oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

I haven't gotten a good sunny day yet for taking photos. I am shooting out the back door and trying to see how this lens is doing, testing it. All these photos have been taken using the Sigma 2X tc, on an overcast day. I am posting three different sets.

C&C please, your opinions are important to me. All are posted with full exif file.

Jim D

tainkc Loc: Kansas City

I saw all 3 of your posts. Terrible fringing, not sharp at all, ghosting and noisy. Typical.

First, as you already know, cloudy days are terrible for photographing birds no matter what lens. It is also much harder to find that "sweet spot" on your lens under these conditions. A teleconverter does not help with that any.

I saw that you had your aperture as wide as it will go. Sometimes this is not a good thing - referring to the sweet spot. You were also at ISO 800 which is going to introduce noise. I saw that you had a shutter speed of 1/2000 sec. This is not necessary at all for a bird that is not moving.

Always try to use the lowest ISO possible. At ISO 400 you could have still been able to play with aperture and shutter speed for a sharper image. Probably the same could be said at ISO 200. Don't know if ISO 100 would work. probably not.

You know you are going to lose at least 1Fstop with a 2x teleconverter attached but at F5.6, I do not see this as being a problem here. You seem to have just enough light here.

The 7D did do a good job at trying to get rid of the noise. In other words, You are in good shape, just the wrong settings.

If you would have gone to perhaps F6.3 or F8, you may have reduced the fringing problems. However, none of these adjustments had anything to do with the focus problems. It looks like you were pushing your lens to the max. If you would have backed off from 600mm to say about 560-580mm, the focus issues might have gone away also.

In addition, any teleconverter at any strength tends to soften a focus anyway. Again, this can be minimized by adjusting your focal length depending on the quality of the teleconverter.

Over all, you did good. Keep practicing. You will learn quickly how to make them better.

Tom

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

Tom,

You are right, I was pushing the lens to the max. I do have to play with it and try to find a sweet spot for it. The weather is not helping at all, just presenting another challenge.

I am going to back off a few of the settings and post a couple more photos in a little while, providing the birds keep coming in.

Thanks for your thought. This is what I am looking for while I try to decide what I am going to do.

Jim D

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

Here are the same two photos, out of the camera. Any better? This will elimanate any PP problems I caused.

Jim D

tainkc Loc: Kansas City

Much better. Photoshop has saved my butt plenty of times. I have a crappy 2x teleconverter but it does the job. I use it for that extra reach just to see what is out there. It does pretty good with moon shots too. Then I begin my journey in lightroom.

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

After reading your post I realized I over processed the photos, a bad habit I have! Not only that it is not a fair test if I do PP to them. This way the only processing the photos get is what elements did in raw, before converting them to a jpg.

Thank you. I have got to break my habit of over processing!!!

Jim D

tainkc Loc: Kansas City

No problem. I want to see more posts.

Kinopless Loc: Mandurah, Western Australia

IMHO I'd dump the converter, never met one I liked yet. They always degrade the image, always, even the expensive ones.
Plus you can never recover that loss of quality with software.
The real answer is get closer or get a longer lens. Sad but true.

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

Yes, sad but true. One problem, the next step up for me is a $10,000.00 lens and there is no way I can afford it. That is three time what I have just invested.

You wouldn't happen to have an extra 10 grand laying around I can have do you?

Jim D

coco1964 Loc: Winsted Mn

Instead of jumping up to a $10,000 lens why don't you just trade your lens in for the Sigma 150-500?? You can find them for under $1000 now.........

Kinopless Loc: Mandurah, Western Australia

For you Jim? Of course. I'll just need your bank account details and the password naturally...
I'd concur with coco's advice about the big Sigma, they are surprisingly good. I tested one few weeks back that was
giving very furry results, turned out that the 'free' filter that the dealer threw in to sweeten the deal was made from
recycled Coke bottles. Don't go cheap on filters !

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

coco,

I have tried the 150-500 on a couple of occations. I had two problems with it. I could not get sharp photos and it is a light hog. A lot of my shooting is early or lat in the day wher the light is fading. This is one of the reasons I am testing this lens, it is a f2.8.

I may try it one more time but not for a little while. I now have a program called FoCal which will allow me to dial in the micro-focus on the lens. I have read a number of times that sharp focus is a problem for Sigma because Canon will not supply the info to third party lens manufactures to get good focusing. One lens at a time though.

Jim D

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

I never go cheap on filters. In fact, I normally do not use filters. On occation a cpl but that is it. Even expensive filters can cause more problems than they correct.

Jim D

treadwl Loc: South Florida

I do not like these. They are soft. However, the high ISO is always a bad choice if you want clarity. Your shutter speed is way to high for a bird sitting that still so dropping that would allow for a lower ISO. Also, few lenses other than the top line $10,000 stuff are sharp when wide open. Most get better around f8 or 11 that requires testing.
Using TCs generally degrades quality. Generally more than a critical eye will accept. Using a 2x converter means a loss of 2 f-stops right of the get go, plus having to stop down for sharpness (remember the tc f-stop loss is not about getting to a sweet spot on the lens it is all due to loss of light from the extra glass) therefore you have to stop the lens down more and now you are forced to raise the ISO (you see this a becoming a vicious circle??)

Although I have not used Sigma lenses my friends that do all prefer good light as the lens suffer in low light.

Jut my 2 cents worth.

Larry