Still waiting for Canon to produce a best in class astro lens, such as the Sigma 20mm f1.4 DG DN, with special attention paid to eliminating coma (bat wings) in the periphery, or at least let Sigma put an Rf mount on it so I don’t have to buy a Sony camera to use that lens.

I agree with what’s been already stated, but add that it’s not just about preventing highlights blowing out. Losing detail in those highlights is also important. You will lose the detail before you blow out the highlights and you want to avoid exposing all the way to the right for that reason. There is no ideal histogram for this as it depends on the brightness and contrast. So, expose to the right, but preserve detail in the highlights.

A friend did the Nat Hab Mountain Gorilla tours in Uganda and Rwanda and was specifically instructed to use a 70-200 f2.8 lens if full frame body. On return she said that was all she needed.

I suspect the term post-processing came about before RAW output was common with digital cameras and processing was always done on a camera produced jpg image. The term makes sense in that case. Saying that processing of a RAW image is post processing begs the question, “post what?” If we say it is post camera, that makes as much sense as saying development of film is post-development because that is also post camera. Frankly, I’m for replacing “post processing” altogether with “proccessing.”

I have a quibble about the term “post processing.” Why not just call it “processing?” We say film is processed, not post processed, so why would processing of a RAW image be any different? Now if I processed a jpg image, which is already a processed image, I can see why that could be called post processing. I thought UHH would be the perfect place to resolve this semantic issue!

My goal in processing is “optimized reality,” which is my term. Of course “optimized” is subjective, but I want images to be perceived as believeable and worthy of display.

I was in Chobe National Park last week of May, 2023. The roads were very muddy in places. The river was high which limited viewing of wildlife on the shore. My host decided next year he would go 2 weeks later in hopes of the river banks being more accessable. Temps were fine, not over 80 degrees. And I saw tons of wildlife on land and water.

I was there a few years ago, not part of a tour. I arrived at the gate well ahead of opening. The view from the gate is spectacular and worth spending some time at. Tour buses mobbed the place at 9 AM and your best photo opportunities are before that. A wider angle lens will allow shots of waterfalls that include reflecting ponds in the foreground. Also, the water is so clear you
can get shots of fish under water with landscapes. I used 16-35 and 24-105 lenses.

To clarify my remarks, I am travelling with a Windhoek native as friends using a rented safari vehicle. We are photographing the national parks from dawn to dusk and following the rules, not to off road. These are rules not always followed by the game drive guides, but our persistance has paid off in photos and experience. We did some guided game drives also, and the sharing of predator locations between vehicles increases likelihood of quickly finding predators and getting closer to them.

I am into my 4th week of a southern Africa safari, including areas in Namibia, South Africa and Botswana. I am using 2 Canon R5s, one with a 100-500mm Canon zoom and the other with a Canon 600mm f4 lens and 1.4X and 2.0X extenders. Many of my lion photos and all of my rhino photos were taken with 1200mm, sometimes hand held. Some lions were shot with only 100mm. Birds have been photographed usually at 600mm and up. I feel this camera/lens combination has allowed me to take advantage of all the wildlife opportunities I have been given. If I were only in areas with more dense vegetation, I wouldn’t require such a wide range of focal lengths.
For landscapes I use Canon 16-35 and 24-105 zooms and for night sky Milky Way a Sigma 20mm f1.4 lens. I mostly used a Canon 70-200 f4
lens for native people.

I find I can do 10 or more hand held focus bracketed shots in under a second, then merged in PS. With image stabilization, a tripod is only needed in very low light. It’s an amazing utility on the R5 once you learn how to use it.

In the menu for focus bracketing you specify the number of exposures and the “spread” between them. This is trial and error, but for something like the coin, the spread would be small. For the bottles the spread would be greater, and if you included something very distant, the spread would be wider. You have to play with these settings.

I use the control ring for quick exposure compensation when shooting wildlife. Curiously, the control ring was left off of the Canon RF 600mm f4 lens, making the EF version with added control ring more desireable, IMO.

When shooting wildlife, I use manual exposure with auto ISO. For wildlife I need a certain shutter speed and dof, but ISO noise I can deal with in processing. I need EC to do rapid exposure changes while following the action, faster than I can move camera dials. The new Canon RF 600mm f4 lens is the only Canon RF lens that lacks an EC ring, and for that reason I have the EF version with the EF to RF adapter which has the EC ring built into it. I would not consider buying a wildlife lens without EC capability. Actually, the RF 600 f4 has a ring that can be switched to EC or manual focus, but you can’t have both with that lens.