Gulls meets D2X

[Peter Forsell]

EXIF isn't right, the focal length was 1020 mm. Sorry the images are "huge" (1500 px), what is the forum limit and/or recommended size?


20170417-_P2F8481b by foppa2011, on Flickr


20170417-_P2F8562c by foppa2011, on Flickr

[elsa hoffmann]

Tack sharp . - what lens + did you use?

[Fons Baerken]

Tack sharp . - what lens + did you use?

Indeed

[Mongo]

Yes, quite remarkable for that focal length and all that goes with getting a steady, detailed and sharp bird image; particularly #1.  Would also like to know the details of the lens, converters etc..

[beryllium10]

I will guess 400 mm, 1.7X converter, with 1.5X DX crop factor ...  But like others would be interested to know which lens, whether hand-held or tripod-mounted, etc.  I occasionally photograph a flock of herons who live nearby, but lately have noticed that I've been coming home with more and more photos of the gulls that fish, scavenge, and perch in the same area.  They're graceful in flight, and often quite expressive just standing around.  These are great photos!

Cheers,  John

[Peter Forsell]

Tack sharp . - what lens + did you use?

Thank you. I had 300/2.8VR + TC-20E III + TC-17E II stacked. If we take the crop factor into account the effective focal length would be 1530 mm. The TC-17E II has required Dremeling one tab off the mount.

Indeed

Thank you Fons.

Yes, quite remarkable for that focal length and all that goes with getting a steady, detailed and sharp bird image; particularly #1.  Would also like to know the details of the lens, converters etc..

Thanks for looking and commenting. Please see above and below.

I will guess 400 mm, 1.7X converter, with 1.5X DX crop factor ...  But like others would be interested to know which lens, whether hand-held or tripod-mounted, etc.  I occasionally photograph a flock of herons who live nearby, but lately have noticed that I've been coming home with more and more photos of the gulls that fish, scavenge, and perch in the same area.  They're graceful in flight, and often quite expressive just standing around.  These are great photos!

Cheers,  John

Thank you for looking and taking the time to comment. I wrote above the lens + converter setup, and it was on a monopod. What is good is that while there is no autofocus at f/9.5 (f/2.8 - 2 stops - 1.5 stops) the VR still functions normally and that helps tremendously with focusing.

I had the whole concoction stopped down one more stop to mitigate the possible softness and flare/glare issues introduced by the teleconverters, so the images were shot with 1020 mm @ f/13.5. I don't know if the stopping down actually helped any, it may be that diffraction increased just as much as lens softness decreased. But as it is I am pleased with the results of relatively static subjects.

[Mongo]

Thanks for the information . That just makes the resulting images even more impressive.

[Mike G]

Peter, in my eyes big is beautiful especially when looking at your pictures!

The detail is amazing!

[pluton]

Great bird portraits...I like the muted medium tones of the background.

EXIF isn't right, the focal length was 1020 mm. Sorry the images are "huge" (1500 px), what is the forum limit and/or recommended size?

In my opinion, 1500/long side is fine...large but not huge.
My main concern is to give the image the quality it needs(pixel dimensions), while at the same time to reasonably conserve server space(file size).
 I try to keep the files at or below 2 megaBytes in file size.  The pixel dimensions can be whatever you want, depending on how well the image survives the compression to approx 2mB.  1200 pixels on the long side seems to have been accepted as a basic norm, but 2000 or more is common, especially if there is rich detail, a wide aspect ratio, or you'd like the viewers to be able to see it 'bigger" if opened in a separate window.