Posted by Barry Southon on November 24, 2006 at 7:22 AM
Western Meadowlark (2)
Kansas USA Jun 06
Canon 350D 35mm-350mm handheld from car window
Still seeking advice and critique please.
Thankyou
Barry
Posted by Mike Smith on November 24, 2006 at 9:46 AM
Looks like you had an interesting trip with some good birds, but regards this image, it is a bit too tight in the frame for my taste and is suffering from lack of room.
Not sure if it is the lens rather than your technique, but the image is soft and lacks critical sharpness. I don't think it is a focus issue - no part of the image seems to be critically sharp. So that leaves either camera shake (no techs to work from) or the fact that the lens is soft at the long telephoto end
To go off topic slightly, a 10x focal length zoom is a compromise lens, even when wearing the Canon L badge. The 35-350 is not frequently encountered, so I'm not sure just how good it is at the 350mm end. As a comparison the Canon 100-400mm (which is only a 4x focul length zoom) suffers from build quality issues, some lenses are ultra sharp, others produce quite soft poor quality images at the 400mm end. The same issue probably exists for the 35-350
There is a huge amount of glass in the 35-350 lens, 21 elements in 15 groups, it only needs 1 glass element to be slightly out of wack to affect the lens performance, so you may want to try some static controlled tests on a tripod to establish whether the lens can take sharper images or whether it needs servicing/recalibrating by Canon.
Posted by Nigel Blake on November 24, 2006 at 10:15 AM
On the other hand.... I know someone who suffered sharpness problems with a 500 f4 IS Canon on a beanbag, It turned out that when shooting from the car he still had the engine running!!
Otherwise I agree with the comments above re being too big in frame, but the lighting direction and bland sky don't help with this image, when you have a backlit subject its better to have a background that has the same reflective attributes as the subject or is slightly darker.
Posted by Barry Southon on November 24, 2006 at 10:20 AM
Mike
Thank you for taking the time to make these points. This really is just what I needed I'm not getting the same view from within as it were.
The camera was hand held and I used a fast speed on autofocus I have tended to take a group of 8 or 9 shoots and then trust that one or two will work. Is this totally the wrong approach?
I will be back in Kansas in ten days time and the primary subjects will be the Bald Eagles fishing I'm taking a sigma 50mm-500mm also. Perhaps if I had a better idea of what I was doing that might help.
Barry
Posted by Barry Southon on November 24, 2006 at 11:01 AM
Nigel
I'm certain I had the engine running each time plus leaning on the window/door this could be one factor engine vibration.
Discussion
4 repliesKansas USA Jun 06
Canon 350D 35mm-350mm handheld from car window
Still seeking advice and critique please.
Thankyou
Barry
Not sure if it is the lens rather than your technique, but the image is soft and lacks critical sharpness. I don't think it is a focus issue - no part of the image seems to be critically sharp. So that leaves either camera shake (no techs to work from) or the fact that the lens is soft at the long telephoto end
To go off topic slightly, a 10x focal length zoom is a compromise lens, even when wearing the Canon L badge. The 35-350 is not frequently encountered, so I'm not sure just how good it is at the 350mm end. As a comparison the Canon 100-400mm (which is only a 4x focul length zoom) suffers from build quality issues, some lenses are ultra sharp, others produce quite soft poor quality images at the 400mm end. The same issue probably exists for the 35-350
There is a huge amount of glass in the 35-350 lens, 21 elements in 15 groups, it only needs 1 glass element to be slightly out of wack to affect the lens performance, so you may want to try some static controlled tests on a tripod to establish whether the lens can take sharper images or whether it needs servicing/recalibrating by Canon.
Otherwise I agree with the comments above re being too big in frame, but the lighting direction and bland sky don't help with this image, when you have a backlit subject its better to have a background that has the same reflective attributes as the subject or is slightly darker.
Thank you for taking the time to make these points. This really is just what I needed I'm not getting the same view from within as it were.
The camera was hand held and I used a fast speed on autofocus I have tended to take a group of 8 or 9 shoots and then trust that one or two will work. Is this totally the wrong approach?
I will be back in Kansas in ten days time and the primary subjects will be the Bald Eagles fishing I'm taking a sigma 50mm-500mm also. Perhaps if I had a better idea of what I was doing that might help.
Barry
I'm certain I had the engine running each time plus leaning on the window/door this could be one factor engine vibration.
Barry