Category Archives: Wildlife Photography

Raw File Compression

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Raw File Compression.

Today I’m going to give you my point of view over that most vexatious question – is LOSSLESS raw file compression TRULY lossless?

I’m going to upset one heck of a lot of people here, and my chances of Canon letting me have any new kit to test are going to disappear over the horizon at a great rate of knots, but I feel compelled to post!

What prompts me to commit this act of potential suicide?

It’s this shot from my recent trip to Norway:

FW1Q1351-2

Direct from Camera

FW1Q1351

Processed in Lightroom

I had originally intended to shoot Nikon on this trip using a hire 400mm f2.8, but right at the last minute there was a problem with the lens that couldn’t be sorted out in time, so Calumet supplied me with a 1DX and a 200-400 f4 to basically get me out of a sticky situation.

As you should all know by now, the only problems I have with Canon cameras are their  short Dynamic Range, and Canons steadfast refusal to allow for uncompressed raw recording.

The less experienced shooter/processor might look at the shot “ex camera” and be disappointed – it looks like crap, with far too much contrast, overly dark shadows and near-blown highlights.

Shot on Nikon the same image would look more in keeping with the processed version IF SHOT using the uncompressed raw option, which is something I always do without fail; and the extra 3/4 stop dynamic range of the D4 would make a world of difference too.

Would the AF have done as good a job – who knows!

The lighting in the shot is epic from a visual PoV, but bad from a camera exposure one. A wider dynamic range and zero raw compression on my Nikon D4 would allow me to have a little more ‘cavalier attitude’ to lighting scenarios like this – usually I’d shoot with +2/3Ev permanently dialled into the camera.  Overall the extra dynamic range would give me less contrast, and I’d have more highlight detail and less need to bump up the shadow areas in post.

In other words processing would be easier, faster and a lot less convoluted.

But I can’t stress enough just how much detrimental difference LOSSLESS raw file compression CAN SOMETIMES make to a shot.

Now there is a lot – and I mean A LOT – of opinionated garbage written all over the internet on various forums etc about lossless raw file compression, and it drives me nuts.  Some say it’s bad, most say it makes no difference – and both camps are WRONG!

Sometimes there is NO visual difference between UNCOMPRESSED and LOSSLESS, and sometimes there IS.  It all depends on the lighting and the nature of the scene/subject colours and how they interact with said lighting.

The main problem with the ‘it makes no difference’ camp is that they never substantiate their claims; and if they are Canon shooters they can’t – because they can’t produce an image with zero raw file compression to compare their standard lossless CR2 files to!

So I’ve come up with a way of illustrating visually the differences between various levels of raw file compression on Nikon using the D800E and Photoshop.

But before we ‘get to it’ let’s firstly refresh your understanding. A camera raw file is basically a gamma 1.0, or LINEAR gamma file:

gamma,gamma encoding,Andy Astbury

Linear (top) vs Encoded Gamma

The right hand 50% of the linear gamma gradient represents the brightest whole stop of exposure – that’s one heck of a lot of potential for recording subtle highlight detail in a raw file.

It also represents the area of tonal range that is frequently most effected by any form of raw file compression.

Neither Nikon or Canon will reveal to the world the algorithm-based methods they use for lossless or lossy raw file compression, but it usually works by a process of ‘Bayer Binning’.

Bayer_Pattern

If we take a 2×2 block, it contains 2 green, 1 red and 1 blue photosite photon value – if we average the green value and then interpolate new values for red and blue output we will successfully compress the raw file.  But the data will be ‘faux’ data, not real data.

The other method we could use is to compress the tonal values in that brightest stop of recorded highlight tone – which is massive don’t forget – but this will result in a ’rounding up or down’ of certain bright tonal values thus potentially reducing some of the more subtle highlight details.

We could also use some variant of the same type of algorithm to ‘rationalise’ shadow detail as well – with pretty much the same result.

In the face of Nikon and Canons refusal to divulge their methodologies behind raw file compression, especially lossless, we can only guess what is actually happening.

I read somewhere that with lossless raw file compression the compression algorithms leave a trace instruction about what they have done and where they’ve done it in order that a raw handler programme such as Lightroom can actually ‘undo’ the compression effects – that sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me!

Personally I neither know nor do I care – I know that lossless raw file compression CAN be detrimental to images shot under certain conditions, and here’s the proof – of a fashion:

Let’s look at the following files:

raw file compression

Image 1: 14 bit UNCOMPRESSED

raw file compression

Image 2: 14 bit UNCOMPRESSED

raw file compression

Image 3: 14 bit LOSSLESS compression

raw file compression

Image 4: 14 bit LOSSY compression

raw file compression

Image 5: 12 bit UNCOMPRESSED

Yes, there are 2 files which are identical, that is 14 bit uncompressed – and there’s a reason for that which will become apparent in a minute.

First, some basic Photoshop ‘stuff’.  If I open TWO images in Photoshop as separate layers in the same document, and change the blend mode of the top layer to DIFFERENCE I can then see the differences between the two ‘images’.  It’s not a perfect way of proving my point because of the phenomenon of photon flux.

Photon Flux Andy??? WTF is that?

Well, here’s where shooting two identical 14 bit uncompressed files comes in – they themselves are NOT identical!:

controlunamplified control

The result of overlaying the two identical uncompressed raw files (above left) – it looks almost black all over indicating that the two shots are indeed pretty much the same in every pixel.  But if I amplify the image with a levels layer (above right) you can see the differences more clearly.

So there you have it – Photon Flux! The difference between two 14 bit UNCOMPRESSED raw files shot at the same time, same ISO, shutter speed AND with a FULLY MANUAL APERTURE.  The only difference between the two shots is the ratio and number of photons striking the subject and being reflected into the lens.

Firstly 14 Bit UNCOMPRESSED compared to 14 bit LOSSLESS (the important one!):

raw file compression

14 bit UNCOMPRESSED vs 14 bit LOSSLESS

Please remember, the above ‘difference’ image contains photon flux variations too, but if you look carefully you will see greater differences than in the ‘flux only’ image above.

raw file compression raw file compression

The two images above illustrate the differences between 14 bit uncompressed and 14 bit LOSSY compression (left) and 14 bit UNCOMPRESSED and 12 bit UNCOMPRESSED (right) just for good measure!

In Conclusion

As I indicated earlier in the post, this is not a definitive testing method, sequential shots will always contain a photon flux variation that ‘pollutes’ the ‘difference’ image.

I purposefully chose this white subject with textured aluminium fittings and a blackish LED screen because the majority of sensor response will lie in that brightest gamma 1.0 stop.

The exposure was a constant +1EV, 1/30th @ f 18 and 100 ISO – nearly maximum dynamic range for the D800E, and f18 was set manually to avoid any aperture flicker caused by auto stop down.

You can see from all the ‘difference’ images that the part of the subject that seems to suffer the most is the aluminium part, not the white areas.  The aluminium has a stippled texture causing a myriad of small specular highlights – brighter than the white parts of the subject.

What would 14 bit uncompressed minus 14 bit lossless minus photon flux look like?  In a perfect world I’d be able to show you accurately, but we don’t live in one of those so I can’t!

We can try it using the flux shot from earlier:

raw file compression

But this is wildly inaccurate as the flux component is not pertinent to the photons at the actual time the lossless compression shot was taken.  But the fact that you CAN see an image does HINT that there is a real difference between UNCOMPRESSED and LOSSLESS compression – in certain circumstances at least.

If you have never used a camera that offers the zero raw file compression option then basically what you’ve never had you never miss.  But as a Nikon shooter I shoot uncompressed all the time – 90% of the time I don’t need to, but it just saves me having to remember something when I do need the option.

raw file compression

Would this 1DX shot be served any better through UNCOMPRESSED raw recording?  Most likely NO – why?  Low Dynamic Range caused in the main by flat low contrast lighting means no deep dark shadows and nothing approaching a highlight.

I don’t see it as a costly option in terms of buffer capacity or on-board storage, and when it comes to processing I would much rather have a surfeit of sensor data rather than a lack of it – no matter how small that deficit might be.

Lossless raw file compression has NO positive effect on your images, and it’s sole purpose in life is to allow you to fit more shots on the storage media – that’s it pure and simple.  If you have the option to shoot uncompressed then do so, and buy a bigger card!

What pisses my off about Canon is that it would only take, I’m sure, a firmware upgrade to give the 1DX et al the ability to record with zero raw file compression – and, whether needed or not, it would stop miserable grumpy gits like me banging on about it!

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Autofocus Guide for Long Lens Bird in Flight Photography

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GX2R2055-Edit-2

My Autofocus Guide for Bird in Flight Photography is finished and available for download in my online store – here, priced £29.00

The download is in the no-frills .pdf format.

This is my ‘real world’ guide to Canon & Nikon Autofocus which is specifically aimed at photographers using long lenses for Bird in Flight photography.

I sell my full resolution wildlife and natural history images every day via the various global image libraries to which I am a contributor.  The largest percentage of these sales are Birds in Flight.

Image libraries demand tack sharp, full resolution uploads from their contributors;  even marginal sharpness will result in an image being rejected by Quality Control.

A large male White-tailed eagle, locally known as "Brutus", carrying a very large Coalfish which he has just caught.

A large male White-tailed eagle, locally known as “Brutus”, carrying a very large Coalfish.

In this guide, I take you right back to the basics of subject speed and distance; and how this impacts on our choice of camera body and lens focal length and working aperture.

A Red Kite in a fast dive against a blue sky.

A Red Kite in a fast dive against a blue sky.

You’ll learn how phase detection autofocus works – only by really understanding how your autofocus system works, and what its control settings actually do, will you truly be able to control it in the way you need to for the particular task at hand.

I give you exposure and autofocus control settings for both Canon and Nikon, based on ‘real world’ full resolution images – settings that actually work, and do the job you expect them to do.

We also discover the various ‘tips ‘n tricks’ we need to know to help the autofocus system do the job we are asking it to do.

We also look at the short-comings of both the Nikon and Canon systems, and how to work around them in order to produce tack sharp images of birds in flight – HAND HELD – forget that tripod; you can’t move fast enough with one!

Photographers who have read this guide as it was being written have called it ‘the definitive guide’.  I’m not going to be so big-headed as to promote it as such myself, but I will say that it’s taken a while to produce, is pretty darn thorough, and I have the shots to prove it!

Available for purchase in my online store right now.

Please Note: This document relates to LONG LENS continuous auto focus tracking in Nikon AFC and Canon AI Servo modes in conjunction with continuous shooting modes on Nikon D4/4S and Canon 1Dxbodies with v2 firmware or higher, and is primarily related to capturing Birds in Flight and other fast-paced wildlife action photography.
Canon 5DMk3/7DMk2 users will also find this guide very useful, as will non-wildlife shooters.

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Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 CF

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 The Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 Compact Flash Card from Calumet – review

The Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 Compact Flash Card

The Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 Compact Flash Card from Calumet – click image to visit the product order page.

Because I’m something of a photographic ‘old fart’ and have been taking images for a living since before the venerable A1 was a glimmer in some Canon engineers eye, I treat everything new with suspicion!

Back in those days when we shot on film, suspicious gits like me had our favourite films we used.  These were whittled down from the vast array on offer, not only on the basis of their performance, but also on reliability.

Did the sprocket holes tear in a particular camera – if they did then to avoid imminent disaster you’d never put that film in that camera.

Were the ‘tails’ always taped to the cassette spool? Christ, that one nearly cost me a boat-load of money at a wedding once – both bride and groom were barristers!

Thank the Lord we don’t have problems like that any more.

But CF cards come with their equivalent problem – card failure.

CF cards are basically Flash RAM, just like SSDs in the latest computers.  And as such they are prone to some degree of instant failure over time.

 The Way I Use Camera Storage Media

When I’ve finished shooting something I move it from the camera storage to my main imaging machine as soon as possible.  Once the shots are on the computer, the card goes back in the camera and is immediately reformatted.

Back when the D3 was Nikon’s flagship I’d had some clonking failures of Lexar CF cards and Sandisk Ultras, when Kevin Treadwell at TFC Birmingham put me on to Delkin cards – and I have never had a problem with them………(see footnote)…

And the two original 16Gb Delkins I bought for the D3 are still going strong to this day!

So when I eventually moved to the D4 I wanted a 32Gb Delkin UDMA 7 to go with the 32Gb Sony XQD, but I couldn’t locate one anywhere.

I was moaning about this to Stuart Tudor-Wood at Calumet Birmingham and he suggested I tried their own Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 instead.

Can you imagine what the “suspicious old photography fart” in me was saying; I was used to possibly the most reliable memory on the planet, and the priciest; and here was something I’d never heard of, and costing pretty much the same..

I did manage to walk out of the door without paying for it, so that was a small victory – but it only lasted 3 weeks until I was doing another workshop there – he nailed me for it the minute I walked through the door!

So, here we are, two years later.  The other day I realised how long I’d had this card in regular use.  It’s a mighty rare occurrence for me to have a day shooting long lens action and not generate some use of the CF card.

Even if I’ve only shot to the XQD card, force of habit leads me to format both cards one after the other.

And if I’m going to shoot video I shoot that to the XQD and then remove it if I want to shoot stills, which consequently go to the CF card.

When I’m testing lenses and shooting for workshop slides etc I shoot to the CF card, then stick that in my steam-powered laptop – it can never see my XQD reader and I daren’t even think about asking it to accommodate tethered shooting..

I bought the card a new brother so I had two of them in the 1DX when I went to Norway in February this year.

All in all, looking back through all the image batches I’ve shot I reckoned that this one card had been reformatted 981 times in a selection of camera bodies from a 1DX and 5DMk3 to a D4S, D4, D800, D800E and D810.

In the D4 this card allows me to shoot 41 14bit uncompressed raw files before I hit the end of the camera buffer; which let’s face it, is plenty.

So I promptly set about shooting 20 bursts of 41 frames, wiping the card between bursts, just so that I could say with some degree of certainty that the card had just hit its 1000th reformat.

Now THAT is a good, solid and highly reliable card that has put up with more abuse in the last two years than some of my clients would give their CF cards in a lifetime.

What Do The ‘Hieroglyphics’ All Mean?

I must admit to being somewhat ambivalent to the majority of these speed numbers – at the end of the day, as a photographer you are more interested in sustained write speed than you are in read speed – or at least you should be.

The faster the write speed of the media the longer it takes to hit the end of the camera internal buffer – this means you shoot more sequential frames in a burst.

CF6

This logo means the media is compliant with the CFA’s CF6 specification, which is supposed to provide data transfer rates of 167Mb/sec.

But that quoted transfer rate could be either read or write – they never seem to commit!

CF6 specification means UDMA 7 compliance; whereas UDMA 6 equated to CF 5 specification and transfer speeds of 133Mb/sec.

CF cards have to communicate with a host device – in our case our camera; and UMDA is the most efficient and fastest mode of communication. But not ALL cameras are UDMA compliant.  And those that are might not be UDMA 7 compliant.

If a camera is not UDMA compatible then believe it or not, a slower non-UDMA card might make the camera work faster. If you put a UDMA 7 card in a camera that is only UDMA 6 compliant then that’s fine, but communication between the two will be at UDMA 6 speeds.

The moral here is to check your camera specifications, and available firmware upgrades.

What does 1010x mean? Known as the card Commercial X Rating it’s an indication of read speed more than anything else, and basically relates the speed of the card as a multiple of the old CD-ROM standard of 150KBs.  So 1010x equates to 151.15Mbs.

But here’s the thing; none of these speeds, theoretical or otherwise, are derived via a camera – they are all acquired on a test-bench computer and a variety of card interfaces.

There is a simple if slightly ‘rough ‘n ready’ test that you can do to check the camera/media combo write speed:

  1. Set the camera to its fastest RAW shooting frame rate (Canon 1DX users note, that’s NOT 14fps!).
  2. Set the burst length to 30 frames.
  3. Put the camera in manual mode, auto iso, and set the shortest shutter speed.

Get a stop-watch and be prepared to start it when the ‘data write’ indicator lights up.

Press and hold the shutter button to start the burst of exposures, take your finger off the shutter button when the camera stops shooting.  The indicator light will still be on, and the stop watch should still be running.  Stop the clock when the light goes out!

Multiply the number of frames by the size of your RAW file, then divide the result by the time in seconds and you’ll have a rough value for your data write speed in Mb/sec.

In a Canon 1DX the Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 CF card chugs away at a highly respectable 69Mbs write speed.

32Gb of storage with great reliability and ‘real world’ write speed like that is great – especially for the price.

Nikon Users

If, like me, you mainly shoot uncompressed 14 bit RAW (not an option for Canon shooters) the write speed of the Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 CF card in a D4/4S will drop to around 41Mbs due to the much increased file size of each RAW frame – 35.9Mb average RAW size, as opposed to the 1DX average file size of around 26.4Mb.

But sensible burst shooting in conjunction with the huge Nikon D4/4S buffer means you will never suffer from ‘buffer lock-out’.

Conclusion

Bearing in mind that this is just my opinion, the Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 CF card represents exceptionally good value for money.  Yes, there are faster cards out there; but I’ve been bitten by both S****** and L**** in the past, and ‘once bitten twice shy’ and all that……

For me the write/format longevity of this card is what strikes me the most, and for the price this card is well worthy of anyone’s consideration.

Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 CF card,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels

Two years and over 1000 reformats, the Prospec 32Gb UDMA 7 CF card is still going strong – have a Kite!

Footnote

I’ve just had it confirmed……..the Prospec is actually Delkin; so bearing in mind what I said earlier, the reliability comes as no surprise!

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Image Sharpness

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Image Sharpness

I spent the other afternoon in the Big Tower at Gigrin, in the very pleasant company company of Mr. Jeffrey “Jeffer-Cakes” Young.    Left arm feeling better yet Jeff?

I think I’m fairly safe in saying that once feeding time commenced at 3pm it didn’t take too long before Jeff got a firm understanding of just how damn hard bird flight photography truly is – if you are shooting for true image sharpness at 1:1 resolution.

I’d warned Jeff before-hand that his Canon 5Dmk3 would make his session somewhat more difficult than a 1Dx, due to it’s slightly less tractable autofocus adjustments.  But that with his 300mm f2.8 – even with his 1.4x converter mounted, his equipment was easily up to the job at hand.

I on the other hand was back on the Nikon gear – my 200-400 f4; but using a D4S I’d borrowed from Paul Atkins for some real head-to-head testing against the D4 (there’s a barrow load of Astbury venom headed Nikon’s way shortly I can tell you….watch this space as they say).

Amongst the many topics discussed and pondered upon, I was trying to explain to Jeff the  fundamental difference between ‘perceived’ and ‘real’ image sharpness.

Gigrin is a good place to find vast armies of ‘photographers’ who have ZERO CLUE that such an argument or difference even exists.

As a ‘teacher’ I can easily tell when I’m sharing hide space with folk like this because they develop quizzical frowns and slightly self-righteous smirks as they eavesdrop on the conversation between my client and I.

“THEY” don’t understand that my client is wanting to achieve the same goal as the one I’m always chasing after; and that that goal is as different from their goal as a fillet of oak-smoked Scottish salmon is from a tin of John West mush.

I suppose I’d better start explaining myself at this juncture; so below are two 800 pixel long edge jpeg files that you typically see posted on a nature photography forum, website or blog:

image sharpness, Andy Astbury, Wildlife in Pixels, Red Kite

IMAGE 1. Red Kite – Nikon D4S+200-400 f4 – CLICK IMAGE to view properly.

Click the images to view them properly.

image sharpness, Andy Astbury, Wildlife in Pixels, Red Kite

IMAGE 2. Red Kite – Nikon D4S+200-400 f4 – CLICK IMAGE to view properly.

“THEY” would be equally as pleased with either…..!

Both images look pretty sharp, well exposed and have pretty darn good composition from an editorial point of view too – so we’re all golden aren’t we!

Or are we?

Both images would look equally as good in terms of image sharpness at 1200 pixels on the long edge, and because I’m a smart-arse I could easily print both images to A4 – and they’d still look as good as each other.

But, one of them would also readily print to A3+ and in its digital form would get accepted at almost any stock agency on the planet, but the other one would most emphatically NOT pass muster for either purpose.

That’s because one of them has real, true image sharpness, while the other has none; all it’s image sharpness is perceptual and artificially induced through image processing.

Guessed which is which yet?

image sharpness, Andy Astbury, Wildlife in Pixels, Red Kite

IMAGE 1 at 1:1 native resolution – CLICK IMAGE to view properly.

Image 1. has true sharpness because it is IN FOCUS.

image sharpness, Andy Astbury, Wildlife in Pixels, Red Kite

IMAGE 2 at 1:1 native resolution – CLICK IMAGE to view properly.

And you don’t need glasses to see that image 2 is simply OUT OF FOCUS.

The next question is; which image is the cropped one – number 2 ?

Wrong…it’s number 1…

image sharpness, Andy Astbury, Wildlife in Pixels, Red Kite

Image 1 uncropped is 4928 pixels long edge, and cropped is 3565, in other words a 28% crop, which will yield a 15+ inch print without any trouble whatsoever.

Image 2 is NOT cropped – it has just been SHRUNK to around 16% of its original size in the Lightroom export utility with standard screen output sharpening.  So you can make a ‘silk purse from a sows ear’ – and no one would be any the wiser, as long as they never saw anything approaching the full resolution image!

Given that both images were shot at 400mm focal length, it’s obvious that the bird in image 1 (now you know it’s cropped a bit) is FURTHER AWAY than the bird in image 2.

So why is one IN FOCUS and the other not?

The bird in image 1 is ‘crossing’ the frame more than it is ‘closing in’ on the camera.

The bird in image 2 is closer to the camera to begin with, and is getting closer by the millisecond.

These two scenarios impose totally different work-loads on the autofocus system.

The ability of the autofocus system to cope with ANY imposed work-load is totally dependent upon the control parameters you have set in the camera.

The ‘success’ rate of these adjustable autofocus parameter settings is effected by:

  1. Changing spatial relationship between camera and subject during a burst of frames.
  2. Subject-to-camera closing speed
  3. Pre-shot tracking time.
  4. Frame rate.

And a few more things besides…!

The autofocus workloads for images 1 & 2 are poles apart, but the control parameter settings are identical.

The Leucistic Red Kite in the shot below is chugging along at roughly the same speed as its non-leucistic cousin in image 2. It’s also at pretty much the same focus distance:

image sharpness, Andy Astbury, Wildlife in Pixels, Red Kite

Image 3. Leucistic Red Kite – same distance, closing speed and focal length as image 2. CLICK IMAGE to view larger version.

So why is image 3 IN FOCUS when, given a similar scenario, image 2 is out of focus?

Because the autofocus control parameters are set differently – that’s why.

FACT: no single combination of autofocus control parameter settings will be your ‘magic bullet’ and give you nothing but sharp images with no ‘duds’ – unless you use a 12mm fish-eye lens that is!

Problems and focus errors INCREASE in frequency in direct proportion to increasing focal length.

They will also increase in frequency THE INSTANT you switch from a prime lens to a zoom lens, especially if the ‘zoom ratio’ exceeds 3:1.

Then we have to consider the accuracy and speed of the cameras autofocus system AND the speed of the lens autofocus motor – and sadly these criteria generally become more favourable with an increased price tag.

So if you’re using a Nikon D800 with an 80-400, or a Canon 70D with a 100-400 then there are going to be more than a few bumps in your road.  And if you stick to just one set of autofocus control settings all the time then those bumps are going to turn into mountains – some of which are going to kill you off before you make their summit….metaphorically speaking of course!

And God forbid that you try this image 3 ‘head on close up’ malarkey with a Sigma 50-500 – if you want that level of shot quality then you might just as well stay at home and save yourself the hide fees and petrol money !

Things don’t get any easier if you do spend the ‘big bucks’ either.

Fast glass and a pro body ‘speed machine’ will offer you more control adjustments for sure.  But that just means more chances to ‘screw things up’ unless you know EXACTLY how your autofocus system works, exactly what all those different controls actually DO, and you know how to relate those controls to what’s happening in front of you.

Whatever lens and camera body combination any of us use, we have to first of all find, then learn to work within it’s ‘effective envelope of operation’ – and by that I mean the REAL one, which is not necessarily always on a par with what the manufacturer might lead you to believe.

Take my Nikon 200-400 for example.  If I used autofocus on a static subject, let alone a moving one, at much past 50 metres using the venerable old D3 body and 400mm focal length, things in the critical image sharpness department became somewhat sketchy to say the least.  But put it on a D4 or D4S and I can shoot tack sharp focussing targets at 80 to 100 metres all day long……not that I make a habit of this most meaningless of photographic pastimes.

That discrepancy is due to the old D3 autofocus system lacking the ability to accurately  discriminate between precise distances from infinity to much over 50 metres when that particular lens was being used. But swap the lens out for a 400 f2.8 prime and things were far better!

Using the lens on either a D4 or D4S on head-on fast moving/closing subjects such as Mr.Leucistic above, we hit another snag at 400mm – once the subject is less than 20 metres away the autofocus system can’t keep up and the image sharpness effectively drops off the proverbial cliff.  But zoom out to 200mm and that ‘cut-off’ distance will reduce to 10 metres or so. Subjects closing at slower speeds can get much closer to the camera before sharp focus begins to fail.

As far as I’m concerned this problem is more to do with the speed of the autofocus motor inside the lens than anything else.  Nikon brought out an updated version of this lens a few years back – amongst its ‘star qualities’ was a new nano-coating that stopped the lens from flaring.  But does it focus any faster – does it heck!  And my version doesn’t suffer from flare either….!

Getting to know your equipment and how it all works is critical if you want your photography to improve in terms of image sharpness.

Shameless Plug Number 1.

I keep mentioning it – my ebook on Canon & Nikon Autofocus with long glass.

Understanding Canon & Nikon Autofocus

for

Bird in Flight Photography

Understanding Canon & Nikon Autofocus for Bird in Flight Photography

Click Image for details.

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Wildlife in Pixels – Website News

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Wildlife in Pixels – main website updated & other news.

So I’ve just spent the last 4 days slaving away over an old version of Dreamweaver (CS4 no less) updating the rather tired and untidy looking main website.

With a not insignificant amount of valuable input from my learned friend Steve Kaluski, and the (new to this old fart) discovery of in-line css rules, I’ve managed to come up with what I think is a cracking new look for the website that’s far less cluttered and messy!

wildlife in pixels new site

The new site landing page.

That’ll do for the rest of this year at least, and I think it looks epic – what say you guys?

I’ve updated the image gallery using Juicebox – whether I leave the “share” and image page display options live I’ll decide over the next few days.  But the gallery is a lot less “clunky” than it used to be, and looks pretty good on an iPhone too.

gallery grab

The new website gallery.

Important News about Norway Workshops for 2016.

I booked two trips over in Norway for 2016 about 4 weeks ago – one in February 2016, which is my usual winter haunt of Flatanger.

Winter

Norway Winter Eagles Tour February 2016. Click to view website page for this tour.

And the second trip, scheduled for September 2016 is over to Dovrefjell for the Musk Ox and Arctic Fox, followed by 3 days of Eagle photography from the boat.

Dovrefjell Tour with Wildlife in Pixels

Norway Tour September 2016. Click to view website page for this tour.

In the very short space of time these trips have been publicised, the uptake has been awesome – the February trip is provisionally full and; again provisional, there are only two places left on the September trip.

At the bottom of new Norwegian Workshops page – HERE – you’ll see that I’m running a ‘standby’ email link.  If you are interested in going on this list just drop me an email via the link.  I’ve never had a cancellation for any reason as yet – but just in case it does happen then I can let you know.  Meanwhile, visit the workshop pages themselves and get a flavour of what they are about.

Anyway, thanks for reading this short missive and if you have a chance hop along to the main website and give it the “once over” as your opinion matters!

 

Lumenzia for Wildlife

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The Lumenzia Photoshop extension

Yet more on the usefulness of the Lumenzia Photoshop extension, the short cut to great looking images of all types and styles.

I had an email from client and blog follower David Sparks after my last post about this useful mighty Photoshop tool.

He sent these before and after rail shots:

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Before adding Lumenzia. Click for larger view.

After adding Lumenzia

After adding Lumenzia. Click for larger view.

difference

Comparison overlay – see how the left side of the image has that extra presence – and that’s just with the click of a couple of buttons in the Lumenzia GUI. Click to view larger.

Here is what David had to say in his email:

Andy, here is a before and after.  Processing was much, much faster than usual, using Lumenzia.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention….I’m working my way through your Image Processing in LR4 & Photoshop + LR5 bundle and enjoying it very much.

And as my friend and blog follower Frank Etchells put it:

Excellent recommendation this Andy. Bought it first time from your previous posting… at just over £27 it’s marvellous :)

What gets me puzzled is the fact that these Lumenzia posts have had over 500 separate page views in the last few days but less then 3% of you have bought it – WTF are you guys waiting for…

Get it BOUGHT – NOW – HERE

UPDATE: Greg Benz (the plugin author) has launched a comprehensive Lumenzia training course – see my post here for more information.

Become a patron from as little as $1 per month, and help me produce more free content.

Patrons gain access to a variety of FREE rewards, discounts and bonuses.

Lumenzia – Not Just for Landscapes

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Luminosity Masking is NOT just for landscape photographs – far from it.

But most folk miss the point of luminosity masking because they think it’s difficult and tedious.

The point, as I always see it, is that luminosity masking allows you to make dramatic but subtle changes and enhancements to your image with what are actually VERY fast and crude “adjustments”.

This in reality means that luminosity masking is FAST – and way faster than trying to do “localised” adjustments.  But the creation of the masks and choosing which one to use is what crippled the “ease factor” for most.

But with this new Lumenzia extension is so snappy and quick at showing you the different masks that, if you know what area of the image you want to adjust, the whole process takes SECONDS.

Let’s look at a White-tailed Eagle taken just 15 days ago:

Straight off the 1Dx it looks like this:

RAW unprocessed .CR2 file

RAW unprocessed .CR2 file (CLICK to view in new window)

Inside the Develop Module of Lightroom 5 it looks like:

camera

RAW unprocessed – (CLICK to view in new window)

A few tweaks later and it looks like:

Lr5adjust

Tweaks are what you can see in the Basics Panel + CamCal set to Neutral, and Chroma Noise removal in the Lens Corrections Panel is turned ON – (CLICK to view in new window)

Sending THIS adjusted image to Photoshop:

ps1

(CLICK to view in new window)

All I want to do is give a “lift” to the darker tones in the bird; under the wings, and around the side of head, legs and tail.

Using a BRUSH to do the job is all fine ‘n dandy BUT, you would be creating a localised adjustment that’s all-encompassing from a tonal perspective; all tones that fell under the brush get adjusted by the same amount.

A luminosity mask, or indeed ANY pixel-based mask is exactly what it says it is – a mask full of pixels. And those pixels are DERIVED from the real pixels in your image.  But the real beauty is that those pixels will be anywhere from 1% to 100% selected, or not selected at all.

Where they are 100% selected they are BLACK, and any adjustment you make BEHIND that mask will NOT be visible.

Pixels that are NOT selected will be WHITE, and your adjustment will show fully.

But where the pixels are between 1% and 99% selected they will appear as 1% GREY to 99% grey and so will show or hide variation of said adjustment by the same amounts…got it?

The Lumenzia D4 mask looks like it’ll do the job I want:

(CLICK to view in new window)

Lumenzia D4 mask (CLICK to view in new window)

Click the image to view larger – look at the subtle selections under those wings – try making that selection any other way in under 2 seconds – you’ve got no chance!

The “lift” I want to make in those WHITER areas of the mask is best done with a Curves Adjustment layer:

Select "Curve" in the Lumenzia GUI - (CLICK to view in new window)

Select “Curve” in the Lumenzia GUI – (CLICK to view in new window)

So hit the Curve button and voilà:

The Lumenzia D4 mask is now applied to Curves Adjustment Layer - (CLICK to view in new window)

The Lumenzia D4 mask is now applied to Curves Adjustment Layer – (CLICK to view in new window)

You can see in the image above that I’ve made a very rough upwards deflection of the curve to obtain an effective but subtle improvement to those under-wing areas etc. that I was looking to adjust.

The total time frame from opening the image in Photoshop to now is about 20 seconds!  Less time than the Lightroom 5 adjustments took…

And to illustrate the power of that Lumenzia D4 Luminosity mask, and the crudity of the adjustment I made, here’s the image WITHOUT THE MASK:

The effect of the luminosity mask is best illustrated by "hiding" it - bloody hell, turn it back on ! - (CLICK to view in new window).

The effect of the luminosity mask is best illustrated by “hiding” it – bloody hell, turn it back on ! – (CLICK to view in new window).

And at full resolution you can see the subtleties of the adjustment on the side of the head:

ll+lum

With Lumenzia (left) and just the Lightroom 5 processing (right) – (CLICK to view in new window).

If you want to get the best from your images AND you don’t want to spend hours trying to do so, then Lumenzia will seriously help you.

Clicking this link HERE to buy Lumenzia doesn’t mean it costs you any more than if you buy it direct from the developer.  But it does mean that I get a small remuneration from the developer as a commission which in turn supports my blog.  Buying Lumenzia is a total no-brainer so please help support this blog by buying it via these links – many thanks folks.

UPDATE June 2018: Greg Benz (the plugin author) has launched a comprehensive Lumenzia training course – see my post here for more information.

Become a patron from as little as $1 per month, and help me produce more free content.

Patrons gain access to a variety of FREE rewards, discounts and bonuses.

Canon 1Dx & 200-400 f4 L IS USM

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A Nikon users thoughts on using the Canon 1Dx and the 200-400 f4L IS USM.

_D4D1006-Edit

The Canon 200-400 f4 L IS USM on the 1Dx – overall a staggeringly good pairing that I’m really going to miss when I have to give it back!

For years now, my “standard” wildlife photography lens has been the only 200-400f4 that was ever available, the Nikon.

An epic lens; sharp, good resolution in terms of line pairs per millimetre, and most importantly a boon to in-camera composition. It makes an excellent job of everything I ever ask it to do, from cute Red Squirrels 2 metres in front of me, to thumping great Norwegian Sea Eagles barreling towards me at thirty miles per hour and 30 metres out.

However; it’s not without it’s little idiosyncrasies, in fact I often describe it as “a pig” of a lens to use. Sharpness at 50 meters is questionable, and beyond 75 metres is pathetic – the bottom of a milk bottle could do better.

And it hates teleconverters as a rule – yes it’s sharp, but the resolution drops through the floor.

But if you wanted the compositional versatility that only a 200-400 can give you, then you had no option but to shoot Nikon.

Until that is, the day Canon did the unthinkable and launched their version of a 200-400 f4. And they gave it an internally switch-able 1.4x teleconverter giving you an effective 200 f4 to 560 f5.6 working range – WOW!

I first got hold of one of these babies about 4 weeks after they became available; a client at a Drummond Street workshop I was doing for Calumet brought it in stuck on the front of a 1Dx. I’d torn the lens from his poor hands before he knew what was happening, and whipped it outside, stuck the 1Dx in AF case 2, auto iso, 10 frames per second, manual exposure at 1/2000th and f6.3 and began rattling off frames of passing traffic – I was astounded by the lenses performance.

Over the following 18 months I had one or two further opportunities to “have a bash” with the 1Dx + 200- 400 combo, and it honestly impressed the “bejesus” out of me every time; so much so that I’ve recommended any Canon user that asked me to just BUY ONE. And buy one they did!

I’d also had access to a raft of CR2 raw files shot with this combo from one or two other photographers “who know what they are doing”; especially from my old pal Steve “Judith Chalmers” Kaluski of Untamed Images.

As many folk know, I run Eagle Photography workshop tours to Norway every now and again, and with a winter workshop in February 2015 coming up I was thinking that 200mm to 560mm would make this lens perfect for Norway.

Seeing as I “sold” half a dozen of these lenses for Canon I reckoned they owed me a favour – big time.

So I had a word in a few ears at Calumet, and Reece Piper kindly sent me a 1Dx on loan. Canon UK were not quite so forthcoming – basically saying they hadn’t the stock availability to lend me one for upwards of a month. But my favourite Geordie Lass June Lown came to the rescue and volunteered her newly acquired 200-400, bought on the recommendation of yours truly, for the testing and trip to Norway.

So the scene was set for an epic journey into the inner workings of the lens and the 1Dx you have to hang off the back of it in order to get the “best?” out of it.

Testing & Evaluation

Back in the days of yore, when we all shot film, lenses were tested on a full optical test bench, and the MTF charts produced thusly actually meant something. If the lens tested good, but you got soft images you KNEW you had a camera body lens mount problem, or that the pressure plate that held the film in the proper plane was distorted.

But now, certain manufacturers don’t even measure MTF – they use a calculator to work them out based upon theoretical values NOT real ones. And then we have entities like DXO Labs, who test lenses on cameras. This is lunacy if you are wanting to know about TRUE LENS performance, simply because the quality of lens output (the image projected into the sensor plane) is effected by the vagaries of the item that lives there – the sensor!

And on top of that, when testing under non-laboratory conditions, the performance of the lens is further clouded by inaccurate or unsuitable camera settings, especially those pertaining to auto focus.

So field testing of lenses is not simply a case of “point – squirt – evaluate”; it has to be done with more than a modicum of intelligence when it comes to camera AF settings. You have to do TWO things:

1. UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY how the AF system works and what the parameter control adjustments actually do.

2. Evaluate your subjects behaviour in terms of the aforementioned parameters and adjust them accordingly.

You may be interested in acquiring, for a small fee, my pdf guide to Long Lens Autofocus for Canon & Nikon systems.

Previous experience with the 1Dx had led me to treat the camera with a little trepidation for one single reason – its sensor. As a Nikon user I am used to working with sensors which have perhaps the highest Dynamic Range, lowest Base Noise, and highest Signal-to-Noise (S/N) ratios of any popular 35mm format camera body.

KF1

On the left is a Canon 1 Dx CR2 file, right is a Nikon D4 NEF file. Both images were shot at identical ISO, aperture, Ev comp and shutter speed within milliseconds of each other on a dual camera rig. The birds cheek patches are “blown” on the CR2, but the highlight detail is all there in the Nikon file.

This is indicative of the shorter Dynamic Range of the 1Dx sensor. The common perception is that the Nikon D4/4s sensors have roughly 1.5 stops greater dynamic range than the Canon 1Dx – this in effect means that the Nikon speed machine can cope with a least DOUBLE the subject brightness range that the 1Dx can handle.

Note: I find enabling Highlight Tone Priority, shooting menu tab 2 setting D+, does NOT sort the problem out in high contrast situations like this – it just gives you problems with the darker tones in the image.

So are there any other “sensor vagaries” on the Canon 1Dx that can effect the overall image quality – you betcha there is…

When I picked the camera up from Calumet I also “accrued” the 100mm f2.8 L macro lens, specifically to test the sensor base noise levels on a studio hi-speed flash shot I wanted to do. I had already done the setup shots the day before on the Nikon D4, as part of my drive to show single-body owners how versatile they can be with their photography.

You can read my article on the 1Dx sensor noise HERE

Canon 1Dx + 100mm f2.8 macro. Nikon SB800 flash & Calumet ProSeries wireless.

Canon 1Dx + 100mm f2.8 macro. Nikon SB800 flash & Calumet ProSeries wireless.

The original CR2 file looks like this (left) and the Nikon setup shot is on the right:

GX2R6638b

But if we open the images in Photoshop and use a standing wave curves layer over the top of them – as we would do when retouching the images – we see the extreme pattern noise in the 1Dx sensor (above), while we have virtually none in the Nikon file.

GX2R6638c

We can see more clearly the pattern noise in the 1Dx sensor if we view the images at 100% magnification.

Custom Curve layer at 100% - now that pattern noise on the Canon sensor is obvious.

Custom Curve layer at 100% – now that pattern noise on the Canon sensor is obvious.

We can derive from this shoot/test that the Canon 1Dx is a bit more “photon-hungry” than your average Nikon pro body sensor, but then doesn’t have the dynamic range capability to cope with lots of photons when it sees them.

Now let’s be real about all this for a moment; the 1Dx sensor is old tech in all fairness to Canon, though I’ll counter that by throwing the venerable Nikon D3 into the argument – that body is older than a 1Dx and has a sensor that performs far better in both dynamic range and base noise departments.

In reality though, the pattern noise, though always present in 1Dx images, is usually hidden or masked by actual image/subject detail so that, for the most part, you don’t see it AT ALL – just don’t try going for low ISO when photographing the “Black Cat in the Coal House at Midnight”, with a 1Dx if you have an aversion to heavy Photoshop work.

As I said before, as a Nikon user, the sensor output of the 1Dx leaves me grimacing a little to say the least. But, climbing back on the fence of neutrality I can see that dedicated Canon users might not notice the problems I see if only on the basis of “what you’ve never had you never miss”.

And as I was to discover, there’s something of a bonus with this sensor that this Nikon user was not expecting…..more later.

The ongoing banter between Nikon and Canon users is all very well, and usually good for a bit of a laugh between fellow photographers BUT, the reality is this – ALL pro level 35mm format camera bodies from either Canon or Nikon have their good points and bad points; and not a single one stands head- and-shoulders above the rest ON ALL COUNTS.

“What the Lord giveth with one hand, he taketh away with the other” is definitely the one saying that springs to my mind when I get asked about cameras! If you know what you are doing it doesn’t matter which one you use, you’ll invariably find 10 things wrong with it in the first 30 minutes!

I don’t like the feel of the 1Dx – it feels like I’m holding a brick – BUT SO WHAT?
I hate the menu system – it’s mental – BUT YOU GET USED TO IT
I dislike the sensor output – BUT IT’S FIXABLE for the most part.
Buttons & button+button or dial combos – COME ON GUYS, I’m neither double jointed or gifted with four hands!

There used to be a very large version of this image on the web that sums up Canon buttons, but I can only find a small version of it now:

post-958-1312724019

Sadly the “Call Spock” button will not work any more – RIP L.N.

My list of gripes and niggles about the 1Dx could go on but, sensor output notwithstanding, that list could be easily matched or exceeded by my list of niggles about Nikon cameras! So expanding on them any further is a pointless exercise.

Likewise, comparing the two 200-400s as separate lenses is a somewhat pointless activity too – they are different beasts by a country mile, and I would liken the task to attempting a comparison between the iconic Z28 Pontiac Firebird and the equally iconic Aston Martin DBS – as I said, pointless.

But I feel justified in comparing certain aspects of the camera bodies, and seeing as I have already dealt with the sensor comparison to a degree, I’ll now look at the other main fundamental difference I see between Canon and Nikon; and that is the autofocus system.

Autofocus:

I am going to make a very broad and sweeping statement now, and that is Canon autofocus is generally better than Nikon autofocus – FACT.

What do I mean by better?

I mean that it is more controllable and furnishes the user with a greater ability to tailor the autofocus to suit the behaviour of the intended subject. But the more eagle-eyed reader will have spotted my use of the word “generally”; that is there to indicate a caveat – and the caveat is this:

Only if you know what you are doing!

If you DON’T, and you start fiddling with settings such Acceleration/Declaration tracking, then you risk getting in a proper old mess and you’ll wish you HAD bought Nikon!

My soon-to-come Autofocus Guide to Nikon and Canon – available from this very boutique – goes into the nitty-gritty of autofocus in great detail – so buy it..

In a nutshell, you can tailor the Canon autofocus system to cope with how the subject moves ALONG the lens axis; that’s where your AF has to do the most work. Is it moving towards the camera at a constant speed, or is it moving towards the camera in a stop-go-slow-fast-slow manner? With the Canon 1Dx AF system you have 5 different settings you can use to cover this manner of movement. And these settings are all independent of your AF point group settings.

On a Nikon you have NO independent way of setting the camera to cope with this aspect of subject movement. Using a nine point group on a Nikon tends to favour subjects that move in a constant direction and speed, while the 21 point group favours the more erratically moving subject; which has always seemed a little silly to me and somewhat short-sighted of Nikon.

After 6 weeks of working with the 1Dx in conjunction with the 200-400mm on all manner of moving subjects in terms of size, speed and proximity to the camera I have come to the conclusion that only Cases 2 & 6 are of any real use to me as a wildlife photographer. But I have a tendency to select Case 3 and modify it in terms of Tracking Sensitivity and Acceleration/Declaration Tracking as a scene/subject presents itself.

The third parameter adjustment – AF Point Switching – for the most part I have tended to leave at the default setting of 0, though a setting of 1 has proved useful when dealing with the more erratically moving subject when you too are moving somewhat erratically, such as being in a small boat at sea.

GX2R1779

White-tailed Eagles locking talons – 1Dx + 200-400 hand held from boat, AF Case 6, 9 point AF expansion, AF point switching +1, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/2000th, f6.3 ISO 640

For the sort of work that I do within this focal length range, I would only ever use the AF Area Modes of Spot, Expanded (what I call 1 with 4 friends) and Expanded AF Surround ( 1 with 8 friends). Under NO circumstances do I want to leave the camera to decide on what part of the subject I’m focussing on, so Zone and Auto are off my radar. For the same reason I never use the 3D tracking mode on my Nikons. But having said that, I can very well envisage photographers using much shorter focal lengths benefiting from the other modes in certain circumstances due to the greater inherent depth of field they have at their disposal.

But what impresses me most is the speed of the AF using this camera and lens combination, it makes my D4 and Nikon 200-400 look like a clockwork toy; even though I always thought it was fast enough….

1Dx + 200-400 hand held from boat, AF Case 6, 9 point AF expansion, AF point switching 0, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/2000th, f6.3 ISO 640

1Dx + 200-400 hand held from boat, AF Case 6, 9 point AF expansion, AF point switching 0, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/2000th, f6.3 ISO 640

I only hit the AF activation on this bird a split second before the shot was taken – razor sharp, see for yourself:

Hunting Sea Eagle

So, I get to this juncture and have to start asking myself a couple of questions:
1. Would this shot, for instance, look even better via a Nikon D4/D4S sensor ?
2. Would I have got this particular shot using the D4 or a D4S and my Nikon 200-400?

The answer to the first question is YES – it would; there would be somewhat less noise for starters, and the extra dynamic range would at least facilitate easier processing. Being so used to NEF files I find I have to do a more delicate balancing act between highlight and shadow tones when processing 1Dx CR2 files.

Using the 1Dx I’m a lot more concious of the fact that I need to “watch” my highlights when shooting, and that when it comes to processing it’s like I’ve gone back to 12bit RAW files – and it’s years since I’ve processed one of those babies!

The answer to question 2 though is a little more problematic. Under the EXACT same circumstances the answer is most likely a NO as it was basically “snap-shot”, and that sort of shooting rarely works out too well on Nikon using an f4 lens when a fast-moving subject is right on top of you.

Using an f2.8 would have pulled this shot off under the same circumstances without a problem.

Had I framed up on this eagle 4 or 5 seconds beforehand and let the AF track it until it got to this position then YES I would have got the same result; as long as I had been in a 21 point group. But I usually don’t favour a 21 point group on Nikon because it’s just that bit harder to be precise – I want focus on the eagles eye and I couldn’t give a you-know-what about its other bits – so I usually opt for a 9 point group.

Bearing in mind that this bird is DECELERATING RAPIDLY, the Nikon 9 point group and its fixed “speed tracking preset” might allow the predictive side of the Nikon AF system to advance the focus a little closer to the camera than needed at the moment the shutter opens; because the “preset” is more geared toward a CONSTANT subject speed.

And seeing that the camera isn’t exactly stable either, being in a small boat, the new Nikon 4 point group might have made an even bigger cock-up because it always attempts to focus on the nearest point – which ISN’T the eagles eye.

It’s all about the Accel/Decel tracking…..(ADT – my acronym!)

On the 1Dx Canon give you 5 totally independent ADT settings, and Nikon give you 2 fixed presets which are enslaved to separate AF point groups.

Shooting large subjects at distance – such as football – makes for light work in terms of ADT and predictive AF due to the inherently large depth of field for any given f-number. But shoot smaller, faster moving subjects at much shorter distances and those same ADT settings will make a huge difference to the focus accuracy of the captured image.

When shooting somewhat slower moving subjects I always like to switch to a single AF point and place it over the subjects eye.

I like the Spot AF setting on the 1Dx for this sort of work, especially when I can get the composition I want using one of the centre diagonal cross-type sensors, as in this Lynx below:

1Dx + 200-400 at 400mm AF Case 2, spot AF, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/250th, f7.1 ISO 1000 IS Pos 2 – just because I could!

1Dx + 200-400 at 400mm AF Case 2, spot AF, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/250th, f7.1 ISO 1000 IS Pos 2 – just because I could!

1Dx + 200-400 at 400mm AF Case 2, spot AF, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/250th, f7.1 ISO 200 IS Pos 2 – just to see HOW low I could go!

1Dx + 200-400 at 400mm AF Case 2, spot AF, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/250th, f7.1 ISO 200 IS Pos 2 – just to see HOW low I could go!

The Arctic Fox above is shot with Spot AF using a conventional cross-type sensor from the centre left column.

The Wolves below are shot with a diagonal cross-type sensor from the centre column placed over the right eye of the wolf in the middle of the shot, but this time I’m in AF point expansion – 1 with 4 friends – with AF point switching set to +1. This covers off any movement of the wolfs eye up, down, left or right and increasing the point switching from 0 to +1 means that the active Af point will switch to one of those “4 friends” in order to follow the eye if I can’t move the camera fast enough:

1Dx + 200-400 at 366mm AF Case 2, single point AF expansion, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/1000th, f7.1 ISO 4000 – I'm being a bit more sensible now – if you call standing taking pictures of this pair of bad boys with nothing twixt me and them except fresh air sensible!

1Dx + 200-400 at 366mm AF Case 2, single point AF expansion, Manual Exposure, Auto ISO 1/1000th, f7.1 ISO 4000 – I’m being a bit more sensible now – if you call standing taking pictures of this pair of bad boys with nothing twixt me and them except fresh air sensible!

Canon Spot AF uses just the centre portion of the selected AF sensor and so you can do some very precise focussing using this AF mode.

Where I find it a real boon is when working off a tripod or from a hide where the camera is rock steady on some form of gimbal or ball head, as in this type of shot. And it really comes into its own when using the 1.4x built-in TC on the 200-400:

Golden Eagle

As you can see from the screen-grab below I have a single AF point selected and located exactly where I want it:

Screen-Shot-2015-03-02-at-10.33.21

What you can’t see is that Spot AF – which I think Canon ought to re-name “precision” – is only using the centre portion (perhaps 50%) of the area marked in red; so the main focus is concentrated where the eagles beak has dug into the side of the Pine Martens head – very cute and cuddly I must say…

Autofocus Conclusion:

Nikon AF is rather “simplified” and to be honest it has served exceptionally well over the years. But the one niggle I’ve always had is that I WANT to dictate what the AF does, and how and when it does it – I loathe and detest being dictated to, especially by some algorithm written by lab tech who wouldn’t know his “arse from his elbow” when it comes to a good picture.

It’s as if those Nikon guys think I’m an idiot and they know best – it’s not true fellas!

In all fairness, they sell cameras to folk who “aspire”, and those folk need some sort of instant gratification. Also, those same folk would not do the sort of photography that I do “as norm” – yes, I AM NIKON; but I am also a minority!

So I can see why Nikon make use of “preset averages” in a lot of their control algorithms – I just wish they made pro versions of their cameras with a lot of these so-thought-of Intelligent functions left out; I for one would certainly be a lot more chilled out of they did.

Canon have always been notorious for crediting their users with more than a modicum of intelligence, yet they still give the “L plate” folk half a chance by offering certain levels of automation and presets.

As someone who uses all the facilities on a camera body close to the boundaries of their design criteria – and sometimes past ’em! – I find the 1Dx AF system fabulous in terms of both speed and tractability, and it negates all the niggles and gripes about the Nikon system that I have soon got to return to….

Unless of course some retailer, or those lovely guys at Canon take pity on me!

A Nikon Users Final Judgement on the 1Dx + 200-400mm f4 L IS USM

For the least 6 weeks I’ve been on something of a journey that’s for sure.

Strange “buttonograhy” has caused me some head-scratching! I’m a back button focus man myself, so no prizes for guessing which button has given me most confusion – that’s right, the STAR BUTTON!

My brain simply cannot retain what its function is, so when I hit it accidentally with a gloved thumb, I’ve developed a really simple remedy for getting rid of it – TURN THE CAMERA OFF then back on again! That’s a proper Andy Pandy fix that is!

When I get into situations where my subjects are moving into and out of the sun, and scene contrast changes constantly, I still adopt my preferred method of shooting, and that is FULL MANUAL with auto ISO.

The venerable Nikon D3 didn’t handle this too well; the ISO was always a “little sticky” at at coming back down to the lower numbers. The D4 is a lot better, but still comes a little unstuck from time to time.

The Canon 1Dx has performed flawlessly and has just come back from 7 days in Norway where it has been permanently in Manual Exposure with Auto ISO from the very first to the very last frame of the trip, and the Auto ISO function has performed perfectly on every frame.

Here is a situation where this method of shooting paid dividends, with one of the most rarely seen raptors on the planet – the Goshawk:

GX2R4008

Goshawk in the rain – 1/60th sec, f5.6, Manual Exposure + Auto ISO 12800

We were in the darkest heart of a chunk of Boreal Forest, at dawn, and it was chucking it down with rain – gloomy is not a word that does the lack of light justice.

Like a ghost this male Goshawk materialises in front of us and we need to get the shots. With so little light, and the teleconverter switched in we need to pick the shots off each and every time the bird stops moving its head. So the fastest speed we can use is 1/60th sec, which on a gimbal mounted rig at 560mm is just do-able with good technique.

Slipping the IS into Mode 2 and using Spot AF continually on the Goshawks eye we got a large number of razor sharp images in the poorest light I think I have ever shot in.

Here is a 100% crop from that image:

GX2R4008-2

Now considering that this image is from a sensor that I’m not overly keen on, let’s compare it to a shot on a sensor I’m usually far happier using – that of a D4S, that happened to be about 3 feet to my left and operated by a client, Mr. Paul Atkins, using the Nikon 200-400:

_D4S5252

The same 12800 ISO, both these shots are pretty much straight from the sensor with minimal processing.

Well, I know which I prefer, and it isn’t the one done with a black lens!
A lot of folk think 400 ISO is high – well it isn’t; even though it used to be.

As I have said before in this article, the 1Dx sensor – as far as this Nikon user is concerned – is a little short in the performance stakes; but is it?

At more conventional speeds below 3200 ISO I firmly come down on the side of Nikon.

From 3200 ISO to 5000 ISO I don’t think there is much between them, but above 5000 ISO the Canon 1Dx excels by a country mile; and Nikonophilles can argue the toss with me ’til the cows come home – but I have the images to prove it – so “boo-hoo, sucks to you chaps”…

With all DSLRs, as we increase ISO we shorten Dynamic Range, but it would appear that, even though the 1Dx is shorter than a D4S in that department to begin with, it hangs on to it a lot longer – and that means more images you can make money from; or win competitions with, which ever floats your boat.

When the end of the Universe comes and it’s “lights out” for everyone, just make sure you’ve got a 1Dx in your hand – Shutterstock and Getty will rip your arm off for the shots ‘cos they’ll still be around somewhere, and God won’t get rid of them that easy!

Sadly, I’ve got to give the 1Dx back to Calumet so that they can hire it to some un-appreciative plebs and recoup the dough they’ve lost while yours truly has been jollying it up with the Vikings.

And as for the glorious 200-400, well, that’s got to go back to the lovely June Lown who loaned it to me in the first place.

So many thanks to June, and to Reece Piper from Calumet for agreeing to the long loan 1Dx, and to John Willis from Calumet Manchester for knowing everyone, and for “lubricating the gears” that make the world go around.

In closing I suppose I need to answer the question I’ve been asked a lot since word of my Canon-ising escaped into the general UK wildlife scene – am I ditching Nikon?

No is the short answer; not even if I could afford to.
BUT, if I could afford to I WOULD buy a 1Dx and 200-400 f4 L IS USM – today!

I would dump my Nikon 200-400, but keep the D4/D4S for use with a big prime. But given the choice my standard wildlife “go to” lens would be the Canon 200-400 in conjunction with a 1Dx. It would get more shots than it would lose me, and Canon can always get rid of my gripes about the sensor by upgrading it – as long as they don’t lose the superb high ISO performance.

Right, that’s it – I’m off to go curl up in a corner of my office and cry at the thought of giving this gear back to its rightful owners….

I WANT THIS RIG…do I really have to give it back?

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View Autofocus Points in Lightroom

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Mr. Malcolm Clayton sent me a link last week to a free plug-in for Lightroom that displays the autofocus points used for the shot, plus other very useful information such as focus distance, f-number and shutter speed, depth of field (DoF) values and other bits and bobs.

The plug-in is called “Show Focus Points” and you can download it HERE

Follow the installation instruction to the letter!

Once installed you can only launch it from the LIBRARY MODULE:

Accessing the Plug-in via the Library>Plug-in Extras menu

Accessing the Plug-in via the Library>Plug-in Extras menu CLICK to view LARGER

You will see this sort of thing:

The "Show Focus Points" for Lightroom plug-in window.

The “Show Focus Points” for Lightroom plug-in window. CLICK to view LARGER.

It’s a usefull tool to have because short of running the rather clunky Canon DPP or Nikon ViewNX software it’s the easiest way of getting hold of autofocus information without sending the image to Photoshop and looking through the mind-numbing RAW schema data – something I do out of habbit!

It displays a ton of useful data about your camera focus settings and exposure, and the autofocus point used – be it set by you, or chosen by the camera.

As far as I can see, the plug-in only displays the main active autofocus point on Nikon D4 and D4S files, but all the autofocus group as well as active points seem to display when viewing .CR2 Canon files as we can see on this very impressive car number plate!:

Screen grab of an unprocessed 1Dx/200-400/TC shot I did while testing the tracking capabilities of the Canon lens with the TC active - the REAL image looks more impressive than this!

Screen grab of an unprocessed 1Dx/200-400/TC shot I did while testing the tracking capabilities of the Canon lens with the TC active – the REAL image looks more impressive than this! I’m actually zooming out while tracking too – this is around 200mm + the 1.4x TC. CLICK to view LARGER

Canon 1Dx in AF Point Expansion 4 point; what I call "1 with 4 friends".

Canon 1Dx in AI Servo AF Point Expansion 4 point; what I call “1 with 4 friends”. CLICK to view LARGER.

Canon 1Dx in AI-F autofocus showing all autofocus points used be the camera.

Canon 1Dx in AI-F autofocus showing all autofocus points used be the camera.

Viewing your autofocus points is a very valid learning tool when trying to become familiar with your cameras autofocus, and it’s also handy if you want to see why and where you’ve “screwed the pooch” – hey, we ALL DO IT from time to time!

Useful tool to have IMO and it’s FREE – Andy likes free…

Cheers to Malc Clayton for bringing this to my attention.

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Autofocus Drill-down

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Long Lens Autofocus Considerations.

If you read my previous post about the 1Dx sensor you will have seen that I mentioned my, as yet unfinished, tome about long lens autofocus for wildlife photography.  It’s a frustrating project because I keep having to change various bits to make them simpler, re-order certain paragraphs etc.

But I thought I’d blog-post something here that I expand on in the project, and it’s something an awful lot of people NEVER take into consideration.

As a Nikon user I’m used to the vagaries of the Nikon AF system and I manage to work with it just fine – I have to!

But photographers who don’t shoot wildlife, and don’t use 400mm or 500mm lumps of glass as their “standard lens” might not find the vagaries I bitch about quite so apparent; indeed some might not come across them at all.

As a wildlife photographer I shoot in crappy light, I shoot with slow lenses (both in terms of f-number and focus speed), I shoot low contrast subjects on equally low contrast backgrounds, I’m constantly shooting brown-on-brown, grey on grey etc, I shoot stupidly small subjects….the list goes on!

For years, good wildlife photography has been done by pushing camera/lens capabilities beyond their performance design parameters; and this particularly applies to our “expectations” of our latest and greatest AF system – be it Canon or Nikon.

I find so many people who come to my workshops etc. are not even aware of this one simple fact – sharp focus requires more work AND increased speed of work by the lens AF motor the closer a subject is to the camera.

Just try looking at the delineations on the focusing ring of a lens:

Canon 200-400 focused at 20 meters.

Canon 200-400 focused at 20 meters. (Lens porn WARNING: This lens will cause movements in the front-of-trouser department).

Look at the scale and note the distance between 20m and 50m marks – that distance is indicative of the amount of work required of the autofocus controller and motor to move from 20m to 50m or vice versa.

Now look where the 10m mark is – it requires FAR MORE work from the focus controller and motor to move from 20m to 10m, than it did to move the 30 meters from 50m to 20m.

On top of that extra work, if we are tracking a subject moving at 10 meters per second the lens takes 3 seconds to move from 50m to 20m, but then has to move a lot FASTER as well to cover the extra workload moving from 20m to 10m in just 1 second.

Then you wonder why your Nikon D40 + Sigma 50-500mm is crap at doing “birds in flight”; you never realise that your autofocus system is bag of spanners and powered by a hamster on a wheel…….it’s just not fast enough kids

Autofocus accuracy is nothing without speed if you are wanting to do productive wildlife photography.

As I alluded to before, as a photographer of the old wildlife I, and YOU will always encounter problems that users in other photographic disciplines may not, or if they do then the problem has a lot less impact than it does for us.

Think of it this way – a sports photographer will use a 500mm f4 to photograph a 6 foot tall overpaid git who’s 25m to 70m away, on a sunny Saturday afternoon or under a squillion watts of flood lighting; and he’s looking for a 6×12 for the back page of the Sunday Sport.  I’ll use the same lens to photograph a cute Red Squirrel at 5m to 7m in a gloomy wood in the middle of winter and I’m looking for a full size, full resolution image for stock.

Red Squirrel - this is basically the FURTHEST DISTANCE you could shoot at with a 500mm lens and still get a meaningful composition.

Red Squirrel – this is basically the FURTHEST DISTANCE you could shoot at with a 500mm lens and still get a meaningful composition. Click for larger view.

Note the distance – 631/100 – that means 6.31 meters. Aperture is f8, so DoF is around 7 centimeters.

The image is UNCROPPED as are all the other images in this post

We don’t really want to be any further away because “his cuteness” will be too small in the frame:

The factors effecting subject distance choice are:

  1.  lens resolving power – small, fine details need to be as close as possible.*
  2.  sensor resolving power – we need as many pixels as possible covering the subject.*
  3.  auto focus point placement accuracy – if the subject is too small in the frame, point placement is inaccurate.
  4. general “in camera” composition

*These two are inextricably intertwined

I’ve indicated the active focus point on the above image too  because here’s a depth of field “point of note” – autofocus wastes DoF.  Where is the plane of focus? Just between the eyes of the squirrel.

Assuming the accepted modern norm of DoF distribution – 50/50 – that’s 3.5 centimeters in front of the plane of focus, or indicted AF point, that will be sharp.  Only problem there is that the squirrel’s nose is only around 1 centimeter closer to the camera than the AF point, so the remaining 2 .5 centimeters of DoF is wasted on a sharp rendition of the fresh air between its nose and the camera!!

Now let’s change camera orientation and go a bit closer to get the very TIGHTEST shot composition:

Red Squirrel - this is basically the CLOSEST DISTANCE you could shoot at with a 500mm lens and still get a meaningful composition.

Red Squirrel – this is basically the CLOSEST DISTANCE you could shoot at with a 500mm lens and still get a meaningful composition. Click for larger view

The subject distance is 5.62 meters. Aperture is f6.3 so DoF is around 4.4 centimeters.

Now let’s change photographic hats and imagine we are a sports photographer and we are spending a Saturday afternoon photographing a bunch of over-paid 6 foot tall gits chasing a ball around a field, using the very same camera and lens:

He's not over-paid or chasing a ball, but this is the CLOSEST distance we can shoot at with this orientation and still get a "not too tight" composition of a 6 foot git! "Shep's" not a git really - well, not much!

He’s not over-paid or chasing a ball, but this is the CLOSEST distance we can shoot at with this orientation and still get a “not too tight” composition of a 6 foot git! “Shep’s” not a git really – well, not much! Click to enlarge

The distance for this shot is 29.9 meters. Aperture is f6.3 so DoF is around 1.34 meters.

And here we are at the CLOSEST distance for this horizontal camera orientation - still not too tight.

And here we are at the CLOSEST distance for this horizontal camera orientation – still not too tight. Click to enlarge.

The distance here is 50.1 meters. Aperture is f6.3 so DoF is around 3.79 meters.

So with this new “sports shooter” hat on, have we got an easier job than the cold, wet squirrel photographer?

You bet your sweet life we have!

The “Shepster” can basically jump around and move about like an idiot on acid and stay in sharp focus because:

  1. the depth of field at those distances is large.
  2. more importantly, the autofocus has VERY little work to do along the lens axis, because 1 or 2 meters of subject movement closer to the camera requires very small movements of the lens focus mechanicals.

But the poor wildlife photographer with his cute squirrel has so much more of a hard time getting good sharp shots because:

  1. he/she has got little or no depth of field
  2. small subject movements along the lens axis require very large and very fast movement of the lens focus mechanicals.

So the next time you watch a video by Canon or Nikon demonstrating the effectiveness of their new AF system on some new camera body or other; or you go trawling the internet looking for what AF settings the pros use, just bear in mind that “one mans fruit may be another mans poison” just because he/she photographs bigger subjects at longer average distances”.

Equipment choice and its manner of deployment and use is just not a level playing field is it…but it’s something a lot of folk don’t realise or think about.

And how many folk would ever consider that a desired “in camera” image composition has such a massive set of implications for autofocus performance – not many – but if you put your brain in gear it’s blindingly obvious.

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