6D and BIF

Birds in flight is one of my favourite genres, even though I can't say I'm great at it.

I have seen some SUPERB BIF images and for handheld, the 300 f/2.8 mkii, 400 f/5.6 and the 100-400 are the lenses usually partnered with a 7D classic, 70D or the 7Dii now.

Yes, birders with the 200-400 or big whites do shoot handheld but I find that they "beanbag" or use a tripod more.

Birds in flight has a few criteria for me: sharpness, frame fill and intimacy.

Sharpness is self explanatory but intimacy with your subject is important as if you don't fill a sufficient portion of your frame with the bird, it lacks that WOWS factor.

7Dii and a 400 f/5.6 or better still, 300mm f/2.8 with x2 TC would be my recommendations. Start with bigger birds, learn to track and then move onto slower ones
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Antartic Cruise: 6D vs 7D II and equipment recommendations

antonioleandro said:
Alefoto said:
Some more suggestions...

As others have pointed out, take care of the cold and moisture problems when going back and forth between cold/warm environments. No camera sealing can protect you from that, only good discipline can. The same can be said for changing lenses/gear while out on the field. People were taking pictures in the (Ant)Arctic 40 years ago when cameras were not weather proof as today. The weather is still the same as 40 years ago. I know it can be tempting to check soon your pictures once back on warmth of the ship but that's exactly what you don't have to do in the first hour. Let your gear warm up gradually first.

Do you recommend putting the camera on a plastic bag before entering the ship and keeping it there for one hour or more? Should I use any other technique?

The basic rule is to avoid sudden and large changes in temperatures and humidity on both lenses and cameras. The thing you need to consider is that the longer it takes for your gear to warm up gradually from the outside temperature to the inside warmer temperture of the ship, the lesser the condensation problem. This depends on the difference between outside-inside temperatures (wider difference =longer time). A simply plastic bag like the ones you get from a supermarket will help but only marginally. A zip bag will help more. You can also simply leave your gear inside your closed photo backpack and put your jacket on it as a further insulation and then let the gear warm up gradually (longer=safer), possibly away from heating sources. If you have to take out memory cards, battery or change lens, do it before coming back inside.

To answer your question about leaving your gear 1 hour inside a plastic bag, considering outside temperature in the -10 - 0 range and the inside one around 20C or more, I would wait more and add more insulation (photo backpack and jacket on)



Also, before you go, I suggest you take a look at this book "Poles apart" from Galen Rowell. It's an old book but I find it a simple but at the same time inspiring book. At the end you have also short notes on the technical stuff (lens, aperture, etc.) for each picture. It can be found online.

The book appears to be amazing. I found some pages online and I will try to get a copy.

even if it's 30 years old and done with film equipment, I find it very explicative and inspiring. The last pages with shot notes for each picture may help you deciding what to take along, even if topics like iso or film type are outdated
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Tamron 150-600mm with 7D II Live View focusing issue

Hi,
No one having this problem??

Anyway, after some more testing... seem like the issue will happen only at longer focal length... 350mm and longer. At focal length shorter than 350mm, it doesn't seem to happen.

By the way, one way to make sure the lens will search focus till the minimum focusing distance is to put the lens cap on.

Have a nice day.
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Uneven Battery Usage in 580EXII

Mt Spokane Photography said:
The batteries are in series and get used equally, but there are some possibilities.

1. A bad battery. Remove the bad one. This would be a 99% + probability

2. Bad battery charger not fully charging batteries.

3. Current leakage in the battery compartment or related bus bars of the flash that affects only one battery. Look for any contaminants.

4. Excessive heat in the flash right next to one cell that is causing a problem with it.

That's all that immediately comes to mind.

+1
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DR of Nikon vs Canon Article

Mitch.Conner said:

Photography Life is a good website, primarily focused on Nikon gear as the review totals indicate. I think they are trying to expand coverage to include Canon, Sony and other manufacturers as well. They have some good general photography articles and tutorials.

I agree that most articles praising the greater DR of SoNikon sensors seem to focus on lifting shadows of badly underexposed pictures. I'd like to see some examples using well exposed pictures with high DR to see how the Canon and SoNikon compare.
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6D or 7D mkII?

Marsu42 said:
Question is how much magnification you're interested in, i.e. if you are ok with downsized web resolution. If not, most of your shots on flickr I just looked at don't have thin dof *and* motion, but sometimes a bit slow shutter speed. For most movement from *afar* like basketball the 6d will be fine if you're ok with loosing some shots because the af screwed up. But all other lower light shots on your flickr stream would profit a lot from thinner dof of full frame and higher iso capability. Your call :-)

I do not disagree with you on the dof and higher ISO. Not sure I'll be able to get more dof while shooting from the cheap seats (even with the f/2.8 ), but less noise is something I would love to improve in dark settings.

It's the non-sports pictures where I think I could get more dof with a 6D...which is the way I'm leaning right now. I may try the 70-300 for baseball game or two, and decide if I like the added reach on FF (300mm as compared to the 200mm f/2.8 on FF) enough to upgrade to the L-version someday. The 200 will still be a useful lens when I shoot basketball, or when I can get closer to the field.

My keeper rate's not great with the T3i, so I don't see it being any worse with the 6D. Also, thank you for the flickr critique; I'm always looking for ways to improve.
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Hand on tested Canon EF 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM on a 7D mark II & 6D AF lock

I've seen some of the schematics of the different engines and canons lenses but I'm telling you guy I tested this lens both on 6D and the 7D Mark II under fluorescent light with a little added sunlight from the front of the store and the STM lens beat all the ultrasonic lenses in speed and accuracy of focus lock in its ZOOM range other than the 24 mm to 70 mm F2 .8 mark II which they did not have at the time and on those two cameras the speed was considerably faster of course those two cameras are built for the STM engine and are the two top-of-the-line cameras in their ranges that are STM capable I can't say if any of the rebels will be as proficient with this lens.

And I also can't say I know anything about if the STM lens is crippled under low light situations more than any of the older ultrasonic lenses or the less sensitive cameras my experience with the Tamrom 24 mm to 70 mm F2 .8 vibration control is that it is just as fast as anything ultrasonic that Canon has put out before the past 12 to 8 years range it is not as accurate though as even some of the older Canon lenses when you crop images down to around 100% or maybe even 80%, and the zoom ring is hard to use when you have a target you want to frame that is moving pretty fast and you want to decide later whether to make it a full body shot or a portrait framed shot.

I also owned the new Sigma art 35mm F1 .4 arts lessons and although I didn't have the chance to use it on my 6D my 70 D even with its dual pixel autofocus had trouble locking on with the all-too-familiar searching back and forth for about 3 seconds.

and I can even consider putting my experiences with the old film EOS 3 autofocus lock with my old 75 mm to 300 mm IS with that metal plaque on it although I hear and read that people compare it to the autofocus system on the 5D Mark II I have to imagine that film focusing and digital focusing have some extreme differences.

sorry about the word mixing i was using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.0 and am a private driver at strip clubs and with Uber so i'm always on the go.
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New Sigma teleconverters not widely compatible (yet?)

i bought the new tc-2001 and updated the firmware on my 120-300s. just to clarify.

the lens still works fine with the canon and kenko tc's

the new sigma 2x seems to be a bit sharper than the canon 2xiii and the af is faster with the sigma. the bokeh is better with the canon.

the 120-300 + sigma tc-2001 + kenko pro 1.4x also works suprisingly well and gives good results on the 6d, not so good on the 7dii
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Canon FD 600mm f/4.5

wickidwombat said:
meywd said:
Reviving an old topic, how is the lens after two years, any more pics, i am considering getting one, they come and go on ebay for around $1600, i know its cheap when compared to the EF version, there is also the 300mm f/2.8 for around the same price.

hey to be honest haven't used it too much for stills but actually used it quite a big for shooting video of archery because the focus wheels can be moved smoothly easily without introducing vibration. I think this lens is amazing for long range video. especially for the money.

but now I have the tamron 150-600 i would say the tamron is generally better but it still cant hit f4.5 like this can but it does have IS and AF although you need to turn IS off for panning. I wont sell the FD because i like it and its sort of an antique now but generally for most situations the tamron or new sigma 150-600 will be a better choice for less money

Thanks for the feedback.
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Should I wait for Black Friday?

DigglerDawg said:
Hi all. I think I might be in the market for a 6D, having recklessly and somewhat regretfully sold my 1DSIII. I'm in the UK, well, Guernsey (VAT benefits, yay!) and wondered if any of you think it's worth holding out for the end-of-November Black Friday craziness? Do you think such an item will receive any deals and where do you think it's worth watching?
Thanks for your replies!
Last year there were good deals Around black Friday so this will probably happen this year
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24-70 f/2.8L II internal click noise (single click)

Thanks, Viggo.

Well I got home with a replacement lens - the store manager told me she gets the same concerns mostly for the 24-70 II (since it relatively costs more than any other standard zoom) - normally she reserves their right to refuse returns or exchanges but since I was not happy with the lens and one of their rental lenses had been damaged beyond repair by a customer, she offered an exchange. She showed me a Nikon 24-70 that had a louder click similar to my canon 24-70 II but still works flawlessly, so I don't know what to make of it. The same thing: put the lens upside down, no click. Upright: it clicks.

The new lens's zoom ring is stiff and makes that "safe lock combination" clicking sound, and I'm back to square one testing the IQ and focus. I hope I don't get two clicks next time LOL.

On a side note: The 16-35 f4L IS I played around with at the store was awesome. Never ends!
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Studio Light Power Question?

keithfullermusic said:
So, I have have two Bowens 500R studio lights. They are rated at 15Ws-500Ws over 5 stops. But what exactly does that mean?

To me I'm guessing that every time a turn it up a stop, it doubles the Ws - but I might be wrong. I would think that it actually has 6 stops which go as follows:

1 - 15Ws
2 - 30Ws
3 - 60Ws
4 - 120Ws (roughly 125)
5 - 240Ws (roughly 250)
6 - 480Ws (roughly 500)

I should also note that I have two dials:

The first is for complete stops (1-5)
The second is for 1/10th stops (0-1)

It actually goes up to 6 (the full stop dial turned to 5, and the 1/10 dial turned up to +1.0), so did Bowens list that incorrectly?


THEN, that leads to my next question - how much dimmer are the 400W and 250W lights? Is the 400W less that 1 stop at full power compared to the 500W, and is the 250W exactly one stop less than the 500W at full power?

I only ask because I'm looking to get a two more lights, and I want to keep my options open. Thanks.

I have a bowens 250watt with a large travelpack kit.

You have 5 stops of power control since it starts at 1.0
Altho the 500watts kits are cheaper, it will give you far less control in areas with not much room available, especially on location.
It is a fools mistake to think more watts are better. Unless you want to Fry insects from 20 meters or you want to make classroom photos, go for a 250watt kit. 250watt also Works longer on location with the travelpack


And btw, it Works a bit different with strobes thanf-stops on a camera. It is just 500 watt split over 5 stops. What i am trying to say is : use a lightmeter to save time

Your calculations appear to be correct, the official specs say the range is 15-500ws
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DPReview: EOS 7D Mark II Shooting Experience

Bennymiata said:
Try setting your flash to strobe (high speed flash).
With the 7D2's 10fps, you'll get plenty of good shots.

I need the flash to shut down and allow the camera to auto bracket based on the choices I've made. HS sync won't work. I shot this morning and I had to remove the flash from the camera and the tripod was a must which makes thing very slow and kludgy.
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