[Pentaxians]

Brambling, another lifer from my recent year end trip at Taiwan, taken from Mount Ali as well.

[Shedking]

Better known as a dragonfly site, the Stony Stratford Nature Reserve near Milton Keynes offers some close-up birding opportunities from a public hide.

I have come to the conclusion that the 55-300 PLM is best used at no more than 210mm, i.e. don't go beyond the point where the f-stop drops to f/6.3.

This 300mm shot has about as much sharpness as I can get, and also shows the bokeh (front and back) fairly well:

[WPRESTO]

The last couple of days have been warmer and today I had a chance to go look for snowy owls and was not disappointed.
Here is a couple of them.

the OIF is a professional capture.. I'm green with envy (must hit my brain-button conversion to B&W).

[Shedking]

A flock of 900+ Golden Plovers fills the sky over Tack Piece, the highlight of a visit to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge:

Attached Images

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[riseform]

Common redpoll
K3ii DFA 150-450 @ 450, handheld
Only the second time I've seen them. I was out searching for long-eared owls and mimicked a small low hoot to see if I could get a response when this gal responded and flew down next to me to investigate. A bit blurry on the second one due to slow shutter speed, but I liked the pose.

[littledrawe]

My experience differs considerably... with regards to TCs.
And I can show you exactly what I'm talking about.

The HD DA 1.4 TC causes a 3% loss in IQ. It increases size 40%. Appropriately used it will ad 37% more detail with the following conditions. The original lens cannot resolve the necessary detail at the distance from the subject.. The subject isn't so far away no lens will resolve the detail. The subject is in the zone between those two. The lens must be a DA* or equivalent. Putting a TC on a soft lens just magnifies the softness. Given those circumstances the increase in detail will be up to 37%, 100% of the time. The variable that makes this a less than hard number is how much of the necessary detail the original lens without TC doesn't resolve. If the original lens in your shoot is revolving 90% of the detail you want, the resulting increase can be no more than the last 10%.

Using a good TC is exactly the same as using a longer, slower lens. Longer lenses don't always produce more subject detail either, if the original lens already was resolving 100% of the critical detail.

Sounds like you've been listening to Reggie Watts!

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[normhead]

Sounds like you've been listening to Reggie Watts!

When I get invited to do a TED talk, I'll be sure and post the video.

Can I assume then that most people think TCs add any value would be correlated to the small number of people who can actually understand the above explanation? Maybe some things are just to complex for the modern mind.

There's an awful lot of math and physics I feel that way about. If god wanted me to know that stuff he'd have given me a bigger brain.

Let's just write it off as I didn't explain it very good, that's probably kinder.

The problem is, there are at least 40 different learning stiyles, different ways fo making sense of the world. If someone with your learning style explained it to you, it would make more sense than my explanation. IN cases like this the odds are exactly 1 in 40 that anyone will comprehend what I wrote and understand it as I meant when I wrote it. My favourite example. I explain defence to my basketball team and run some drills to reinforce the concepts, ending with a drill where I demonstrate that 5 on four is not an advantage if the defence rotates and helps correctly.. Afterwards, one of my players comes up to me and says, "I understand what we're doing now , but you didn't explain it very good" and the whole teams nods. My only concern as a coach is that every one gets it and is working together on the same page. Evaluations of my teaching methods, from my perspective, if you get it, it works. If you don't, it didn't, and I have to try another way. But what everyone thinks of my teaching methods, I don't care.

I only care about the results of my teaching methods. In basketball, I always ran drills so everyone understood exactly what we were doing. In other words, I made people do things. Here, I can't make anyone do anything. I have to rely on their own curiosity to do the drill that goes with the theory.

So if everyone goes out and buys a few great primes and augments their focal lengths with TCs my work is done. If not, I'll have to try another way,

In my experience a great lens like my DA*200 2.8, my DA*60-250, or my Tamron SP AF 300) with a TC is much better than an average lens like my A-400 ƒ5.6, or a poor lens, (my Sigma 70-300) without.

The only question left to be investigated is if a great lens like my DA*200 with the 1.4 TC (giving me 280 ƒ4) is as good or better than the DA*300 ƒ4 optically. It's already much more flexible, with 2 TCs that I can stack it is 4 focal lengths instead of one and four minimum ƒ-stops as well. But I'm not asking for opinions, I'm asking for visual proofs.

---

Last edited by normhead; 02-26-2018 at 07:39 AM.

[jacamar]

A total of seven Snowy Owls seen this weekend, mostly way out on the lake ice.

Two shots of the same bird





Testing the limits of the K-3, DA*300mm and 1.4x TC - about 1/4 of the original image, handheld.

[stihlmania]

When I get invited to do a TED talk, I'll be sure and post the video.

Can I assume then that most people think TCs don't add any value would be correlated to the small number of people who can actually understand the above explanation? Maybe some things are just to complex for the modern mind.

There's an awful lot of math and physics I feel that way about. If god wanted me to know that stuff he'd have given me a bigger brain.

Let's just write it off as I didn't explain it very good, that's probably kinder.

The problem is, there are at least 40 different learning stiyles, different ways fo making sense of the world. If someone with your learning style explained it to you, it would make more sense than my explanation. IN cases like this the odds are exactly 1 in 40 that anyone will comprehend what I wrote and understand it as I meant when I wrote it. My favourite example. I explain defence to my basketball team and run some drills to reinforce the concepts, ending with a drill where I demonstrate that 5 on four is not an advantage if the defence rotates and helps correctly.. Afterwards, one of my players comes up to me and says, "I understand what we're doing now , but you didn't explain it very good" and the whole teams nods. My only concern as a coach is that every one gets it and is working together on the same page. Evaluations of my teaching methods, from my perspective, if you get it, it works. If you don't, it didn't, and I have to try another way. But what everyone thinks of my teaching methods, I don't care.

I only care about the results of my teaching methods. In basketball, I always ran drills so everyone understood exactly what we were doing. In other words, I made people do things. Here, I can't make anyone do anything. I have to rely on their own curiosity to do the drill that goes with the theory.

So if everyone goes out and buys a few great primes and augments their focal lengths with TCs my work is done. If not, I'll have to try another way,

In my experience a great lens like my DA*200 2.8, my DA*60-250, or my Tamron SP AF 300) with a TC is much better than an average lens like my A-400 ƒ5.6, or a poor lens, (my Sigma 70-300) without.

The only question left to be investigated is if a great lens like my DA*200 with the 1.4 TC (giving me 280 ƒ4) is as good or better than the DA*300 ƒ4 optically. It's already much more flexible, with 2 TCs that I can stack it is 4 focal lengths instead of one and four minimum ƒ-stops as well. But I'm not asking for opinions, I'm asking for visual proofs.

Agree with Norm, I purchased my SMC A*400 and the 1.4XL together way back in time and if you get a lens and a TC that match, they give wonderful results. My recently [1 year ago] purchased AF1.7 adaptor also is very sharp with my older prime lens. I love to use the SMC A 50 1.7 with it, not so much with my DA and FA zooms. Just my 2 cents worth.....

[swip]

the OIF is a professional capture.. I'm green with envy (must hit my brain-button conversion to B&W).

Thanks for the comment.
Don't get much opportunity seeing them fly. This one was with the sun already low on the horizon and the shutter speed could have been higher.

[dadipentak]

if you get a lens and a TC that match, they give wonderful results.

That's been my experience too (I just don't think about it as hard as Norm does ) I pay some attention to match by brand and vintage but I can be flexible. The bottom line is, if you're using a quality lens and a quality TC you're probably going to get good results (as long as you don't make a hash of it in technique.)

[Canada_Rockies]

That's been my experience too (I just don't think about it as hard as Norm does ) I pay some attention to match by brand and vintage but I can be flexible. The bottom line is, if you're using a quality lens and a quality TC you're probably going to get good results

(as long as you don't make a hash of it in technique.)Just details ...

[stihlmania]

Since there are so many owl shots lately, these are from my film days in 1996 or 1997. When scanning the negatives recently to get my slides and film digital, I found out that Vericolor 160 film does not scan that well on my Epsom V370 scanner but the photo lab I used back then loved to print with it. K2DMD, SMC A* 400, 1.4XL converter........

[jacamar]

Don't get much opportunity seeing them fly.

I've seen them fly but they are usually flying away from me which isn't very photogenic (though still exciting to see). It takes good light and technique to get that intensity in the eyes - well done.

[northcoastgreg]

Portrait of an Otter, with DA* 300 + DA 1.4x TC: