with an R5, I shot birds with a 7D2. In theory, it puts slightly more pixels on a bird than an R5. In practice, however, I shoot with a 600 on my R5 where I used a 400 on the 7D2. For distant birds, 7D2 never worked well with a 2x and R5 is totally fine with it so I end up with more pixels per duck in all shooting scenarios. My framing is the same but R5 has more MP.
If you can fill the frame, yes the R5 will put more pixels on the subject than the R3 does. But any time you crop in post you are lowering the resolution of the final image. The point isn't so much that you can't get a higher output from the R5, you always can. The point is that if you deemed the R5 output satisfactory enough to crop versus using another extender, with the same frame on the R3 you might not feel the same way. So to make up for that you can use more zoom which means the final output should still be the same, it just requires more effort to get the shot.
Don't get me wrong I'm advocating there is a reason for going for additional MP, but the argument can be made that if you're cropping the sensor then someone will state you should have used more lens because you're throwing away light. There is always a balance to that equation. I could capture the same final output with 100MP camera on 400mm and have the same frame with the same MP, and have an easier time doing it. But you certainly could argue I'm throwing away some image quality compared to your setup because I discarded a huge portion of the light that was captured. You'd be right, but it would also be accurate for a comparison of R5 vs R3.
EDIT: I would add that comparing the R5 @ 600 to the 7D2 @ 400 isn't a fair fight. The reason is that regardless of the type of camera it's on, the EF lens image circle is the same. So when you mount it on a crop body, a bunch of the light being captured by the sensor is just hitting dead space in the camera body. On full frame there are sensors there to pick up that light and do something with it. That said, if you used the 600 on both bodies, the amount of light per pixel would be roughly the same since the pixels are around the same size. Then when you crop in post, you're just dis guarding all of those unused pixels on your R5 that aren't present on the 7D2. So in reality if they were the same generation sensor they would have almost the same output, but the hat tip goes to the full frame body because of the wider FOV which makes subject acquisition a lot easier. Obviously the R5 being newer the sensor is better per pixel and is still going to win.
p.2 #16 · Red-winged Blackbirds in Flight (Mostly)
OwlsEyes wrote:
These are absolutely amazing. The photos are so very clean... what a perfect background!
You've got some amazing wing positions w/ the red epaulets glowing in the light. Images 2 and 12 are my favorites...
bruce
Thank you so much for your kind comment, Bruce! Really glad that you enjoyed these!
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CW100 wrote:
nice - I've never got a red-wing blackbird in flight
Thank you! I studied their flight routes; these guys are highly territorial and I found that they repeatedly followed certain flight patterns. My hit rate was getting better and better as I kept observing them.
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RKnecht wrote:
What a killer set! Fantastic work here!
I have a series of these head-on shots but I posted this one for the best reflections. 
