Posts for: JimH123
Nov 29, 2014 12:41:50 #
I have gone out whale watching many times and have some good pictures of Humpbacks and Blue Whales and even a Fin Whale to show for it. My experience suggests that you see more of the whale on calm days and when the waves are larger, you don't get the good shots. Also, there is a big difference in results when it is a sunny day vs a cloudy day. The cloudy day shots have less contrast and need more post processing.
Now for the camera. It needs to fire a shot or sequence of shots the instant you hit the shutter. I usually fire a sequence of shots as I see the flukes start to go up. I use a 18-250mm zoom on my crop sensor camera or a 70-300mm on my full frame. And I use spot focus since the choppy waves can give the camera so many false things to focus on. The whales may be far away and you can get nice shots of them spouting. Or groups of several together. Or up close. I have had them surface right beside the boat perhaps 15 feet away. Close enough to smell their whale breath. And if you are lucky enough, you can even catch them performing a breach which I have seen multiple times. Or on another occasion, smacking the water many times with the tail flukes sending up big splashes to photograph.
Thus it really ought to be a zoom, and it should focus fast and the camera should not have any lag when you hit the shutter.
And prepare to get wet and cold. Protect the camera from the spray when the boat is moving fast for instance have a plastic bag to insert it into. The boat will stop when whales are present. Some whales hardly show themselves and only give you a tiny glimpse. And others put on a show. Hopefully you get the show.
I live on the west coast and have an easy drive to Monterey Bay for the sights that can be seen there. And I have been in Hawaii to see the Humpbacks put on their shows. And at times, there are so many whales in so many directions that it is hard to decide which ones to concentrate on. They often are in small groups with a mother and calf and perhaps a male escort that travels with them. And this male will not tolerate other males approaching. And things can get ugly real fast. (Humpback behavior).
Have fun. And check the web site for the whale watching boat before you go. They will often post sightings for previous days so you can judge what is being seen. The types of whales can vary based upon the season.
And one other place I have done whale watching is the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. It is here in late summer that the Blue Whales arrive and the weather in late summer is generally good, and some fantastic sights. I've seen Blue Whales in Monterey, but they don't go there in the same numbers.
Now for the camera. It needs to fire a shot or sequence of shots the instant you hit the shutter. I usually fire a sequence of shots as I see the flukes start to go up. I use a 18-250mm zoom on my crop sensor camera or a 70-300mm on my full frame. And I use spot focus since the choppy waves can give the camera so many false things to focus on. The whales may be far away and you can get nice shots of them spouting. Or groups of several together. Or up close. I have had them surface right beside the boat perhaps 15 feet away. Close enough to smell their whale breath. And if you are lucky enough, you can even catch them performing a breach which I have seen multiple times. Or on another occasion, smacking the water many times with the tail flukes sending up big splashes to photograph.
Thus it really ought to be a zoom, and it should focus fast and the camera should not have any lag when you hit the shutter.
And prepare to get wet and cold. Protect the camera from the spray when the boat is moving fast for instance have a plastic bag to insert it into. The boat will stop when whales are present. Some whales hardly show themselves and only give you a tiny glimpse. And others put on a show. Hopefully you get the show.
I live on the west coast and have an easy drive to Monterey Bay for the sights that can be seen there. And I have been in Hawaii to see the Humpbacks put on their shows. And at times, there are so many whales in so many directions that it is hard to decide which ones to concentrate on. They often are in small groups with a mother and calf and perhaps a male escort that travels with them. And this male will not tolerate other males approaching. And things can get ugly real fast. (Humpback behavior).
Have fun. And check the web site for the whale watching boat before you go. They will often post sightings for previous days so you can judge what is being seen. The types of whales can vary based upon the season.
And one other place I have done whale watching is the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. It is here in late summer that the Blue Whales arrive and the weather in late summer is generally good, and some fantastic sights. I've seen Blue Whales in Monterey, but they don't go there in the same numbers.
Nov 29, 2014 12:12:30 #
I have a Sony A57 (1.5X crop sensor & 16M pixels) and a Sony A99 (full sensor & 24M pixels). Both camera deliver very sharp pictures of birds, but the A57 has extra reach due to the crop factor. If I crop the full sensor down to the same shot as the crop sensor, I am throwing away pixels -- 24M / 2.5 = 9.6M pixels in use.
For distant objects, there is only one place the full frame does better and that is low light with noise. I can shoot at higher ISO values without producing visible noise.
But when using the same lens on the two different bodies, the crop sensor will give an effective 1.5x reach.
And one more obvious difference. If I am not using a really good lens, the crop sensor really only uses the center of the lens and is effectively already acting like a stopped down lens. This can mean that I might not need to stop down as much for sharpness.
I also did an experiment where I borrowed one of those cheap $300 Vivitar 800-1600 zooms that you see advertised. The focus was super critical and it was a real problem to find good focus. The lens was also subject to a lot of vibration. It was a lot easier at 800mm than at 1600mm and I have to conclude the 1600mm end was esentially useless. The full senor was easier to focus and the crop sensor was ridiculous to focus. I did surprise myself at how good a photo could turn out on a stationary, non moving object with a little help in post processing to boost contrast. But I would not want to ever go birding with one of those lenses with either camera.
For distant objects, there is only one place the full frame does better and that is low light with noise. I can shoot at higher ISO values without producing visible noise.
But when using the same lens on the two different bodies, the crop sensor will give an effective 1.5x reach.
And one more obvious difference. If I am not using a really good lens, the crop sensor really only uses the center of the lens and is effectively already acting like a stopped down lens. This can mean that I might not need to stop down as much for sharpness.
I also did an experiment where I borrowed one of those cheap $300 Vivitar 800-1600 zooms that you see advertised. The focus was super critical and it was a real problem to find good focus. The lens was also subject to a lot of vibration. It was a lot easier at 800mm than at 1600mm and I have to conclude the 1600mm end was esentially useless. The full senor was easier to focus and the crop sensor was ridiculous to focus. I did surprise myself at how good a photo could turn out on a stationary, non moving object with a little help in post processing to boost contrast. But I would not want to ever go birding with one of those lenses with either camera.
Nov 28, 2014 23:33:29 #
I looked and can see that. It also was swimming fast and effortlessly. I just don't think a Musk Rat can swim as fast as a beaver. And I think the fur isn't thick enough to be an otter.
But the swimming was the thing that caught my attention. I don't remember the front legs participating in the swimming action. Power was coming from the back end.
But the swimming was the thing that caught my attention. I don't remember the front legs participating in the swimming action. Power was coming from the back end.
Nov 28, 2014 20:01:28 #
Yes, I once overheard my wife when meeting the wife of another engineer and hearing her say: "Oh, your husband is an engineer too. That explains it". Still trying to figure out what that meant.
Try googling "dilbert the knack" and see how it was discovered that Dilbert was going to be an engineer. It's rather funny.
Try googling "dilbert the knack" and see how it was discovered that Dilbert was going to be an engineer. It's rather funny.
Nov 28, 2014 11:20:31 #
And I might also add again that I have never seen an otter ever swim in a straight line or just on the surface. They are all over the place, always looking for the next meal. Up, down, left, right -- all over the place.
And this guy was on a very straight line and not going below the surface at all. And his wake was very long as he was moving quite rapidly.
I might add about the color of the water. It was close to sunset and the sun was to my back. The sunward side of the waves were blue and the backsides were the murky brown color as they were in shade. Made me think my white balance was mis-adjusted. But not so, it was the lighting conditions.
And this guy was on a very straight line and not going below the surface at all. And his wake was very long as he was moving quite rapidly.
I might add about the color of the water. It was close to sunset and the sun was to my back. The sunward side of the waves were blue and the backsides were the murky brown color as they were in shade. Made me think my white balance was mis-adjusted. But not so, it was the lighting conditions.
Nov 28, 2014 10:54:09 #
This is done by engineers and this is normal terminology for them. It is the implementation to make it usable in cameras and PCs that is done by computer engineers that add the complexity of the formatting. There is probably no other way to do this. The memory as constructed is in perfect rows and columns. But to the computer, it needs to look like a disk drive, so it is structured by formatting to look like clusters.
Nov 28, 2014 10:12:00 #
The 16GB card really does have 16GB of storage, but that is before it is formatted. During the formatting process, some of that 16GB is consumed to make the card compatible with the camera and PC that it might be plugged into. Without this formatting, the card is unusable.
And the recommendation is to format the card in the camera it is intended to be used with and no on the PC.
Additionally, the memory is allowed to have a certain number of bad sectors for which the formatting process will keep track of those bad sectors and add to them if necessary. Reason for this is that it is very difficult to manufacture memory this large with 100% perfect memory cells. The yield would be too low and the memory would cost a lot more. But if they can allow a certain number of sectors to be marked as bad, they can now sell many more memories. The camera ignores these bad locations since it uses that memory given to it to use from the formatting process. Amd this is the reason that it makes sense to reformat the memory in the camera from time to time just to make sure there are not new bad cells to be dealt with.
Internally, the memory is structured in pages. A page is the smallest unit that can be accessed. This memory is called NAND memory which has to do with this structure. The camera or PC accesses this memory by pages and the entire page is read or written to at a time meaning that you cannot just access part of a page. A number of pages are grouped into a block, and this is the smallest unit that the operating system can erase. But the operating system is organized by clusters which makes up the smallest unit of memory that it is concerned with. If a file is larger than a cluster, it fits onto two or more clusters in which the operating system keeps track of the sequence of clusters to read back the file. If a file is smaller than a cluster, it is the only thing that goes on that cluster.
This should give you an idea now that there is considerable information that goes into the formatting of the memory card and this does consume the cards overall space.
And just for FYI, early FLASH memory was built using Single Level Cells (SLC) meaning that a cell output either a high or a low. But the hunger for larger and larger memory lead to the development of Multi-Level Cells, MLC, in which the memory cell can output any of perhaps 4 levels (and this is not the limit) which would make it look like two cells. One level would be equivalent to two cells outputting '00', another level '01', then '10' and finally '11'. Since this now introduces some degree of uncertainty where the boundaries of these cells are located, this method produces more bad cells. In order to accommodate these bad cells, the manufacturers have added ECC, Error Correction, schemes into the memory. A page is broken up into ECC Regions, and with this region, there is some additional memory which you don't see which is used to store correction information. As the memory is used, these bits will be updated when the memory is written to, or used when read from so that information is corrected on-the-fly so that the memory appears to be perfect. Different manufacturers use different numbers of ECC bits and can correct different numbers of bits. Some typical numbers might be as many as 90 or so bad bits per region that can be corrected.
And finally, FLASH memory cells have a finite limit on the number of writes that they can survive. This number is in the tens of thousands, but eventually, it will come to the point it is not reliable. Again the formatting will identify bad locations and remove them extending the usability of the card.
For more complicated structures of this NAND memory such as used in SSD drives, the operating system will change the locations in which it writes new data to avoid writing to the same locations too many times.
Hope this explains some things. Written by an engineer who is involved with the actual low level testing of these memory devices as done by the manufacturers who build it.
And the recommendation is to format the card in the camera it is intended to be used with and no on the PC.
Additionally, the memory is allowed to have a certain number of bad sectors for which the formatting process will keep track of those bad sectors and add to them if necessary. Reason for this is that it is very difficult to manufacture memory this large with 100% perfect memory cells. The yield would be too low and the memory would cost a lot more. But if they can allow a certain number of sectors to be marked as bad, they can now sell many more memories. The camera ignores these bad locations since it uses that memory given to it to use from the formatting process. Amd this is the reason that it makes sense to reformat the memory in the camera from time to time just to make sure there are not new bad cells to be dealt with.
Internally, the memory is structured in pages. A page is the smallest unit that can be accessed. This memory is called NAND memory which has to do with this structure. The camera or PC accesses this memory by pages and the entire page is read or written to at a time meaning that you cannot just access part of a page. A number of pages are grouped into a block, and this is the smallest unit that the operating system can erase. But the operating system is organized by clusters which makes up the smallest unit of memory that it is concerned with. If a file is larger than a cluster, it fits onto two or more clusters in which the operating system keeps track of the sequence of clusters to read back the file. If a file is smaller than a cluster, it is the only thing that goes on that cluster.
This should give you an idea now that there is considerable information that goes into the formatting of the memory card and this does consume the cards overall space.
And just for FYI, early FLASH memory was built using Single Level Cells (SLC) meaning that a cell output either a high or a low. But the hunger for larger and larger memory lead to the development of Multi-Level Cells, MLC, in which the memory cell can output any of perhaps 4 levels (and this is not the limit) which would make it look like two cells. One level would be equivalent to two cells outputting '00', another level '01', then '10' and finally '11'. Since this now introduces some degree of uncertainty where the boundaries of these cells are located, this method produces more bad cells. In order to accommodate these bad cells, the manufacturers have added ECC, Error Correction, schemes into the memory. A page is broken up into ECC Regions, and with this region, there is some additional memory which you don't see which is used to store correction information. As the memory is used, these bits will be updated when the memory is written to, or used when read from so that information is corrected on-the-fly so that the memory appears to be perfect. Different manufacturers use different numbers of ECC bits and can correct different numbers of bits. Some typical numbers might be as many as 90 or so bad bits per region that can be corrected.
And finally, FLASH memory cells have a finite limit on the number of writes that they can survive. This number is in the tens of thousands, but eventually, it will come to the point it is not reliable. Again the formatting will identify bad locations and remove them extending the usability of the card.
For more complicated structures of this NAND memory such as used in SSD drives, the operating system will change the locations in which it writes new data to avoid writing to the same locations too many times.
Hope this explains some things. Written by an engineer who is involved with the actual low level testing of these memory devices as done by the manufacturers who build it.
Nov 26, 2014 16:05:50 #
The swimming was very fast and efficient. This guy was overtaking and passing all the duck and coots out on the water. I know a beaver is certainly a very good swimmer. And so is an Otter. But I have never watched otters stay on a straight line and not be diving continually and surfacing some distance away continually. And I have no experience with the swimming characteristics of Musk Rats. Would a Musk Rat be able to cross a 1000 ft distance in a very short time? This guy was traveling at a pace Michael Phelps wouldn't be able to match.
Nov 26, 2014 13:01:20 #
Thanks for the replies. Seems unanimous that it is a musk rat. I found it interesting that it set a course across the lake and it was such a straight line. And it was swimming very rapidly. Took me three tries to get a manually focused result to actually look in focus since this guy was into and then out of my focus point so quickly. Auto focus wasn't working so good under these conditions.
Nov 26, 2014 11:26:29 #
I was at my favorite Bird lake about 20 miles south of San Jose CA and saw this animal first swim completely across the lake (about 1000 feet across) and then, 30 minutes later, when I was in better position to shoot him on the way back I got this picture. Taken at 400mm FL using a Tamron 150-600. I manually focused slightly ahead of him and then let him swim into the spot where I took the picture. It was late in the afternoon with the sun getting low and the color of the water is no longer as blue as it had been a short time before.
I am guessing that this animal was about 2 feet long and it was a very good swimmer. I saw the ranger the next day when I went back, but I did not have the picture with me to show him. He says this lake has beaver, otters and musk rats. It does not not look like a beaver to me. I am most familiar with sea otters, not river otters, and its fur is not as think as a sea otter. And I think it is bigger than a musk rat.
Thanks
I am guessing that this animal was about 2 feet long and it was a very good swimmer. I saw the ranger the next day when I went back, but I did not have the picture with me to show him. He says this lake has beaver, otters and musk rats. It does not not look like a beaver to me. I am most familiar with sea otters, not river otters, and its fur is not as think as a sea otter. And I think it is bigger than a musk rat.
Thanks
Nov 25, 2014 11:53:23 #
Here is the web site: http://piccureplus.com/
Nov 24, 2014 22:50:40 #
Hi Ed,
I wonder if the military now uses digital since the results are immediate and it appears that it can accomplish much the same things. And I suspect that the military has access to some camera technology the rest of us can only dream about such as extending the range of IR to even longer wave lengths. I have a 830nm (or something close to that) filter and the camera continues to work fine. But I think that its not going to be sensitive much beyond 1000nm. And the longer the wave length, the more it penetrates haze.
Thanks for the comment.
I wonder if the military now uses digital since the results are immediate and it appears that it can accomplish much the same things. And I suspect that the military has access to some camera technology the rest of us can only dream about such as extending the range of IR to even longer wave lengths. I have a 830nm (or something close to that) filter and the camera continues to work fine. But I think that its not going to be sensitive much beyond 1000nm. And the longer the wave length, the more it penetrates haze.
Thanks for the comment.
Nov 24, 2014 12:21:28 #
Several successive shots showing how to darken a night sky to better see the stars. This is a 15 sec shot through a 8 inch reflector scope, Orion Astrograph 800mm FL F3.9. The camera was a Sony A57 using an ISO of 3200. The shot was done using the Sony's Multi-frame noise reduction option which takes 6 shots and then tries to eliminate noise.
Shot #1 is the original JPEG from the camera. It was first loaded into Lightroom and then a JPEG produced before editing was started.
Shot #2. From Lightroom, NIK Viveza 2 is called to darken the sky by setting a control point on the sky and then darkening it while the stars remain as is.
Shot #3 is back in Lightroom and exposure is boosted to bring out the fainter stars.
The bright star is Vega. And the spikes around it are because this is a reflector scope and they originate from the supports for the diagonal mirror holder.
Shot #1 is the original JPEG from the camera. It was first loaded into Lightroom and then a JPEG produced before editing was started.
Shot #2. From Lightroom, NIK Viveza 2 is called to darken the sky by setting a control point on the sky and then darkening it while the stars remain as is.
Shot #3 is back in Lightroom and exposure is boosted to bring out the fainter stars.
The bright star is Vega. And the spikes around it are because this is a reflector scope and they originate from the supports for the diagonal mirror holder.
Nov 24, 2014 11:18:50 #
Perhaps not. A regular camera would have the benefit of the red light with its ability to cut through haze. But the IR is yet a longer wave length and cuts through the haze even better. A red filter is about 590nm and would be less than this shot.
Same view, but 650nm filter - not nearly as much cutting through the haze
Nov 24, 2014 11:00:09 #
The lens coatings are also superior to the olden days. This is exhibited in greatly reduced CA to go along with the resolution of the great glass.