60mm Macro lens equivalent for Full Frame

[Jack Douglas]

@ stevelee I wasn't aiming the comments at you specifically. Just a general observation that the 1DX2 video has been mercilessly attacked by many pros for various reasons, many of them valid. I was just presenting an opposing view from my perspective of short nature clips and slo mo. Off topic of course.

You should do a set up off your deck. You might become addicted.

Jack

 

[stevelee]

You should do a set up off your deck. You might become addicted.

Jack

I was out on the deck about 15 minutes after sunset this evening. I had been out front shooting the sunset and neighbor's Halloween decorations. I decided to wander on to the deck out back to see what I could see. I had the 24-105 STM on my 6D2, so clearly didn't have bird photos in mind. Looking down on one of the bird feeders next door, I thought I saw some birds, but it was too dark for me to be sure. No time to run inside and put on my less-than-stellar 75-300 (which so far has not been on this camera). So I went ahead and took some pictures. 105mm f/5.6 1/40 sec. ISO 40,000, auto exposure and focus. Of course the results were noisy, but much better than my eyes could do. I did minimal tweaking in Camera RAW, cropped somewhat, and the picture below is about 58% reduction, so noise smoothed out a bit:

I'm quite pleased with both camera and lens. I couldn't have focused by eye. While this is not a great photo, I'm glad I took it. I would not have bothered with any of my other equipment.

Still off topic, I realize.

 

[Jack Douglas]

OK, so now you get the picture in daylight and with the less than perfect 300 since it looks like a very pretty bird!

Jack

 

[stevelee]

OK, so now you get the picture in daylight and with the less than perfect 300 since it looks like a very pretty bird!

Jack

That worked because the cardinals couldn't see me, either. I can probably figure out the wifi setup to do the remote shooting easier than I can guess what time the cardinals come to the feeder.

 

[stevelee]

I should have added, in case that it is not suggested by my context, that the picture was shot handheld. That is part of what impressed me. The stabilization in the lens allowed me to shoot handheld in the near-dark.

With planning and a tripod I could have used a little longer shutter speed and a lower ISO to cut down on noise. The birds were still enough to allow a bit more time, probably. But it is not the sort of shot I would have planned, but rather just happened upon.

 

[stevelee]

OK, so my next test of the camera was to try a time lapse movie (still irrelevant to the thread), and I realized that since darkness was approaching, I would have willing subjects at the bird feeder. So I finally put the 75-300mm lens on (and took off the eclipse filter), zoomed to maybe 175mm, and started the shoot at 6:15pm EDT.

I set the interval to three seconds, resolution to 4K, and auto exposure for each shot (since it would be getting dark). I let it shoot for 45 minutes.

In editing I cropped a bit, but did include the part of the feeder on the right that I had accidentally included in the frame, since birds went there, too. I slowed the result to 1/10 speed and posted to YouTube a 1080p result.

https://youtu.be/fZ-qQbVpEqA

A small bird or two start it off, and then the cardinals move in, with the main action starting around 1:40.