Colin F wrote:
^^^ The trouble is, they fly past at various distances, some closer than this, some further. I did try the 1.25 TC, but again, because of the insane speed that they fly past, it's almost impossible to keep 'em in the frame. It's easy when they're approaching, but when they're in the zone, they're like a bullet.
Yes, you have to setup your TCs to account for the closest they will get. It is not easy. A dot sight helps a lot. You have to decide if it's worth the risk of not getting the shot vs getting one with higher image quality. That's up to personal preference. Personally, if I already have a record shot like the one you have, then I would risk losing some photos to get one with higher image quality. It is boring for me to take home a bunch of average/mediocre shots. Once I have a couple, I start working for some stunners. I might come home with nothing, but at least I have a chance at a shot I want. Bringing home hundreds of average shots, in my eyes, is like coming home with nothing anyways.
If you are built like me and strive for the ultimate photo, then that's what you'll need to do. Especially in this system, you want to crop as little in post as possible, and that means you will lose shots with cut off frame.
That's the challenge we face every time, because of our low megapixel count. We need to fill the frame in order to get details. I have since upped the shutterspeed to 4k and above to get the sharpness too.
Colin F wrote:
^^^ The trouble is, they fly past at various distances, some closer than this, some further. I did try the 1.25 TC, but again, because of the insane speed that they fly past, it's almost impossible to keep 'em in the frame. It's easy when they're approaching, but when they're in the zone, they're like a bullet.
RSK01 wrote:
That's the challenge we face every time, because of our low megapixel count. We need to fill the frame in order to get details. I have since upped the shutter speed to 1/4000 and above to get the sharpness too.
Don't be afraid to attach TCs and bump up the ISO when it gets darker. Yes you will lose more detail with higher ISO, but you can also afford to lose more, since you have more megapixels on the subject. Having more megapixels on the subject also lends itself well to aiding noise reduction software average out and more accurately predict the correct color for the pixels where it's correcting noise. I found this to be true in my own testing. You can try it yourself in a controlled environment. You can figure out at what point, the ISO is just too high to be salvageable. From my testing, it was favorable to shoot at higher ISO and keep the TC on (and noise reduce after), rather than opting for lower ISO and having fewer pixels on subject. The combination with the TC yielded more details on subject. This is true up to a certain point. I don't remember how high of ISO exactly, but it was definitely beyond 12,800 with TC on.
I think I have the ISO limit in the camera at 12,800, but since discovering DXO PR3 recently, I'm not too worried - this shot taken the other day was in low light, and at 10,000 ISO. (1/4000 sec)
Here's a thought: I have the AF setting to S-IS 1, but I'm wondering if BIF results would be better/sharper if I was to turn off IS altogether given the fast shutter speed and panning. Anybody have any experience with that with the OM-1 and 150-400?
Colin F wrote:
Here's a thought: I have the AF setting to S-IS 1, but I'm wondering if BIF results would be better/sharper if I was to turn off IS altogether given the fast shutter speed and panning. Anybody have any experience with that with the OM-1 and 150-400?
Turning off IS would take IS out of the equation, but you now have to have your best hand held smoothness to keep subject in frame. That would be a good test to see how much you are making the IS hold the subject in the frame if you yourself is bouncing around too much.
Colin look at some menu settings:
In the "menu first group#1" "Tab 8" second one down is "Image Stabilizer" See if you have it set to "FPS Priority".
In menu "AF" section "Tab 1" 6 line down " Release Priority" try " C-AF/C-AF+TR" to "ON".
In the menu "cogwheel" "Tab 3" third one down "Frame Rate" set this to "Normal".
You can highlight the line item and press "INFO" button and will display a short clue what the line item does.
AFAIK all IS panning control happens in the OM-1. So for the previous example where you're panning horizontally either S-IS Auto or S-IS2 should be appropriate choices. Canon and Fuji have both had lenses which specifically contained their own panning detection controllers that could effect results. Olympus/OM hasn't ever done this to my knowledge and I can't find any indication the 150-400 is any different.
Whether or not your shutter speed and hand holding are stable enough with IS off is worth experimenting with though. I still roughly follow the 1/shutter speed rule. When I'm much faster than that I'll turn OIS/IBIS off.
Paul_100A wrote:
"Image Stabilizer Handheld Assist (Shooting Menu 1, 8th Sub-menu)
New for the OM-1, Image Stabilizer Handheld Assist will display an image stabilization square when you half press the shutter to focus. A smaller square within the larger square will move indicating how much you are moving while handholding the camera."
i did 'try that out' for kicks very early on just for a minute after reading the manual.
i may be remembering/interpreting it wrong...is that utility indicating if one's handholding 'skills', or lack thereof, are beyond what the IS system is capable of correcting?
if the smaller square (indicating the user's hand shake) hits and/or goes outside the IS square...does that indicate the handshake movement is outside of what the IS system can correct (move the IS/IBIS)?...Show more →
With my first (non-film) OM-1 on the way, I'm very happy hear this is available! The only other camera I know that did this was the Konica-Minolta 7D and its immediate Sony alpha successors. The 7D was the first DSLR with IBIS, and it was imperfect enough that it still mattered if you held the camera steadier. I would watch that little bar graph in the OVF and calm my muscles until it showed I was steady enough. It was a biofeedback device that helped you do your job better.
HicHic wrote:
I'm very pleased with my 300/4 images, even with the 2x. I've seen very few images in the 150-400 thread that match what my 300/4 can do, but I see plenty of mediocre results. It's hard to say if the lens is poor, or if it's just due to the photographer. If the 150-400 can emulate what my 300/4 does, but with the added bonus of the flexibility to zoom out when the subject gets too close, then that would be perfect.
If you are shooting at 400mm with a 1.4x, then the results should be very close to the A1 when using a 600mm lens (given the same shooting distance), since you will need to crop significantly in post on the A1 in order to match the OM-1's framing. ...Show more →
I find my 150-400 as sharp as my 300/4. (See the vulture pic earlier in this thread). Has anyone ever compared the Made in Japan 150-400 vs the Made in Vietnam 150-400? Mine is the Japanese model.
Colin F wrote:
Yes, that's just a file that I had made for Instagram, thus the square aspect ratio. I much prefer landscape aspect ratio for most images, but that looks too small and lacking impact on IG. For IG, it's either 1080x1080 or 1080x1350 portrait, and I'm amazed at how many people don't know that, or just don't bother to crop accordingly. I see many images that are posted as landscape, but there's clearly a much better photo sitting there in plain sight with a square or portrait crop.
Here's the original frame, and yes, adding the 1.25 TC made it very difficult to stay on the bird once it was in front of me, as these birds fly very fast....Show more →
Looking at your original frame, Colin, I really can say you should be able to get more detail on your subject at 1/3200 and in this regard I disagree with HicHic that your result is typical.
To me, it looks very soft. I have a few shots of Goldeneyes taken with the Nikon 500PF and some of them are even smaller in the original frame, and yet you can see see better feather detail and pixel-level sharpness. And I am talking about the unsharpened Raw, before even "basic" sharpening is applied: when I start with a Raw, all sharpening including the default is turned off. Of course, it's also important to compare similar birds as different sized-feather strands on birds confuse some (compared for example Grey Catbird and Cedar Waxwing, with the former having large strands and the latter having very fine strands).
So, at the resized version that you provided, you should be able to get much better pixel-level detail than you are getting, for sure. Personally, I would be very disappointed with an image like that.
It is hard to tell exactly what the problem is here, where it is slightly out of focus or whether it is the lens.
Alan Kefauver wrote:
I find my 150-400 as sharp as my 300/4. (See the vulture pic earlier in this thread). Has anyone ever compared the Made in Japan 150-400 vs the Made in Vietnam 150-400? Mine is the Japanese model.
HicHic wrote:
I have the Vietnam 150-400. It is definitely softer than the 300/4.
I have the Vietnam 150-400 and the 300/4 and in my controlled tests, the only time that it's "softer" than the 300/4 @ f4.5 is at far distances when looking at LR pixel peeping 300% where the zoom has a little veiling.
The only other difference i can see is that they have slight difference in color rendering even with corrected white balance (the zoom is more neutral) and the prime has slight higher magnification at closer distances than the zoom @ 300mm.
Photo shot below is tripod for both lenses on OM-1 Mark II with flash (to negate any form of shake). Original size can be downloaded at Flickr.
