Part 2 - Off-Topic - advice, experiences, and examples for images being processed in DxO Photolab

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

@mikemyers

With a DSLR I can choose either way of seeing the image, and 99.9% of the time I choose the viewfinder window. With mirrorless, all I can see with either screen is a “video recording” image - what is being recorded on the sensor/camera.

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it for a while. I went from an OVF on my Canon 7D Mark II to the EVF on my Nikon Z fc and I’m now hooked on EVFs for a whole bunch of reasons.

I fully understand that for some types of photography an OVF may still be preferable, and I also realize that there will always be some people who will not be as comfortable with an EVF as they are with an OVF. But, more and more people are seeing the value added by the EVF, and like me they’re not looking back.

Eventually OVFs may cease to be an option as more and more DSLRs are phased out. Of course, they will likely still be available on rangefinder camera bodies.

Mark

[mikemyers]

@JoPoV

You’re unique
be careful: if you come across a bull, it could charge you.

Ha! No, it’s not a “laser sight”, it just projects a red dot within the sight showing the middle. Unique? Aren’t we all?

My main hobby is bullseye shooting, and I’ve had a lot of experience with red dot sights, and even have one “laser sight” (which can injure people) that I rarely use. The optical red dot sights are great for helping me aim at the exact center of the target, even at 50 yards.

@mwsilvers

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it for a while.

I have tried it, especially on my Fuji X100 cameras. It’s more precise than my optical view, which is not centered on my camera. When I tried it twice, on a Nikon Z fc, I loved the camera, but hated the view - made me feel “dizzy”. Eventually I’ll get to test it on a Nikon Z8, maybe this coming weekend. I also realize that over time, I’ll probably get used to almost any camera, eventually.

It’s not “the camera”; it’s “the photographer”. Cameras are just “tools”. Knowing how to use tools is more important than the actual tool. Right?

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@mikemyers

Two years ago I bought an Olympus EE-1 OM-D “Dot sight” viewer.

Oh, you do like your gadgets. How on earth have I managed over the past 60 years without one of those?

[George]

@mikemyers

Auto-focus
f-mount
preferably light, not heavy
preferably built-in motor drive

image quality.

George

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

@mikemyers

When I tried it twice, on a Nikon Z fc, I loved the camera, but hated the view - made me feel “dizzy”.

That is the first time I have heard that an EVF made someone dizzy, but I know that they are not everyone’s cup of tea. @Joanna dislikes them and it is doubtful she would change from her D850 to a Z8 unless she had no choice.

I am surprised that you would be willing to compose and focus on your LCD screen during LiveView but would be unwilling to view essentially the same scene from within an EVF which would give you a much larger and more detailed field of view then you would get from staring as a 3" screen from a foot or so away.

Mark

[noname (Captain Obvious)]

he can use this = Outdoor LCD viewing loupe glass optics retractable lanyard – Hoodman Corporation

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@mwsilvers

@Joanna dislikes them and it is doubtful she would change from her D850 to a Z8 unless she had no choice.

If someone gave one, I might be tempted but, with with only 2,500 shutter actuations on my beloved D850, I can’t see me moving any time soon.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

I still have this….

https://www.etsy.com/fr/listing/1481573712/loupe-horseman-7x-et-etui-daide-a-la

from my LF kit

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

@Joanna

with with only 2,500 shutter actuations on my beloved D850, I can’t see me moving any time soon.

You are a very deliberate shooter. Others could have that many actuations in a single day!

Mark

[swmurray]

Robotic surgery is done via “TV” screens, including brain surgery. You need to at least try the mirrorless EVF option before ruling it out. This isn’t brain surgery!

[swmurray]

nice.

[mikemyers]

Gosh! Thanks to all of you for this goldmine of useful information.

A short update - I set up and tried the red dot sight. Works as claimed. I packed it up, and put it away for the future. I suspect I should just start with the basics.

I set up the camera so I’m looking directly into the eyepiece, same as I almost always do. I can try other ideas later.

I wanted to do a simple test, so I set up the camera as if I was going to capture images in the upper eyepiece, which I almost always do. I set the ISO to 2,500 for a starting point, and left the camera in Aperture Priority mode. I won’t save my “birdie settings” until after I try this for real, perhaps this coming Sunday. I decided I should go for a walk down to a nearby road with lots of traffic, and try out the focus settings. No big deal, but why not.

First thing I came across as I went out my door was this black bird that enjoyed “hopping” all around me. So, I managed to get four images before it vanished into an alley. Here’s the result:

This image looked best with a small amount of “ClearView Plus” added, but I haven’t yet found a work-around avoiding that tool…

It seemed acceptable to me, but there was no challenge yet. I got down to Alton Road, with lots more traffic, and the camera did what I expected. Pressed the back-focus button, and then took a few image captures. Everything went as anticipated, but the car photos were thoroughly boring. Then a motorcycle came along, and I actually got an image I enjoy:

No sense of movement, and the bike wasn’t going all that fast, but this was starting to be fun, along with boring.

So, I walked back to my home, and sat on a bench overlooking Biscayne Bay. Several birds came by, and just as @Joanna anticipated, none of them were close enough to get a decent photo with my 300mm lens. This image is the closest I came to capturing a real image.

And to be fair, here’s the original image:

Hopefully I will be a lot closer to the birds this weekend. 300mm - nope. 600mm - doubtful. I need to be closer. Everything @Joanna said worked out just the way she expected it to.

…oh, and I tried out my SB-800 flash set for fill flash, as suggested in a few things I read, and I started reducing the “power”. I got to where I got a perfect photo of a sunset in front of me, and a fence six feet away or so came out perfectly as desired once I set the flash to the appropriate power. Maybe a newer/better flash would be able to figure this out on its own, but I’m going to stop worrying about this for now. I’ve got a working solution for my next visit to India and the hospital.

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback.

[mikemyers]

@swmurray

nice.

Lovely composition, but it’s not sharp. I don’t know why. To me, it appears to be out of focus, and it bothers me the same way my own images bother me - not sharp. The two birds together work great, and the coloring looks “strange”, but the annoying thing to me is lack of sharpness. I don’t think a 2,000mm lens will help me, as I’ll never be able to hold it steady enough…

[mikemyers]

…I knew some of these, but others surprised me. Like pivoting my body - ouch. Doing that wrong, and have been for ages. I feel like a total amateur; could easily use a stronger word. I’m certainly not in any way able to give advice to anyone else - bird photography is more of a challenge than most other things I’ve tried, PhotoLab included.

Ten tips for sharper bird images

[JoPoV]

@mikemyers

I don’t think a 2,000mm lens will help me

Atmospheric turbulence and mirror vibration (even on a needed very sturdy tripod) would be your major enemies with a such focal lens for shooting distant subjects.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@mikemyers

This image looked best with a small amount of “ClearView Plus” added,

No it doesn’t, it is full of haloing and over-sharpening artefacts.

@mikemyers

I haven’t yet found a work-around avoiding that tool…

I have mentioned before that you need to use the four fine contrast sliders…

---

@mikemyers

This image is the closest I came to capturing a real image.

But it is soft and lacking in detail.

@mikemyers

And to be fair, here’s the original image:

Which explains why. The crop is around 1/10 of the linear size of the whole image. This means that the number of pixels is going to be around 600px x 400px, or 0.24Mpx.

Not even 1Mpx!!! And folks wonder why their bird pictures look soft??? There is simply not enough pixels. To get the full 24Mpx resolution of your D780, you would need a 3,000mm lens, not a 300mm.

Since such a beast doesn’t exist and, even if it did, you’d never be able to hold it without doing yourself serious harm, the answer is simple. If something that small is that far away, just don’t bother taking it. My advice is that if the subject doesn’t occupy ¼ of the frame, it’s not worth photographing. Even using Topaz at full magnification (6x) isn’t really going to give you a quality image.

[JoPoV]

@mikemyers

Hopefully I will be a lot closer to the birds this weekend.

And they’ll be bigger birds too.

Distance is very important.

The further away you are from the subject, the longer the light rays have to travel in the air between the subject and the sensor, the more the sharpness is likely to suffer from “atmospheric distortion”. And long focal lengths magnify this problem.
This generally results in “soft”, unsharp images, just when you thought you’d had great shoots.
It can happen at relatively close range - or even very close range : shooting in a cold atmosphere leaning on the hood of your car after the engine has warmed up during a long drive.

Many factors on the ground can accentuate this. And a tar floor that has been heated by the sun (as is perhaps the case in your photo) can be one of them.
Knowing these factors is important when shooting with very long focal lengths.

The best time of day to avoid this problem is early morning, before the surfaces between you and your subject have had time to accumulate the sun’s heat. These are also the hours when the light is at its best. And that’s when the birds are most present.

[Stenis (Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))]

@JoPoV

Nice shot!

I think of “Fly United” when I see it. They earlier printed T-shirts with I slightly more obscene version of your shot

This tread has spun totally out into the blue with the DSLR - Live View - Mirrorless discussion. It is often amusing in a wild manner but totally far out too often when it comes to the facts.

@joanna and @mikemyers why don’t you two try to play with a Z8 or so to get updated on both modern EVF-functionality, silent mode, dynamic focus points, modern AF functionality and for that matter an AF-precision DSLR-cameras far to often lacks.

Don’t miss the EVF-possibility to focus in darkness that OVF lacks and also the possibility to see how the image will be exposed even before it will be taken - something totalky impossible with OVF.

Mike asked who in this forum has configured their cameras to let autofocus automatically lock on moving objects and both I and most of bird-photographers trying to catch birds in flight do so.

With focuspoints covering the entire sensor area and not just like in the center as in almost all DSLR-cameras I would say that it is very common letting the camera auto handle this.

Modern mirrorless AF is smart and uses a focus hierarchy typically using an order of eye - face - moving elements - closest first e.t.c. and is open for overridings and explicit locking on what the photographer prefers. That way we don 't need fixed focus points either anymore like in the old DSLR-days. It is just so much better.

No real need for static AF-S single shot either. I use tracking all the time. I rarely use any other focus areas either than wide and flexible spot.

These systems are so good today that I can rely on them totally. I hardly give them a single thought today. When Mike talks about shots totally over or undrexposed I wonder if he ought to give his camera configuration another thought or maybe switch to a mirrorless. I think that will ease the confusion here, solve a lot of practical problems and give quite a lot more and better exposed and focused keepers, then he gets today.

…

[George]

My experience is that locking on the eyes is only possible if these eyes occupy a large part of the locking box.

George

[Stenis (Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))]

It depends on the tech generation of your AF a lot. This has improved a lot and if a modern AF misses it will use the next level in the hierarchy seamlessly.

There is a real difference there between my AIII and my A7IV. A7IV also have much better animal AF and even as one of Sonys first even Bird Eye AF.