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ddrueding

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The color would look better closer to daylight or a few hundred K below that rather than auto.
I can't really get the kind of IQ I want out of it. Is that level of detail typical from the 7D II or something about the lens? :(

IMHO, it is overexposed and pretty severely cropped. With those considerations, the quality is pretty average for that lens/body.
 

snowhiker

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Not great photographs or anything, just an attempt to catch a double rainbow without getting too much rain on my camera/lens. It was much more dramatic (and more defined) than I could capture with the camera. I tried with and without CP filter. CP filter was better.





 

Tea

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Rainbows are shy. They hate having their photo taken. Nearly always, they come out very pale and unimpressive. I'm not sure why. Is it psychological? Or optical?

This is one of the very few I've ever had look OK.

100606-165759-c.jpg


According to my arcane file-naming system, it appears to be a slightly cropped but otherwise unaltered shot straight out of the camera, from the in-camera JPG. (I habitually shoot raw + JPG, but if the JPG looks the way I want it to, I don't bother using the raw. The key is getting the exposure right and above all, the white balance. White balance is easy: if you are shooting with natural light (or even with flash in many cases), set the WB to daylight and leave it there. This gives natural, realistic colours 95 times out of 100, which is way, way better than any other sensible method. Set it to daylight, don't touch it unless you are indoors. Even then, think twice.)
 

Buck

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Wow! Great pictures. I haven't taken many pictures of any significance for a few years. That last couple of pictures that meant something to me were taken last year for my parents anniversary.
 

LunarMist

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UT/CO/AZ was mostly a disaster in early June due to the weather, so I had very little of use. :(
 

snowhiker

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^^ Nice shots.

1) Interesting building/outhouse. Crop seems kinda tight? I wanna see the whole building now.
2) Is that your pooch in the water? It's only going to be a cool 104 today but I'd still love to jump in that lake.
3) You water ski too?!? You are a renaissance man DD.
4) Did you use the 100-400 with or without the 2x extender? Looks like you had to crank up the ISO to get the shot.
 

LunarMist

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^^ Nice shots.

1) Interesting building/outhouse. Crop seems kinda tight? I wanna see the whole building now.
2) Is that your pooch in the water? It's only going to be a cool 104 today but I'd still love to jump in that lake.
3) You water ski too?!? You are a renaissance man DD.
4) Did you use the 100-400 with or without the 2x extender? Looks like you had to crank up the ISO to get the shot.

According to the EXIF, #1 and 4 are at 400mm without a TC. #4 is only ISO 400. DD will have to explain what was done in PP to make it so grainy or why a shutter speed of 1/2000 at f/5.6 was used.
 

snowhiker

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According to the EXIF, #1 and 4 are at 400mm without a TC. #4 is only ISO 400. DD will have to explain what was done in PP to make it so grainy or why a shutter speed of 1/2000 at f/5.6 was used.

I was wondering how you got the EXIF, then Doh, just download image and check properties. And yeah, what happened? ISO 400 shouldn't be that grainy?!? High crop maybe? As far as exposure it could have been an "Oh shit, take pic QUICK before bird flies away" type of deal with no time to play with exposure. Could have gotten ISO to 100 @ 1/500 (lens wide open @ f/5.6). Or 1/250 @ f/8 (lens probably sharper at f/8) and rely on the IS to keep image sharp?

I'm getting more interested in being a birder but it will have to wait till next year, or killer sale, before I can get a tele lens.
 

ddrueding

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^^ Nice shots.

1) Interesting building/outhouse. Crop seems kinda tight? I wanna see the whole building now.
2) Is that your pooch in the water? It's only going to be a cool 104 today but I'd still love to jump in that lake.
3) You water ski too?!? You are a renaissance man DD.
4) Did you use the 100-400 with or without the 2x extender? Looks like you had to crank up the ISO to get the shot.

According to the EXIF, #1 and 4 are at 400mm without a TC. #4 is only ISO 400. DD will have to explain what was done in PP to make it so grainy or why a shutter speed of 1/2000 at f/5.6 was used.

I was wondering how you got the EXIF, then Doh, just download image and check properties. And yeah, what happened? ISO 400 shouldn't be that grainy?!? High crop maybe? As far as exposure it could have been an "Oh shit, take pic QUICK before bird flies away" type of deal with no time to play with exposure. Could have gotten ISO to 100 @ 1/500 (lens wide open @ f/5.6). Or 1/250 @ f/8 (lens probably sharper at f/:cool: and rely on the IS to keep image sharp?

I'm getting more interested in being a birder but it will have to wait till next year, or killer sale, before I can get a tele lens.

1. Tight crop is intentional, as I wanted to pull out as much of the texture as possible. Here is the wide shot.
View attachment 931
2. That is my friend's dog, and the water was about 63F in the shallow bits and much cooler as you went in. I did not.
3. Not a water-skier, just the photographer. Walked down to the lake at about 7AM and those guys were already out.
4. This was still pretty early in the day, and most of the birds had been lower in the trees/shadows. Hence the high ISO, didn't feel I had time to make the adjustments. This is also a super-tight crop, original here.
View attachment 932
 

ddrueding

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^^ Nice shots.

1) Interesting building/outhouse. Crop seems kinda tight? I wanna see the whole building now.
2) Is that your pooch in the water? It's only going to be a cool 104 today but I'd still love to jump in that lake.
3) You water ski too?!? You are a renaissance man DD.
4) Did you use the 100-400 with or without the 2x extender? Looks like you had to crank up the ISO to get the shot.

According to the EXIF, #1 and 4 are at 400mm without a TC. #4 is only ISO 400. DD will have to explain what was done in PP to make it so grainy or why a shutter speed of 1/2000 at f/5.6 was used.

I was wondering how you got the EXIF, then Doh, just download image and check properties. And yeah, what happened? ISO 400 shouldn't be that grainy?!? High crop maybe? As far as exposure it could have been an "Oh shit, take pic QUICK before bird flies away" type of deal with no time to play with exposure. Could have gotten ISO to 100 @ 1/500 (lens wide open @ f/5.6). Or 1/250 @ f/8 (lens probably sharper at f/:cool: and rely on the IS to keep image sharp?

I'm getting more interested in being a birder but it will have to wait till next year, or killer sale, before I can get a tele lens.

1. Tight crop is intentional, as I wanted to pull out as much of the texture as possible. Here is the wide shot. I was told that this outhouse adds extra value because it is a "two-holer".
View attachment 931
2. That is my friend's dog, and the water was about 63F in the shallow bits and much cooler as you went in. I did not.
3. Not a water-skier, just the photographer. Walked down to the lake at about 7AM and those guys were already out.
4. This was still pretty early in the day, and most of the birds had been lower in the trees/shadows. Hence the high ISO, didn't feel I had time to make the adjustments. This is also a super-tight crop, original here.
View attachment 932
 

LunarMist

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Attachments 931 and 932 are invalid for some reason.
 

snowhiker

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^^ OK I see your point about the texture in the green building shot. If I could I would have gotten the macro out and shot just the hell out of that building. The hinge, the antler door knob, the rust coming off the nails, green wood, willey sign, spider webs, etc. Love that type of stuff. For me the close crop was almost "painful" because my eyes were trying to zoom out the image. Some type of optical illusion, at least for my weakening eyes.

I like the wide shot of the building. Were the two shots taken at different times as the shadows are different?

ISO 400 isn't really that high, I guess the tighter crop on the bird brought out the grain. Can you guesstimate the distance to the bird? You had a 400mm lens on a crop sensor, so I wonder how small that bird would be at 300mm on a full-frame camera.

Maybe you mentioned it before and I forgot but what exposure mode are you using?

I've been using and liking "M"anual mode with auto-ISO. Forces me to check:
1) is shutter fast enough to eliminate shake and/or fast enough to stop motion?,
2) is aperture stopped down 1-2 stops or more if DOF is important for shot?
3) is resulting ISO low? Adjust # 1 & 2 to get best ISO/combo of the three.
 

LunarMist

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^^ OK I see your point about the texture in the green building shot. If I could I would have gotten the macro out and shot just the hell out of that building. The hinge, the antler door knob, the rust coming off the nails, green wood, willey sign, spider webs, etc. Love that type of stuff. For me the close crop was almost "painful" because my eyes were trying to zoom out the image. Some type of optical illusion, at least for my weakening eyes.

I like the wide shot of the building. Were the two shots taken at different times as the shadows are different?

ISO 400 isn't really that high, I guess the tighter crop on the bird brought out the grain. Can you guesstimate the distance to the bird? You had a 400mm lens on a crop sensor, so I wonder how small that bird would be at 300mm on a full-frame camera.

Maybe you mentioned it before and I forgot but what exposure mode are you using?

I've been using and liking "M"anual mode with auto-ISO. Forces me to check:
1) is shutter fast enough to eliminate shake and/or fast enough to stop motion?,
2) is aperture stopped down 1-2 stops or more if DOF is important for shot?
3) is resulting ISO low? Adjust # 1 & 2 to get best ISO/combo of the three.

The 7D II in general is rather noisy so proper PP technique is needed. The blue channel is the noisiest (in all sensors), which makes it worse. I'd do a quack mask on the blue and reduce the sharpening.
With the Nikon sensors, there is minimal noise as the lower ISOs. The bird is already too far away for a useful image. You need to find a larger/closer bird for the D750. :lol:
 

ddrueding

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That bird was at the top of a 75' tree that was 400'+ away. As Lunar said, it is just too far. As I'm sure everyone here knows, when you get back from a trip and realize most of the pictures are worse than you expected, your standards drop a bit.
 

LunarMist

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If the images are worse than you expected then you need to figure out why and improve.
After a while you should be able to visualize what the final image will actually look like before you take it or before even lifting the camera.
The problem is that people tend to visualize what they want the image to look like.
 

ddrueding

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If the images are worse than you expected then you need to figure out why and improve.
After a while you should be able to visualize what the final image will actually look like before you take it or before even lifting the camera.
The problem is that people tend to visualize what they want the image to look like.

Indeed. I'm getting a bit better at having a feel for the right ISO/Exposure/F-stop before looking at the camera. Mostly I'm leaving the lens as open as possible and deciding between 100, 200, and 400 ISO. After that is framing.

Mainly the images that don't come out are due to camera shake or subject motion. I compensate for this by making much faster exposures, but that leads to the higher noise we discussed earlier.

With the 7D I was having tons of pictures AF poorly or entirely wrong, the 7DII has almost entirely resolved this.

Framing and composition is still a ways off for me; once taking a technically correct picture is more automatic and consistent I'll worry about the creative bit.
 

snowhiker

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That bird was at the top of a 75' tree that was 400'+ away. As Lunar said, it is just too far. As I'm sure everyone here knows, when you get back from a trip and realize most of the pictures are worse than you expected, your standards drop a bit.

Wow, OK, that is quite a distance. With that new info I'd say you got a decent shot for that great a distance and small bird.

I'm kind of on the opposite side of the spectrum as far as how I think I did "photography wise". I assume I just shot crap all day long, then am a bit surprised when I take a few decent shots.
 

ddrueding

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I'm used to getting 3-5% success. This time it was closer to 1%. I'm thinking it was the unusual environment (never shot in that kind of terrain/light).
 

snowhiker

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Test.

More car photos to come.

Camera set to 14-bit RAW + FINE JPG image capture mode. I then used paint.net to resize JPGs to less than 8MB for free image host site.

Click once for "full-screen" sized image, click that image for full 6016x4016 image. Warning free image host site is very slow on FULL 24MP image download.





Edit: I should have used a CP filter. Sigh.
 

LunarMist

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Test.

More car photos to come.

Camera set to 14-bit RAW + FINE JPG image capture mode. I then used paint.net to resize JPGs to less than 8MB for free image host site.

Click once for "full-screen" sized image, click that image for full 6016x4016 image. Warning free image host site is very slow on FULL 24MP image download.

Edit: I should have used a CP filter. Sigh.

What do you mean by CP filter? You should work on composition. Also, are you cropping with that software?
 

snowhiker

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What do you mean by CP filter? You should work on composition. Also, are you cropping with that software?

Circular Polarizer. No cropping, that image is straight out of the camera. Just used paint.net to re-save image and alter jpg compression just enough to get image size under 8 MB for image host.

Semi-quick story. Driving to my brothers retirement house with him and mom in car we rolled through the tiny town of Yarnell and on the main/only street (actually just highway 89) was a car show. With mom in the car (she can't walk far) Bro and I jumped out to take a some pics. I didn't have a lot of time, so I quickly captured just over 200 shot in about 20-25 minutes. Did not know about car show or would have allotted more time to taking pics, remembering to use CP filter, take time, etc. Basically just squat down a bit, take a pic, move to other side of car if there was room/no people, take a pic, then rush to next car. Shots more to capture cars than actually take good photos.

ANY/ALL input and suggestions very welcomed. Thanks in advance. I'll upload more pics soon.
 

time

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Because the sunny side reflects the sun straight into the camera? I'm just guessing, but reflective surfaces and direct sunlight are usually highly problematic.
 

Stereodude

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Because the sunny side reflects the sun straight into the camera? I'm just guessing, but reflective surfaces and direct sunlight are usually highly problematic.
Which is where technical know how comes in handy to make sure the highlights don't ruin the exposure. A polarizer can also help.
 

LunarMist

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A polarizer does nothing for metal. It might help a little if paint is very waxy.
 

Stereodude

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Not too shabby. Generally the sun behind your subject over the shoulder like your 3rd shot works best for outdoors. Add a reflector, something like this, to bounce light on the front of your subjects for fill.
 
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