Winston Mitchell
Member
Black-chinned Hummingbird
I am getting a bit luckier with finding hummingbirds but not enough to fill the camera frame.
Asher Kelman: Hummingbird in Tree
Canon 7D 70-200 2.8L with 2x Extender at 400mm 1/3200 sec ISO 1600 f5.6
Still, I feel I'm at least catching glimpses of these wonderful fellows!
The feeling of this fluttering creature is always admiration and wonder. I've missed these in motion too many times so I went wide at 140mm.
Asher Kelman: Hummingbird On Its Way!
Canon 7D 70-200 2.8L with 2x Extender at 140mm 1/4,000 sec ISO 1600 f5.6
I think these are Allen's hummingbird, a common Southern California visitor.
Asher
My hummers seldom fill the frame. Some of my images above are about 10% of a 12 megapixel crop-sensor image giving me an effective full-frame focal length of about 1800 mm. Cropping is much less work than carrying a beast like that around ;-)
I notice that Doug Herr also got wonderful results from his Leica R8/DMR camera using the Leica 280mm f/4 APO-Telyt-R lens, sometimes with the 1.4x APO-Extender-R.
Now he uses that Leica 280mm and a Canon 500mm FD on a Sony A7II, (24.3MP).
This year I retired the a7II in favor of the a7rII. 42MP is much less likely to result in aliasing and moire in fine feather detail when I'm using the Leica 280. The crop-ability is fabulous when needed but I prefer to use as many pixels as possible for big prints.
So, Doug, you have image stabilization but no autofocus. But then you have spent many years doing just manual focus, so that is simple for you.
On the Leica 280mn what aperture do you use and what do you think the DOF is? Do you feel you the Canon 500 FD is able to resolve the 42 MP of your new camera?
Asher
I typically use f/5.6 or f/8 with either of these lenses for a bit more DOF without getting too much into diffraction degradation. I'll use the Leica's f/4 with no hesitation if light levels drop, with the Canon I'll use f/4.5 with the understanding that the image will be a little softer. The FD 500 is pretty good once it's corrected for lateral chromatic aberration and I think the a7rII's 42MP helps bring out a little more detail than the a7II's 24MP does. The difference between the two cameras is very clear when using the Leica 280.
Feeding at Guzmania diffusa a species of bromeliad.
Another for the hummingbird thread.