This common egret came to my house the first time on Feb 2020, she/he is three years older and still going strong.
She comes to hunt for lizards and mole rats, the second being the preferred dish- I saw her get three today, she waits by the burrow totally immobile for hours, when the mole rat peeks out she strikes.
Tried the 800mm 5.6 with a TC-14B, 1,120mm, this was too much lens, but the image quality was very decent, here is a sample:
She kept moving closer and closer to the house, ignoring me, I took the TC off, the photos improved contrast, the background got prettier, and the lower ISO also made them better:.
The image quality of the 800mm 5.6 EDIF, so sharp and contrasty, with no color aberrations around the highlights, is very satisfying.
Eventually she was right against the pool fence and I could no longer take photos without scaring her off as the fence was hiding her, she did get her meal.
This is a very heavy crop - 100% - this lens could use a Z7II
(how's that for manual focusing skills!)
rafaelcasd wrote:
This common egret came to my house the first time on Feb 2020, she/he is three years older and still going strong.
She comes to hunt for lizards and mole rats, the second being the preferred dish- I saw her get three today, she waits by the burrow totally immobile for hours, when the mole rat peeks out she strikes.
Tried the 800mm 5.6 with a TC-14B, 1,120mm, this was too much lens, but the image quality was very decent, here is a sample:
She kept moving closer and closer to the house, ignoring me, I took the TC off, the photos improved contrast, the background got prettier, and the lower ISO also made them better:.
The image quality of the 800mm 5.6 EDIF, so sharp and contrasty, with no color aberrations around the highlights, is very satisfying.
Eventually she was right against the pool fence and I could no longer take photos without scaring her off as the fence was hiding her, she did get her meal.
This is a very heavy crop - 100% - this lens could use a Z7II
(how's that for manual focusing skills!)
Part of the reason I have not bought a Z7II is that if I don't buy the OP or the Millennium, or the 7cm Micro Nikkor LTM is that I may not ge another good chance.
The Camera I can buy anytime.
Loved getting acquainted with the 5cm 1.4 S.C rangefinder, great fun to play with.
The 8.5cm 2.0 LTM or S are really fantastic, and work well with adverse light.
The 8.5cm renders very nice, all the little flowers in this Japanese succulent (Do you know the name of it?) show in detail the glowing light of sunset.
I played catch up on this thread yesterday and one of the posts that caught my eye realted to lens resolution on digital sensors.
From a personal point of view as I've progressed from a D70 through a D200 (both CCD sensors), to D7200 and D500 (CMOS sensors) and highly capable cameras I don't find the results as satisfying as they once were. By less satisfying, I mean the images seem a bit softer - I realise that this is subjective and may have someting to do with my sight although using the focusing dot most of them seem OK when I take the shot.
As I have a little time on my hands, I'll do some empirical testing of my lenses on the Z5 using a tripod and post the results which, hopefully, will be of interest to someone here
As promised - not great light and SOC All on the Z5 and all at f8
All 100% crop to 900x600 pixels
In every case the focus peaking was clear but when I refocused on my screen the eye was not "in focus" so i refocused on that - All on tripod at 1/30 , ISO 1000
If I get a chance I'll try something different in brighter light
Oosty wrote:
As promised - not great light and SOC All on the Z5 and all at f8
All 100% crop to 900x600 pixels
In every case the focus peaking was clear but when I refocused on my screen the eye was not "in focus" so i refocused on that - All on tripod at 1/30 , ISO 1000
If I get a chance I'll try something different in brighter light
Hey Oom! Good to see you.
I must try this on my Z5 although it's an exercise that interests me the least. More data points never hurt. In general, I found focusing wide angle lenses on mirrorless to be almost mission impossible. The focus peeking was near useless. The widest MF focal length I have now is 35mm and I find the zoom plenty sharp at F8. Since you were on tripod, did you have the IBIS on or off.
With respect to higher MP and observed sharpness, I was not completely happy with 24MP DX when I had D5500. In quite a few lenses I found I needed to add a bit more sharpness to achieve something I found decently sharp for me. No such issues at 20MP DX (Z50) and 24MP FX(Z5). But as we now know, I prioritise the shooting experience over clinical sharpness.
I totally agree with your take in the CCD sensor. I’ve kept my D200 for that very reason.
Oosty wrote:
I played catch up on this thread yesterday and one of the posts that caught my eye realted to lens resolution on digital sensors.
From a personal point of view as I've progressed from a D70 through a D200 (both CCD sensors), to D7200 and D500 (CMOS sensors) and highly capable cameras I don't find the results as satisfying as they once were. By less satisfying, I mean the images seem a bit softer - I realise that this is subjective and may have someting to do with my sight although using the focusing dot most of them seem OK when I take the shot.
As I have a little time on my hands, I'll do some empirical testing of my lenses on the Z5 using a tripod and post the results which, hopefully, will be of interest to someone here ...Show more →
Oosty wrote:
As promised - not great light and SOC All on the Z5 and all at f8
All 100% crop to 900x600 pixels
In every case the focus peaking was clear but when I refocused on my screen the eye was not "in focus" so i refocused on that - All on tripod at 1/30 , ISO 1000
If I get a chance I'll try something different in brighter light
Peter, this was my experience with focusing on DSLRs - D3, D800, D810.
On the D3 and D800 I had to approach focusing from the near side and stop as soon as the focusing indication was steady, not flickering. If I went further the indicator was still steady but focusing would be too far by a bit.
On the D810 I have to approach focusing from far, with the same routine stop once the indicator becomes steady, else focusing will be off by a bit.
This worked with most lenses, a bit difficult at closer distances with the lenses like the 85 1.4, or 200 2.0; but it worked for the most part.
I could never focus the 800mm 5.6 with DSLRs, it was always off.
I was happy with DSLRs and bought a Z6 only to mount weird lenses that could not be mounted on an SLR camera.
But focusing with the Z6, with finder magnification and peaking highlights is so easy and accurate!
With the Z6 I can get 95% of my shots perfect, by just watching for the eye or other feature of interest to go red with the peaking highlights.
Hoping you'all are ok with more kitten photos. Ruby and Oscar on the patio furniture in 2018 with the 300mm f2.8 ais. All shot wide open. I am finding folders I never imaged.
So cute, and yes, I'm fine with more cat photos. My three kittens still have energy galore, but they're 18 months old now so....
James Markus wrote:
Hoping you'all are ok with more kitten photos. Ruby and Oscar on the patio furniture in 2018 with the 300mm f2.8 ais. All shot wide open. I am finding folders I never imaged.
rafaelcasd wrote:
Peter, this was my experience with focusing on DSLRs - D3, D800, D810.
On the D3 and D800 I had to approach focusing from the near side and stop as soon as the focusing indication was steady, not flickering. If I went further the indicator was still steady but focusing would be too far by a bit.
On the D810 I have to approach focusing from far, with the same routine stop once the indicator becomes steady, else focusing will be off by a bit.
This worked with most lenses, a bit difficult at closer distances with the lenses like the 85 1.4, or 200 2.0; but it worked for the most part.
I could never focus the 800mm 5.6 with DSLRs, it was always off.
I was happy with DSLRs and bought a Z6 only to mount weird lenses that could not be mounted on an SLR camera.
But focusing with the Z6, with finder magnification and peaking highlights is so easy and accurate!
With the Z6 I can get 95% of my shots perfect, by just watching for the eye or other feature of interest to go red with the peaking highlights.
Thanks Rafael - ishot s few more with varius lenses, handheld and using the viewfinder. Initially I was not ecstatic but later applied the old "Sunny 16 rule, instead of M plus auto ISO and things improved a bit. Focus peaking still a bit off, I've tried all 3 sensitivities, and some of the results are visually pleasing but compared to my newer lenses, very soft.. All processed in Photolab 4 denoised in PL4 exported to Flickr as jpeg
