Warning: I’m off from Wedneday through Friday afternoon this week, speaking on free will at a conference on The Evolution of Morality at Oakland University. Posting will be light unless Drs. Mayer and Cobb have time to fill in.
There are two photos from Idaho this morning, one a landscape and the other a mammal. We also have a bird from Africa.
The first came from (surprise!) reader Stephen Barnard, whose email was simply headed “not a bird.”
Nope, this isn’t one, but guess what it is (and provide the Latin binomial):
This mammal needs some tooth whitening!
A landscape from reader Gareth:
I know you have posted some Idaho landscapes so here is one to show you that Oregon is nice too. It is a high dynamic range photo of Mt Hood and Trillium Lake. I realise HDR photos are not to everyone’s taste but I quite like them. I got very lucky with the conditions; I also got up at 6.30am in order to take it, so I hope you like it!
He also explained HDR photography (link above, too):
A HDR photo is a fusion of several photos some of which are under-exposed, some over-exposed. The photo I sent is a fusion of photos A, B and C [JAC: not shown]. You can see that one photo has a nicely exposed mountain but the trees are rather dark. In another, the trees are nicely exposed but the sky is completely blown out.Having fused the photos in software it is possible to twiddle various knobs and sliders to give all sorts of strange and dramatic effects. I played around a bit until I got the effect which I liked. However, I am attaching a second HDR photo where I did very little twiddling and it probably looks more like a “natural” photo. I think some purists would probably prefer this but I rather like the first one I sent.
The first one (click to enlarge):
Here’s Gareth’s “low-twiddling” version for photo buffs:
Finally, from reader John, we have an African Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus):
Attached is a photo of a Sacred Ibis in landing position, taken in Awash National Park, in Ethiopia, where I live.
The quality of the photo is not perfect, but I am fascinated by the way the wings seem to form a perfectly circular umbrella in the landing position.
Surely it’s just a North American beaver (Castor canadensis) ? Nutria (Myocastor coypus) did cross my mind, but I checked their distribution and they are apparently extinct in Idaho…
Oregon is obviously beautiful!
It certainly is. 🙂
Musk Rat? Ondatra zibethicus.
Ondatra zibethica
yep, I think so, not a beaver or nutria
Damn, I just wanted to answer the question “What are you reading, dear?” with: “It’s WEIT, hon, a site with good food, boots, pussy and wet beavers.”
Yes, definitely a muskrat. They are smaller than beavers too and cute. I used to see them in a stream near my place.
If not a beaver or muskrat, I would guess Nutria (Myocastor coypus).
I loves the internet.
I think muskrat: Ondatra zibethicus
Nutria!
I guessed Muskrat (whose binomen I wasn’t familiar with), which is pretty good for me considering it’s not a reptile or marsupial.
I love the helical cloud on the shoulder of the peak. The nearly vertical contrail in the lower landscape pic is a worry though; any ICBM silos thataway?
The first of the HDR photos is actually much better than the second. The second has a good demonstration of the biggest challenge in HDR: there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The basic idea is to compress an original scene with very very bright highlights and very very dark shadows into the reflective white of a photographic print and the darkest blacks you can put on the paper — and the paper is obviously nowhere near as bright as sunlit snowy peaks and the ink not nearly as dark as a shadowy forest.
You could just compress everything equally, but the result is generally flat. There are more sophisticated gamut compression methods that take into consideration both the human visual system and the image’s range of colors and levels, but that can’t cope with extremes of contrast ranges. When things do get extreme, you can either fix the light (either by waiting for different natural conditions or by adding artificial light or modifiers) or you can have local inversions of the tone map — the latter being HDR.
If you look at the tree line in the second photo, you can very easily see this: the sky right above the trees is unnaturally bright, creating something of an halo effect.
Similar artifacts are present in the first photo, but they’ve been applied with a much lighter hand and in a way that much more closely mimics, say, additional light by clouds out of the frame reflecting sunlight back onto the landscape. The result looks more natural and likely more closely resembles the visual impression of the original scene.
That, and the composition is much better in the first one….
One more thing to note: except for some movie studio file formats, especially ones used by animators, all computer image formats assume the device is a printer, with the brightest value in the image being paper white and the darkest either absolute black (which, of course, is unrealistic) or the darkest image the device can produce (for color managed workflows). In the real world, of course, lots of things are “brighter than white,” including light sources, specular (shiny) reflections, and fluorescent objects. And, what’s worse, most computer displays have a much larger dynamic range than any print is going to be capable of. Ideally, file formats would be able to record not just white but “brighter than white,” and really ideally by doing so as absolute brightness values. But, again aside from some esoteric movie file formats, that’s just not done. Ah, well….
Cheers,
b&
Oddly, I liked the 2nd one best, mainly because there are more blacks. I sometimes slide the blacks slider over in Lightroom to bring that out.
I like blacks, too…but the problem with lots of them is that the shadow detail can turn into a big black blob. Sometimes that’s appropriate…it’s a tough line to walk….
b&
I prefer the composition in the second photo. Lack of foreground elements in the first make it look flat. I also like the yellowish trees that stand out in the second one, either because they are a different color or due to the lighting. The distracting contrail (if that’s what it is) is unfortunate though.
I’ve been thinking from time to time (since I got a decent DSLR) about getting into HDR. But the TLDR version of your message is that it’s not as simple as that. Which I knew. I just didn’t know it in that much detail.
I still have to struggle to remember to bracket my exposures. And no, I don’t rely on the camera to do that for me. Hell, my first camera wouldn’t even stop down for me, unless I remembered to turn the aperture ring. Which I did.
I’ll get back to knapping flints (the second oldest profession).
HDR is a snap. I don’t do it much, but when I do I use the free Photomatrix Light software. Just make sure you use a tripod and that nothing is moving in the scene.
This is meme worthy for the most dangerous man in the world meme. 😀
Remembering to take the tripod three or four hours before I get to a scene which I think “that’ll be worth a try on HDR” is one of the tricks. When you’re setting out for a day-long (12-15 hours) walk, you tend to think several times about whether to take several kilos of tripod which you know you only have a reason to use every few months.
I’ve tried one of those diddy “table-top tripods” … and they’re not much use out on the hillside. Ditto for the “Gorilla grip” type.
It’s just a choice between putting the tripod into the bag in place of what? the rain coat (hey, this is Scotland!), the bivvi bag (sorry, I’ve had to use them sufficiently often that that is going with me), in winter the sleeping bag (same comment), food and water for the day … and the camera. Map, compass, sample bags, chisel, spare hat and gloves for the wife (I know – she should carry her own, and generally does remember it ; but I’m the one who’ll have to put up with the Mountain Rescue team telling me “We know that you know better – you taught us better!”)
I should look at trying to find a medium-size tripod … yeah, that’s something that may stick in my mind next time I’m in a camera shop.
Many cameras these days have an “auto-HDR” mode, where the camera takes three (or even more) exposures as fast as it can operate the shutter and then uses its own processor to merge them. You generally don’t need a tripod for that, and you can throw away the camera’s own rendering and use the original three exposures.
Many older models have a similar auto-bracket mode that does the same thing but without the automatic HDR rendering.
With many of those cameras, you have to keep holding the shutter button down for all three (or however many) shots.
b&
I have been considering such things. I’m in the market for a new body (which I can use with my existing lenses, of course). GPS location is a must-have. Auto-bracketing might be worth an addition to the list too.
I’ve always subscribed to the opinion that “A poor craftsman blames his tools, while a good craftsman will make better tools.” Which is why I prefer, by far, to understand a topic well enough to know how to do “it” with the metaphorical screwdriver, hammer and roll of gaffer tape (for all “it”).
Having had to spend much of the last month prodding people to pick up the screwdriver, hammer and duct tape, instead of relying on obscurantism and bureaucracy to insist that “it’s working”, when it’s clearly not working … well, it’s been two of those months. And there are a number of hand tools that are not basking in tropical sunshine any more, and the roll of duct tape is empty.
I don’t know about you, but I think I deserve another G+T. It’s past mid-day!
Of course, a big part of the question is which system’s lenses you’re currently invested in.
…and, incidentally, I’m trying to figure out how you’d go about making a photosensitive emulsion with the gaffer tape. The camera bit wouldn’t be a problem — or, at least, the obscura part of the original phrase. But you’re still left with how to fix the image projected through the pinhole….
b&
IIRC, the first photosensitive material used was bitumen, i.e. tar. VERY long exposures.
You know, I think our gravel inspector just might happen to know where to find some petroleum….
b&
Found the article about bitumen photography. http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/04/the-chemists-the-potter-and-the-aristocrat-attempts-at-photography-before-the-invention-of-the-camera
Informative and humorous posts about photography on that blog.
Oooh — awesome! Thanks!
And, yes. Roger is one of the best writers on the subject of photography.
b&
Here’s an HDR I shot with a cheap waterproof Pentax point-and-shoot and a table-top tripod (the kind with the octopus legs). Alphonse Island, Seychelles.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110292855@N05/13413569095/
See my comment to Ben a few moments ago about making one’s own tools.
In a nod to Ford Prefect, you’re clearly a hoopy frood who knows where he’s duct-taped his towel.
Like a schmuck, I took my tripod all the way to Hawaii on a 14 hour flight (had to take the head off it to pack it) then I took it all the way up Mauna Kea. I used it once.
I only take the tripod when I have photography as the purpose of the excursion, and then I generally have a very specific shot in mind. Other times, I’ll might not even bother with the camera at all.
I know other people are of the mindset of always having a camera at the ready just in case that once-in-a-lifetime shot appears in front of them…but the types of “real” photography I’m interested in for myself aren’t accidents to be stumbled upon — and, besides, I’ve got the iPhone with me if I just happen to see Elvis murder JFK’s two-headed Martian love baby.
I’ve been known to go out and about with the 24-105 on scouting expeditions, but I honestly don’t think I’d even bother with that any more. I can figure out composition without the camera, and I don’t need to burden myself with thinking I need to post-process pictures that aren’t worth the effort.
b&
I thought I was going to take some star shots and I only did it the one time. I think I also thought that somehow I’d need to use the tripod at sunset on Mauna Kea but I didn’t.
I’d almost certainly use a tripod for sunset photography, but mostly because I like to find the perfect composition at least half an hour before the Sun hits the horizon and then sit there for the next hour hitting the remote shutter release whenever the light does something interesting; that’s not exactly practical to do handheld. And astrophotography, of course, to do for real needs a tripod — even a tracking mount for many types.
b&
I use a tripod for at most .01% of my photos, and I never carry one around on field trips, but sometimes it’s necessary: long dim-light exposures, macros, HDR.
For what you shoot and the gear you’re using, I’d be surprised if you used a tripod. The whole point of the 500 f/4L II is handheld birds in flight, which is exactly what you’re shooting most. And, if you did use a tripod, I’d expect it to have a gimbal head on it — such as the Wimberley, a wonderful piece of kit, but not exactly something to lug around unless you’ve got something specific planned that involves not moving (much) from a particular spot.
Slow-paced landscape photography, such as that eclipse shot I linked to, is a different beast entirely, and not very practical to do without a tripod to hold the composition for the hour or more you’ll have your ass parked at that spot shooting the same shot until the light is well past its peak.
b&
We were above the clouds at 10,000 feet so the horizon was hard to really see. I got some great shots though with my wide angle lens. I don’t think you can really get a bad shot up there.
Ten kilofeet above the sea, above the clouds, in Hawaii at sunset? I think you’d have to leave the lens cap on to get a bad shot in that setting. Must have been awesome.
b&
Yeah it was. One couple asked me to take their picture because I looked like I knew what I was doing. LOL when people do that it freaks me out!
One of the earlier Heinlein novels had the reluctant Hero galavanting off in an alternate dimension on a six-legged beast to rescue the princess trapped in a dungeon. At a point before the Hero had come to grips with his heroic nature, a small child recognized him as being an hero and asked for something trivial. The Hero knew he wasn’t really an hero, but he recognized the need in the child for one, and he gallantly played the part. I think he even cut off one of his shirt buttons, made up some sort of story about how it was a medal he himself had been given representing some highly improbable act of bravery, and formally presented it to the child in recognition of the child’s own heroism and heroic destiny.
It was a rather touching scene, actually…and the lesson has stuck with me: when somebody assumes you’ve got some sort of expertise or authority, if you’re capable of filling the role asked of you (even if you don’t think of yourself worthy of the accolades), you have a moral obligation to oblige. Somebody asks you to take their picture because you’re a pro photographer, you take their picture. Somebody asks for your autograph because the performance you just gave was the best they’ve ever heard, you sign the program. Somebody asks you to get that thing from the top shelf because you’re so tall, you get it.
Even if you’re a rank amateur photographer, even if you thought the performance sucked and you’re nobody special, even if you’re short yourself and only a couple inches taller than the person asking.
And you do it all with the utmost grace and dignity and sincerity and humility you can muster.
…it also doesn’t hurt, every now and again, to play the role of the child when you sincerely think the person’s more of an Hero than she herself thinks she is….
b&
That’s a good way to look at it. On the same trip a couple asked me to take a picture of them at the zoo in Sydney with a giraffe in the background with their iPhone. I kept putting my finger over the lens like J always do with cameras on phones. At one point the girl said, “the giraffe is gone, isn’t it”. It wasn’t gone bit I’m sure she was losing faith in me. LOL!
It’s okay for heroes to fail, too; the only prohibition is, once you’ve stepped up to the plate, failing to do everything in your power to hit the ball where it needs to go (whether that be an home run, a little blooper into the gap in left field, or a bunt down the third base line). Striking out is only a problem if you’re not giving it your all.
And, of course, if you really know that you can’t do it, you should admit as much. But it’s damned rare to be asked to do something in those sorts of circumstances that you can’t actually do, so, “Sorry, no,” should almost never be your answer.
(There are, of course exceptions; an EMT medic performing CPR shouldn’t be stopping to sign autographs. But those types of exceptions are also damned rare in the real world.)
b&
Yeah, I always take the picture but I talk them through what I’m doing. Like with the guy whose pic I took on Mauna Kea – he had a nice Canon camera (thank goodness so I knew how to use it) and a nice prime lens on it. I think I had to pop it into manual because he was shooting on P or something and I told him that I was using his camera’s light meter, etc. I don’t know if he knew what I was talking about, but I just thought I should tell him. 🙂
That’s a really good idea — I’ll have to remember it!
b&
Yep, I know that feeling.
The last time I thought to myself “I really need the tripod” was below the magnificent “Triple Buttress” of Choir’Mhic Fhearchair of Beinn Eighe. We’d done about 3 hours walk from the car park, including the wife’s obligatory after-elevenses nap, and had another 11 hours walking before us before we got back to the car. The extra 3kilos of tripod is really a debate where the tripod starts in a weak position.
Mauna Kea … from sealevel to summit … that would be what – 50km, over perhaps 2 days? Sounds an interesting idea.
Oh I did it the smart way – take a van up on a tour where you acclimate to the elevation change at a visitor Centre with a yummy lunch then go up another 2000 feet or so. Afterwards, the tour took us to their own dark spot where we looked through their 10″ SCT.
To be honest, the only method of HDR work I’ve ever been personally satisfied with has been to composite multiple exposures together — and the fewer the better and the lighter the touch the better.
A good starting approach would be to bracket by +/- one to two stops (and, with modern DSLRs, you might have the dynamic range to do this with multiple developments of a single exposure). If possible have an eye towards exposing the different parts of the scene “properly” as if they were the only bits you were shooting. Next, put each exposure as its own layer in Photoshop. Put the “standard” exposure on the bottom layer and don’t touch it. Put the other layers on top, add a layer mask to each, and then make the masks all black so none of the layer shows through. Then brush in just those bits of each layer that have better detail or whatever. Where possible, use a gigantic, soft brush; be very wary of small, hard brushes.
And don’t be afraid to dial back the master opacity of the extra layers, either; you might find that, yes, you can brush in the detail in those clouds, but they just wind up being too dark no matter how careful you are with the brush. No problem; just make them less opaque and you’ll lighten them up.
For the most extreme example of HDR that I’ve ever attempted or that I’ve ever seen anybody else attempt, see here:
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/eclipse-art-kelly-houle-and-ben-goren/
(And, yes, that’s the basic technique I used, though I had to pull out all the stops for the Sun and the nearby portion of the sky.)
You can get similar effects with special HDR applications, but you’ll spend at as much time fiddling the knobs, and then you’ll get frustrated that it’s changing both the snow and the clouds, when you only wanted to change the one and not the other.
Have fun!
b&
You sound like my colleague “iSteve”, who’ll iBuy an iAnything from iApple. He rather assumes that one has spent iYears learning the iTerminology of iPhotoshop when trying to explain a process.
I learned my photography and darkroom trickery using silver halides, joint-wrecking liquids and a darkroom. I get a vague idea of what you’re talking about (as I do with iSteve) … but it’s all very vague. I’ll make another attempt next time I remember to take the tripod with me, and find a suitable target, and then find and download a guide for a Linux-running image editor.
Actually … I needed to bash together a 15-photo mosaic at work a month or so back, and found that the Windows version of the Hugin suite has improved considerably in both capabilities and stability. So taking another poke at the Gimp might be worthwhile.
Ah — sorry ’bout that.
Yes, the Gimp will work, and there’re many good things to be said about it. (It can’t do what I use Photoshop to do, but that’s not relevant to this discussion.)
Think of layers like the gelatin prints animators used to use when Mr. Walt Disney himself was doing the animation. In modern image editing applications, each layer has a black-and-white mask associated with it that determines opacity. Black conceals; white reveals. Paint the entire mask black and that layer turns invisible, transparent. Paint the mask white and that layer becomes opaque and covers up everything underneath it. Paint it grey and the mask is translucent. Paint it solid black except for the upper right corner which you make gray, and only the upper right corner is translucent.
Since with HDR you’ve got different exposures you’ve stacked up, you can think of the painting in and out of the mask as very much like traditional dodging and burning. You’ve got the “correct” exposure on the bottom layer. On top of that, you’ve got an “underexposed” layer, and on top of that an “overexposed” layer. Start with solid black masks on both the over and under layers. Brush in a bit of white on the mask of the under layer and you’re dodging that area; brush in a bit of white on the mask of the over layer and you’re burning.
Make sense?
Oh — and, if you want to do dodging and burning with just a single exposure, the best way to do that is to start by adding a single layer of solid 50% gray, no mask, on top of your image; your original image is still there underneath the gray layer, but all you see is solid gray. You then change the “blend mode” of the gray layer to “overlay”; that does a mathematical function you don’t care about but works for this process. As soon as you do that, the gray layer appears to become perfectly transparent. Now, you paint black and white (or, rather, darker and lighter gray — a soft touch is generally best) on the gray layer. Where you make the gray darker, the original image below gets darker and vice-versa.
…that should keep you busy for a while….
b&
Aye. Will you get that time machine finished some time soon?
Based on past future estimates, I willon haven ur-decompleted it three weekishings fromeren beforing after last soolate Thursday’s invertible pro-proto negatory eventitures.
…assuming I got the grammar right….
b&
LOL! One quibble Photoshop isn’t an iProduct. That would be Aperture. 😀
“iOh iNoes!” iI imust itell iSteve! ihe’ll icutoff ihis iMouse (tell me – there must be an iMouse?) ifinger!
Apple’s made lots of mice over the years. The current model not only has no wires, it has no buttons.
You may think I jest, but I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.
Seriously.
Cheers,
b&
Yeah the magic mouse. I got that for my mom. I like the big honkin logitech thumb mouse.
I’ve actually become fond of Apple’s monster-sized trackpad. And for anything needing precision, I’ve got the Wacom Cintiq 21UX as the second display….
b&
I have the big trackpad but haven’t really used it. I find it’s easier on my hands to use the logitech mouse. I’m a freak though – most people don’t like the thumb ball. I’m going to use an iPad at work now and see how that goes for the majority of my work except big excel files, minitab & anything where i need my two giant monitors or a lot of typing where ergonomics are required.
You need a new Mac Pro and a Sharp 32″ PN-K321 – 4K Ultra HD LED Monitor.
Ha ha! I just replaced my elderly MacPro with a MacMini & two external dries that stack under it (newertech). I also have a couple of drobos & a raid enclosure (waiting for a couple of drives which I have piled on my desk).
I’m just too lazy to use my tripod. I actually did the other day when I was taking macro pictures with my macro lens of earrings that I put in a light box. That was a lot of work for me. I don’t like set up and take down. It’s why I want an observatory so I don’t have to lug my scope in the dark & frost bite my finger tips off.
Yeah – the last time I took the tripod out of it’s case was trying to do 3d photography of a specimen for an archaeology course. didn’t do too badly on the first attempt, but discovered some important points (e.g., don’t do it in the afternoon, when the sun appears in frame in one range of your azimuth of photos) … went back to take another batch the following lunch, dropped the camera and broke the lens off … and I was offshore the next day.
Too many things to do, not enough days.
It’s a muskrat. I like the first HDR. The ibis photo, while not sharp, shows some interesting behavior.
Yes, I prefer the first of the HDR images too. Not only does the expanded tonal range give greater detail in the midground, adding to the sense of depth, but I also favor the composition, with the mountain more assertively large. This represents to me what HDR is best at: enhancing images, rather than creating science-fiction book covers (though those can be cool too, just not realistic).
Very nice shots all. I agree with Ben’s assessment: HDR #1 is much better than HDR #2.
These are better-than-average HDR shots (they seem less unnatural than most) but still betray typical fakeries, mainly: reflections that are as bright or maybe even brighter than the incident image, which is precluded by physics. And, if you are used to looking carefully, it is quite distracting.
In another photo I took, a friend pointed out that the reflection was brighter than the mountain in some spots. I hadn’t noticed this at first, and was puzzled by it. Is this a typical artefact in HDR processing?
Yes — very common. The whole point of HDR is to enhance local contrast at the cost of the global tone map, so those sorts of inversions are the very hallmark of HDR. The trick in realistic HDR lies in making those sorts of things unobtrusive.
b&
The HDRs I like are unabashedly HDR. They celebrate their dynamic range. I don’t usually like “natural” looking HDRs, and it especially annoys me when I can’t decide whether it’s an HDR. The best case, for me, is when an HDR more accurately captures the huge dynamic range of the human visual system and better records the content of the scene. It may look unnatural as a photograph, but it’s more informative. As sensor technology improves HDRs may become obsolete, but there will always be a cost/DR tradeoff.
I’ll go along with that.
Tone mapping can be used as a very dramatic creative effect, most effectively with high dynamic range scenes to go for the most “pop” possible.
And there are times when the goal is a natural-looking photograph of a scene with lots of dynamic range, in which case you’re inevitably going to be sacrificing some contrast.
But I’d argue that the limiting factor isn’t cameras or sensors, but output devices and especially file formats. I’ve done the archetypal cheesy test shot of a backlit garden shed in full sun shooting into the open door, with the interior too dark to make out by eye. It’s trivial to boost the exposure of the shadowed part such that it’s as bright as the exterior, as if you’ve got a giant halogen light turned on inside the shed. I’ve done some other experiments where I’ve underexposed the scene by several (yes, several) stops and was able to recover it such that you could certainly get a great 8″x10″ out of it, and maybe even a decent 13″x19″.
…that’s all at ISO 100, of course; if you’re shooting at higher ISOs you don’t have as much headroom to work with. But we really are at the point that cameras have native dynamic ranges comparable to adapted human vision, if not even better. We just don’t have anything else in the toolchain that can decently deal with that dynamic range.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you take a picture with the Sun in the frame, you don’t necessarily want your display to blind you when you look at it….
Cheers,
b&
When I wrote “the huge dynamic range of the human visual system” I consciously didn’t write “the human eye.” The eye is impressive itself, but our ability to scan the scene and build a cognitive perception from many perspectives and points of view and focus and exposures is the key to dynamic range. In that respect, it resembles HDR and focus-stacking.
Agreed — and my point is that your 5DIII has dynamic range comparable to the system as an whole, and likely superior.
Give it a whack the next time you’re out. Make an exposure (at ISO 100) with the Sun in the frame (using all standard precautions about that sort of thing) that just barely resolves the Sun as a disc. The rest of the frame, of course, will be black. Then see how much you can recover the blackness in post-production; you’ll be amazed. No, it won’t be as noiseless as you’re used to, but it’ll still be shockingly good.
Try some other experiments, too, such as the one I described with the shed. While there’s absolutely a significant challenge in presenting the capture in a print or online or the like, it’s pretty clear that the camera itself is at least the equal of the complete human visual system in terms of dynamic range, if not its superior.
b&
According to dpreview the Canon 5D3 has a dynamic range of about 10.3 f-stops.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos5dmarkii/page25.asp
That’s good for a sensor, and comparable to the human eye (estimated 10 to 14 stops), but not even close to the human visual system as a whole. When the eyes can adjust to varying light (the pupil opens and closes and the retina adapts its sensitivity to ambient light) the dynamic range of the HVS has been estimated at close to 24 stops.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/dynamic-range.htm
By the way, Ben, I’ve been testing the image stabilization of 500mm Canon lens. The hype seems to be true. I can get sharp hand-held photos at 1/250 and 700mm (500mm x 1.4x extender), ISO 100. Of course, this won’t stop motion blur for birds-in-flight.
I know what dpreview says…I’m suggesting you should do the experiment for yourself. Most generously, dpreview is adopting gallery standards for large enlargements as the basis of their signal / noise calculations — and maybe even outright pixel-peeping. But if you do the tests yourself, you’ll see that you really can get acceptable 8″x10″ prints out of an exposure that’s solid black on the back-of-the-camera preview, and that you can easily make out details in shadows that you just simply couldn’t peer into when you were in the scene yourself.
And I’ll bet you a beer or other suitable beverage that you can get sharp photos with the 500 + 1.4x at 1/30 handheld. You’ll need to do the full routine of perfect technique, including breathing, but you should be able to with a bit of practice.
If you really want to blow your mind…try shooting the Orion Nebula, handheld, by sitting on the ground and bracing your knees on your elbows. No, I’m not joking — you really can do handheld sorta-deep-sky astrophotography with your rig.
Cheers,
b&
You’ll need at least a 20 second exposure to start. Hand held will give you lens blur probably but you’ll have some nice darks. I noticed that even my 40D gave lovely shots of the moon in all its darkness around it. I’ve printed them on glossy aluminum.
I just purchased a 24mm prime and I’m sourcing a piggy back mount for my telescope so I can basically use the scope as a tracker.
Heh…not with the 5DIII high’s ISO and the image stabilization motors of a Great White.
I know — it sounds insane, photographing the Orion Nebula with your knees as the tripod. But you only need sub-second exposures to get it with the 5DIII, and the Great Whites really are up to the task if you take a meditative approach.
No, it’s not going to be something you’d publish or do research with. But you’ll see it, and clearly, and without streaking.
I don’t blame anybody for not believing me about this one, which is why I heartily encourage independent verification. Your mind will be blown, and the mind-blowing is well worth it.
b&
I’ll try it out but for me the Orion nebula is waaaaaay up. Not at the zenith but still way up so no tripod knees. I’d like to see the moon. I suspect it ain’t gonna be all that clear. I’ve taken hand held shots with my 300mm before with the 1.4x telextender and wasn’t impressed enough. It was okay without crop but blurry on crop. Here is the moon through my telescope with a field flattener to get the whole moon in.
Her’s a full moon at 700mm (cropped).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110292855@N05/13391854235/
The 300 f/4 L has a first-generation IS system that might not be up to snuff for this sort of thing (even if it’s damned impressive for its indented porpoise). But the latest generation system in the II versions of the 400 and 500….
And, remember, you can always give it a try on some other object of similar magnitude (like the Pleiades) or wait for it to be closer to the horizon. You will have to do a bit of hunching no matter what, and you’re not going to get impressive results…but you are going to be impressed by the results that you get.
Nice moon shot! I love how you can see the mountains and craters stand out against the lunar horizon as irregularities in the circle. Seems we all gotta shoot the moon shortly after getting some long glass…wonder why that might be….
b&
many people already named them both, but I’d choose a muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) over a nutria (Myocastor coypus)
Americans seem to prefer “Ondatra zibethicus”. Europeans like “O. zibethica”. Which is correct?
Since muskrats were introduced into Europe from North America, I think we should have naming rights.
I looked up ondatra as that would decide. It’s not a Latin word but it says it is feminine. In this way Ondatra zibethica would be correct because the knowns would agree. However, I read all over the place that it is Ondatra zibethicus
Jerry, My daughter is a professor at Oakland University in Rochester, MI, and she can’t find anything about your conference. Is it off site? Or is it at Oakland Community Collge in Auburn Hills, MI? JL
The unfortunate non-bird in the first photo is the common beaver (Castor canadensis).
Muskrat
“I realise HDR photos are not to everyone’s taste but I quite like them…”
Just lovely, Gareth! I like both, but the first is indeed my favorite.
Hi Prof Coyne!
Long time reader, occasional commenter.
A little trivia regarding the teeth of the muskrat you mentioned:
Having previously been a keeper of rats as pets for some years I can vouch that white teeth in rodents are a sign of something wrong – a healthy rodent will have orange/yellow teeth.
The orange/yellow colour of rodent teeth is the result of an Fe3 containing pigment found in the enamel. White teeth are associated with anaemia and a range of other deficiencies/illnesses.
BTW, on the subject of rodent teeth, one of my favourite rat behaviours is the ‘boggle’. When rats are happy they flex their jaw muscles and grind their teeth. Because their jaw muscles run behind their eyeballs this causes their eyes to rapidly bulge out of their sockets. It’s freaky but hilarious and adorable.
Wow, we had three pet rats over the years but I never knew about or observed the boggling. Now I want to get another rat. 😀