White-tailed kite hunting

[Diane Miller]

Since I thought to try cleaning the contacts, AF is holding much more reliably with the 600 and I'm getting good (to me) results with the 2X. With a subject you can't get very close to, more pixels on the subject seems to trump upsizing a shot with the 1.4X.

Canon 5D Mk III, 600mm II + 2X III. Big Gitzo with Wimberley II. ISO 800, f/9, 1/3200 sec., + 1/3 EV, about 1 hr before sunset. Cropped from horizontal, just a little off the top and bottom. Basic LR adjustments then to PS CS6 for noise reduction and some halo removal.

[Doug Brown]

Like the pose and eye contact. Detail is very good for a 600 with a 2x. Whites are nicely controlled.

[Marina Scarr]

Killer light and flight pose here, Diane. You do have awesome whites and details here. Glad to see the 2x is working for you! :)

[Gary Esman]

Hi Diane, like the wing position here, the dangling feet and the head angle. Pretty sweet. Gary.

[Jeannean Ryman]

Great pose! Seems to be saying "Well, hello there!" Very nice exposure and comp. Nice job!

[stuart wanuck]

Well done and he is looking right at you

[dankearl]

Excellent, Diane, everything looks great, superb photo, especially at that length!

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Diane,

Always seem to be more impressed with the 2x and 600 the more I see it. Very nicely done as I know that the learning curve is steep with that setup.

Great detail in the whites, as mentioned above. I might take a look at a version with a bit more room to the right (and possibly a little less on top). That's just me though, as I like the higher aspect ratio comps.

Miguel

[David Salem]

Very nice Diane. Great job on the exposure and the pose and the feather detail looks awesome. Your best Kite post to date!
I think the eye looks a hare soft due to the shape of the catch. I like to clean them up to be a perfect circle. Makes the eye look sharper.
Beautiful capture and one to be proud of!!

[Frank Schauf]

Excellent detail and flying pose, nice head turn and eye contact.

[vishaljadhav]

Very nicely made image the pose and details are fantastic
i love the exposure on this one a lot

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, everyone!

Miguel, I think you have a good point about a looser crop. There is plenty of sky!

David, good eye on the catchlight -- it is just a bit elongated. Head movement or a little camera shake? Probably the latter. I'm doing everything I can think of to steady vibration and stop subject movement. I think this day I had strapped a pair of those exercise ankle weights to the lens hood and back end, and was using silent shutter mode, which is supposed to have less vibration. Since the kite was hovering, I had IS on mode 1. Camera braced tight against my face, torqued against the slight play in the lens mount, slight tightening of the Wimberley knobs, ... etc. etc.

That amount of movement does affect overall sharpness. Still working on it.

[Loi Nguyen]

Diane, very nice pose here. I know it is tough to get close to these guys. You had many good comments above. the only thing I would wish for is just a little more details on the top part of the far wing. Well done with the 2X. You remind me I should clean my contacts too. Loi

[Diane Miller]

Don't know if anyone is still following this thread, but regarding sharpness (or potential sharpness) at 1200mm, here's a zoom view sized to display at 100% (same as 1:1 in LR or ACR) of another from the same day -- this one was perched and I was a little closer. The one above is 17% of the full frame and this one is 5%. Basic LR adjustments, but I did add a little extra sharpening here, to 70%. (Sharpening is done to a RAW image in LAB mode and should be more artifact-free than sharpening in PS.) Then to PS for Neat Image and a very small % of Detail Extractor, just to try to maximize the image potential. (Boring pose other than food begging, so not really worth showing as a separate image.)

JPEG was exported from LR with no tweaking afterwards.

Not bad for 5% of a 1200mm shot....???

[Karl Egressy]

Wow, what an amazing BIF picture you have here Diane.

[arash_hazeghi]

great capture of the juvi. kite.

good light, good wing position, good eye contact and I like the dangling talons. Details are good too, it's a bit noisy in the BG and head area but overall great shot.

TFS

[Satish Ranadive]

Beautiful image with 600mm+2x. I like the wing position,HA,nice details and composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Grace Scalzo]

Diane, do some reading on long lens technique . No need for some of the extreme measures that you are taking (ankle weights?). All this kind of stuff just slows you down. Resting your arm on the top of the lens of even grabbing the knob on the lens hood from below if your arm gets tired is enough. Try IS mode 2. I think that you have more detail avaiable in the near wing and leg in the whites and I'm not sure what is causing the noise on the face . Also, while the 2x III is totally usable at f8, I still find sharpness is best at f10 and this is my default if everything else works out.

[Diane Miller]

I've done a LOT of reading. And listening. And also thinking. I have found many conflicting opinions in all my reading and listening, and I'm looking at variables for myself. (I've been advised that I should be able to handhold "a 600" at 1/500 sec., that I should be shooting it at f/4, .... etc. etc. (And that when the discussion was about 840 or 1200 mm...) I haven't seen much improvement trying to stalilize the front of the lens with my left hand, but I do need to revisit it -- thanks for the reminder. It's a bit of a reach for me, especially with the 2x.

I don't intend to load the lens with ankle weights every time I shoot. Just experimenting. But the experiment was interesting -- it gives a VERY nice feeling to the Wimberley, almost like a fluid-damped video head. They take about a minute to strap on, are perfectly balanced, and are only used for times the tripod is planted in a location. Certainly not for carrying down the trail. It was an experiment in what it takes to get the most stabilization from vibration. (As in, I really don't want a catchlight that is elongated by 2x because that degrades the rest of the image at 1200mm.) If I find it isn't helping I won't keep playing with it.

Does IS Mode 2 (or 3) make sense when I'm on a tripod shooting a parked bird? (I do use it for flight.)

I wasn't at f/8, but f/9, for both shots. f/10 would have been better but I'm not worried about corner sharpness and am already walking a tightrope balancing ISO and SS. Every image I post gets criticised for noise, when I'm exposing to the right as much as I can and still recover highlight detail, and using Neat Image in PP. I don't want to go above ISO 800 if I can avoid it, but will be shooting at 1600 for the next few times.

I do appreciate all the information here, and continuing discussion -- just trying to give a more accurate picture of where I'm at.

[Loi Nguyen]

Diane, I found pressing my face/eye brown against the back of the camera is very important to get good sharpness with the 500f4 Ii + 2X III. at F9 and close, you should be able to see more details at 100% view IMO when focus is on the eye. Loi

[Diane Miller]

Yes, I always press my face very firmly against the back of the camera, or, really more accurately, pull the camera against my face, hard, with both hands. (I don't wear glasses.)

I'm curious, which image are you referring to that should have more detail --the first post, or the second? As I said, they are 17% and 5% of FF. That does make a difference in sharpness and detail. (I'd love to be able to get those shots at FF.)

[Loi Nguyen]

Diane, I was referring to the head shot, but actually now I have a chance to see it again, it looks pretty good for a 5 percent crop! Loi

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Loi. I probably shouldn't have hijacked my own thread with an aside about 1200mm -- just trying to toss out what I could get, FWIW, and the only way to try to show it was to present a 1:1 zoom. Certainly not one I would print!