Easter Chicks

[John Hawkins]

I photographed this trio today around the corner from my house. It took about an hour for them to come back out from when they first saw me. There are five chicks. Data = f/8, 1/1600, +0.7 ev, ISO 400, 500mm. Thanks for looking, John

[Arthur Morris]

You did well in relatively harsh light. Good use of d-o-f. The BKGR boken looks a bit strange. What lens? The middle one has the best mug (and smile).

[John Hawkins]

Thanks Artie, I used a Sigma 50-500mm. I have to say, I'm not real happy with the lens. Seems soft when opened too far. But then again, maybe it is me, I'm still learning. John

[Randy Stout]

John:

Very cute grouping. Your patience was rewarded!

Nice to get a pretty clear look at all three heads. The light was harsh for you. The DOF wasn't quite enough to capture all three. With that light, you could have traded some shutter speed for additional DOF.

The background has quite a bit of noise, and would benefit from selective noise reduction.

Because they are so close, hopefully you will get some more shots at them. Try them again with better light, and I think it can be very sweet.

Thanks so much for sharing!

Randy

PS: I was typing while Artie was. I will defer to him on DOF, but would be curious to have had a bit more, to get all birds equally sharp. Certainly shouldn't have been any motion blur at that shutter speed. Particularly the left bird is very soft.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Artie, I used a Sigma 50-500mm. I have to say, I'm not real happy with the lens. Seems soft when opened too far. But then again, maybe it is me, I'm still learning. John

Hi John, Thanks for the info. Do you know what Bokeh is?

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Is there a reliable way to distinguish bad bokeh from background noise. I do know the definition of bokeh, but apparently don't always recognize bad bokeh vs. noise in the image.

Thanks

Randy

[John Hawkins]

Yes Artie, Bokeh is the blurred effect in the background when using shallow depth of field. Right?

[Randy Stout]

John:

Let me throw out my understanding of bokeh, and see what Artie thinks!

Bokeh is how the lens handles out of focus highlights. Good bokeh gives smooth, graceful handling of the out of focus highlights, whereas bad bokeh tends to have sharper, irregular edges, not smooth. You sometimes hear of a lens with good bokeh as giving creamy out of focus areas. The Nikon 85 f/1.4 is famous for this. It is often called the 'cream machine'.

DOF and bokeh aren't the same thing. Bokeh is independent of DOF.

Just my .02. I am sure Artie will give the final word.

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Well, I am no expert on Bokeh but I believe that this background illustrates exactly what it is (though I find it hard to define). You gotta see it. Look at the weird, jngly BKGR to our right of the head of the right hand bird... To me, that is bad bokeh; the weird blurring there could not be cause by noise. And the rest of the BKGR is not much different. And my understanding is that Bokeh may be worse at smaller apertures, at least that is my impression. And in theory, less expensive, i.e., lower quality lenses show bad Bokeh more often that more expensive higher quality lenses. For me, this image is a perfect example of bad Boken not only in the BKGR but to some degree in the foreground as well. But heck, I could be 100% wrong.

[Randy Stout]

John:

One of the things that tends to give 'better' bokeh is an iris with more blades, 9 vs. 7 for example. Curved iris blades which more closely resemble a circle, rather than a polygon, are also better. The physics of it has to due with the 'circle of confusion', but this concept usually just confuses me!

If we have a optical engineer in the crowd, they could clarify.

I do get to deal with the general concept in my day job.

Cheers

Randy

[John Hawkins]

The background here is right behind the birds as they are coming out of their burrow and I am shooting slightly down on them so the background is "RIGHT" there. I think if the background (the dead grass and twigs) were further back it would of been a smoother "bokeh". Other shots do show a smoother background. I'll post one and let me know. John

[John Hawkins]

This is the adult but up on a perch. the background trees and grasses are futher back. Data= f/6.3,1/1600,0.7 ev,ISO 400, 500mm. Here the bokeh seems smoother. John

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks John, But for Bokeh to be bad, there has to be detail in the BKGR. In the image above, image quality looks suspect at best but I have no clue as the cause...