Murder In the Back Yard

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

This Coopers Hawk murdered this grey squirrel the other day while he was hunting our feeders in the back yard. The hawk attacked the squirrel from a nearby tree and sank his talons into the neck and head of the squirrel, he covered him with his wings for about 5 minutes until the squirrel died. The hawk then dragged the body into some brush near the foundation of our house and ate the squirrel for the next 4 hours. Then he took the pelt and flew into the nearby woods. The image technicals are as follows:

Olympus OM-D E-M1 II
Olympus 300mm f/4.0
ISO-800, f/4.5 1/200 sec

This camera is 4/3 and so the 300mm lens is the same as a 600mm when using a 35mm sensor. This is a new camera to me and I am able to use it hand held which I can not do with my Nikon 600mm f4.0.

Any thoughts about the image would be appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

[arash_hazeghi]

action is superb but the cluttered BG and the poor image quality, namely the soft and grainy image and the harsh bokeh is holding it back. the poor IQ maybe partially due to slow SS but with this camera you have no hope in raising the ISO as the image will sink in noise.

Also a 300mm lens is NOT the same as a 600m lens. It is a common misconception to confuse field of view (FOV) with focal length. A 300mm lens is always a 300mm lens. on a small sensor camera, the sensor see's only 1/4 of the image (2X crop factor), this means the sensor only collects 1/4 as much light compared to a 600mm lens on 35mm camera (or two stops less). Thus the poor image quality you see above. If you want avian quality images unfortunately you cannot get around fundamental laws of physics and this small camera is not going to work well for you unless you shoot close non-moving subjects in bright light and even then it will struggle.

good luck

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Arash :Thanks very much for your thoughts about the hawk image I submitted yesterday. It is always good to hear your constructive criticism of my work. I am very aware of your superior skill in regards to bird photography and post processing and so it is doubly good to hear your thoughts when directed at my work. Your criticism on my hawk submission brings up a couple of questions which I hope you will be kind enough to answer. 1) You speak of IQ and I am wondering if you could tell me the exact definition of this in regard to bird photography? Is this a subjective or objective measurement of quality? 2) Is noise always a bad thing in bird photography? 3) Your criticism of the BG is understandable but I am unsure what I can do about how to change the location of where the Hawk chose to kill the squirrel or is there something I might be able to do in post processing to correct the tree trunk being where it was? Maybe some sort of blur or the such? Thanks again for your help.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Mac,

sorry for not clarifying.

IQ: Image Quality. It is mostly objective, in fact it is pretty much the only objective part of bird photography. It defines an image that is sharply focused, with good details, colors and free of noise, at least to the eye of an average viewer. and yes, noise is not natural, it is distracting and unpleasant. That's why camera manufacturers strive to minimize it.

As for the BG, not much you could have done. using a faster lens would have helped with the bokeh and a bit more pleasant BG rendering, In particular the chaotic rendering which is also referred to as "harsh bokeh" is a quality of the lens which in this case seems to be mediocre. You won't find many serious bird photographers using this kind if gear and for a good reason. I think if you try to work with your Nikon gear and use a tripod you will overall get better results.

but yes sometimes the conditions just don't align for letting us get a great shot I have had plenty of frames where everything is so perfect but the BG kills it. Not your fault, gotta keep trying!

Hope this helps

[Mike Hitchen]

This is a great record image and you are so lucky to have been able to capture it. I guess you should also be congratulated for capturing the image without spooking the bird because feeding is a very vulnerable time for them.

To build on Arash's comments, I have a couple of MFTs and am very impressed with them but in my experience they start to show real limitations with longer lenses. As Arash says, it has a 600mm FOV but is a 300mm lens with the DOF of 300mm and this is what you are seeing with regards proximity to the tree (also remember that f4.5 on MFT had DOF closer to f4-5.6 on FF). As you rightly say, there is not a lot you can do about where the hawk decided to make the kill which will always make it tricky whatever gear you are using.

One area where the 300mm lens on MFT is like 600mm on FF is the most difficult part - camera shake. On MFT you would need minimum 1/600 sec handhold and even though the in-body stabilisation of the Olympus is impressive, it is said that in-body stabilisation traditoinally struggles at long focal lengths compared to in-lens stabilisation. So I suspect that the 1/200 sec you used is at the very limit for this image and may account for the less-than pin sharp image here.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Thanks to you both for the further clarification of some of your comments regarding this posting. Not to launch a defense of the camera and lens that was useing to take this image but to let you know why it was used for the capture. The Olympus I was using is a very fine piece of gear, but it does have the problems you pointed out. Lack of DOF is one of them. I use it because it has some advantages for me as a shooter. The first and most important is that it weighs about a 1/3 of what my Nikon D5 with the 600mm f/4 lens. I hate to admit it but being 76 years old this limits the amount and the places that I can go with the Nikon with it's tripod. I can physically handle the Olympus but often not the Nikon. I could never had taken this image with the Nikon because I would never had put the 600mm on the camera and mount it on the tripod and carry it into place where the image was taken. I have shot many shots with the Nikon and I love the camera, but sometimes it just won't work for what I do. I guess it a matter of whether I get a chance to get a good, but not a great shot with the Olympus or not at all. By the way Mike, the Olympus not only has the in-body stabilization the 300mm has the in lens stabilization. Working together the give you a fairly stable hand held platform.

Both of you have been extremely helpful and I thank you very much and I will try to incorporate your suggestions in my next shoot keeping in mind that almost everything in photography is a trade off.

[Mike Hitchen]

Do you have a monopod? That would be much more portable and easier to set up - I realise that with an image like this speed and portability can be of the essence but it may be worth considering having one to hand.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Thanks Mike, I'll give that a try.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Mac

how about doing setups?

best

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Mac, I am in my seventh decade, like you. I also have a neuro-muscular disease, making hand holding difficult. My solution is a crop sensor camera (Nikon D7000) and Nikon 80-400mm lens. I use the camera and lens on a carbon fiber momopod. This allows me to keep the focus point on the subject where I want. When walking the camera and lens rest on my shoulder. The Nikon D500 might be a good option between the 4/3 and your D5.

[Chris Elliott]

Mac,

To add even one more suggestion thus confusing things even more. My daughter is rather small and likes to photograph birds with me. Given her size and my desire to shoot longer lenses, I let her use a D500 coupled with a Nikon 300mm F/4E PF ED VR and a 1.4 III TC. This give her a very light unit, decent reach, while maintaining image quality and good ISO performance.

Also, interesting to see a Coopers with something other than a bird which is mainly what we see here on the Texas Coast.

Chris