A discovery about catchlights

[Diane Miller]

Was out this morning practicing handholding the new 1DX II, mostly for birds in flight at our local egret rookery. The nice dawn light lasted about 5 minutes so it was mostly just practice. But I saw this BCNH parked in a tree and liked the light on him/her. I went vertical but totally neglected the fact that the camera has a 90 degree grip (duh -- never used the 1DX 1) so I was rotating the body awkwardly which made handholding even more difficult. (Two discoveries in one day!) But the beast has deadly AF and even though I was holding awkwardly and almost falling over backwards as I looked up, focus held well. It was a steeper angle than is apparent here.

But as I was reviewing the images at 100% I noticed something about the catchlight -- that it appears in the shaded area of the eye. And then I realized, the catchlight is reflected off the cornea, and the shadow of the brow is on the recessed iris. I changed position and got a slightly different view and head angle, which has a more expected eye.

Here are the 100% crops -- no resizing and only the default ACR/LR sharpening. This was at 800mm, with the 400mm DO II and a 2X III. It was decent for flight, too, but not as many keepers as with the 1.4X. The result is more a tribute to the AF and IS than to my credentials as a weight lifter, but I'll toss in the full frame just for encouragement -- keep practicing -- it can be done.

ISO 1250, f/9, 1/2500. Was at f/9 because I probably bumped the dial -- not intentional. Needs NR!

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[Glennie Passier]

Congrats on the new 1DX II! I hope we see some more of your posts in the other forums.

That's a very grand observation Diane. Trust the old Grasshopper eyes to notice that. That birds beak looks like it's been under the mower.

[Krish Naidoo]

Diane
Excellent from what you describe as the way you captured the image, despite what you say is a tribute to the AF and IS.
Congratulations on the new camera.


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[Diane Miller]

Yeah, it's amazing how beat up bird beaks can get.

The noise in these is not a great advertisement for the camera, but they were underexposed by 1.5 stops as I was in Manual exposure, shooting white egrets in flight with the sun at my back, and was set to prevent blowout. Didn't think to increase the exposure a little for this subject. If I had done so the noise would be negligible. Thus the rationale for ETTR.

[Adhika Lie]

I want that camera. I have heard people singing praises of the AF. Very good observation, Diane. I have never paid attention to this. Now it really makes me think.

[Diane Miller]

The AF is said by everyone to be the best there is for action, and I'm delighted with results so far. In my experience the noise is only about a stop (maybe 1.5) better than the 5D3, which has been claimed to be virtually equal to the 1DX, and 2-3 stops better than the 7D2. The noise is tight-grained and cleans up very well with Nik Dfine. Haven't had the need or time to try Neat Image yet.

The claims about dynamic range improvements are not consistent with what I've seen. Maybe there is a little improvement below ISO 400 or so, compared to the 5D3.

Although my previous bodies have has a Cf and an SD slot, I never used the SD. But the 1DX2 came with a 64G CFast card and reader, so now I have images recording to both as a backup against card failure. It's a good feeling.

I'm delighted with the Adobe Standard camera profile in ACR/LR -- much nicer and cleaner tonalities than the others, including the "Faithful" one that is the best one to use in DPP. (Yes, Faithful looks identical in ACR/LR and in DPP and I find it seriously lacking in both. Adobe Std is better.)

All in all, it's a very significant improvement over my 5D3 and 7D2. Will do AF Microadjustment tomorrow.

[Warren Spreng]

Nice write up!

[Michael Thompson]

Interesting observations! Congrats on the new camera!