First 1D X III RAW files?
- Thread starter privatebydesign
- Start date
DNGs are not Canon raw files supported by DPP. Much of the maker notes, including masked pixel information, have been stripped and the black point baked in.
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OK. I'm still wondering how big a bird must be that you can't focus on part of it and have the whole bird in focus. I don't have a lens longer than 400mm, and I don't usually photograph birds larger than cardinals, so I have never run into that problem. A few times when I wasn't careful, autofocus would settle on a branch between me and the bird, but never was an issue as to having different parts of the bird in or out of focus.
The larger matter is that while I am not unsympathetic to folks who see a need for focus points they don't have, I've never experienced that myself, nor do I think I am likely to. If I can take my time, and the focus situation is tricky, I use manual focus anyway. That seems to be easier than jumping through hoops to let the camera know what I want to focus on. (There are woods behind my house and a tree on the neighbor's back yard, so when I am shooting birds or fall leaves, for example, there are extraneous branches that I want ignored.) The only birds in flight that I shoot are hovering hummingbirds, so not really the same thing.
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Of course, I'm sure I don't experience some of your situations. I'm often shooting 800mm and sometimes it happens, actually more times than I prefer.
Jack
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Other than a telescope, I'm pretty sure I've never looked through a lens that long on a camera. My poor tripod might collapse under the weight, or at least might still have camera shake problems. And there can't be a lot of DOF.
Thanks for the clarifications about situations that lie outside my range of experience.
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That's also outside my experience. I took some pictures from just behind the end zone in a VIP area last fall, but I was doing it to get used to my new G5X II before I left on a trip. The maximum 120mm equivalent and the large DOF of the little lens won't produce those challenges. But it did produce some really nice pictures, including a touchdown from a few feet away and a field goal video in which I panned up to follow the ball as it went between the posts and then over my head.
Most summers I shoot videos of some after-hours pickup games during basketball camp. They usually include current players, entering freshmen, pros in from Europe and sometimes a few Charlotte Hornets and some prospects. Steph Curry used to come back early in his pro career, and one time he brought his little brother when he was playing for Duke, but now is too busy with everything, including his own camps. I have a small, but very eager audience for the videos. I use it to try out whatever camera I have that is new, largely as a way to learn how to use it. I have found that for my purposes, just focusing manually on one of the rims and relying on hyperfocal distance to keep everything tolerably sharp. I'm not wanting to isolate one player usually, but want to show the whole play. I do my zooming with FCP X.
I do have a couple of friends who are sports photographers, one a pro who has many of the area colleges as clients. The other is a neighbor who shoots games at the college for the local news web site. (She's also on the town council and is a retired Navy captain. Amazing woman.) They both have really sharp pictures, none with different body parts in and out of focus. I should appreciate their work even more after your comment. They both shoot Nikons, BTW.
Thanks for helping me to relate a bit to situations outside my experience.
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Yeah with the 70-200 f2.8 or even 200-400 f4 if the player gets close enough, having that focus point on their chest will make their face slightly out of focus.
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Yes, depth of field is often an issue if lighting is poor and the lens needs to be wide open; it's pretty thin. Like a deer with her nose in focus but not the eye. I agree with PBD that the smarter cameras are going to help ... if there are focus points where you need them, which is the case with mirrorless.
Jack
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I am an enthusiast bird photographer, but a rank amateur without the expensive specialist gear. The sponsored photos of bird photography by Canon on dpr are astounding; astounding for their absolute ordinariness. They show, for example, a brown pelican flying shot by using the 1DIII with a 200-400mm at f/5.6 with the built-in extender at 560mm - the top image. To show how undemanding that image is, I post below a couple of images I have taken with a 5DSR + 100-400mm II, and at the bottom one taken with a Sony bridge camera (RX10IV). My images are not rare keepers from many OOF images but represent the high number of keepers. The 5DSR ones are from panning with AI servo and the centre 9 points for AF, the Sony track with little squares dancing around the image and has very good depth of field because of its small sensor and lens.
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And here is a sequence of a pelican diving taking with the 5DSR "studio camera" and the 100-400 mm II. I was with a guided group of non-photographers in the Galapagos and had to take what shots I could without the luxury of being able to wait for the best opportunities. I absolutely love my 5DSR and 100-400mm II. The FF field of view with the 100-400mm attached makes it so good for BIF, and the high IQ and pixel count means you can improve that angle even more by not being so close.
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