Photoclubalpha

Had to have a play this morning and see what the lens was like at it's limit. Trouble is my garden is in the shade until about 2pm so all shots at ISO400 and pushing the lens to the max at 300mm F/5.6 camera set to spot metering and focus, hand held (which shows as I really need to work on my hand holding technique). WB set to shade in ACR. I had to wait ages for something more interesting than grass to appear and this is a baby and doesn't know what stand still means. The first of each shot is scaled down to show distance and this is followed by 100% crops. And before anyone comments I wasn't even thinking about composition.

Hi ellisn,

First of all, this little chap looks really cute, I think he/she was very aware of you during the shoot. And in the downsized images he does stand out cleary. Am I missing something in your explanations, because I'm curious as to if you autofocused or not. I have this assumption that with AF you could catch this guy into a sharp focus.
I may well be wrong too of course!! And I appologize if I am in this respect. But I just shot a buzzing bee on one of our garden flowers and AF was spot on in spite of my inexperience with shooting-flying-subjects.(my first time)

Thank you for sharing your experience with your new lens and cute garden visitor... Much appreciated!

Yildiz

A very nice toy it is.
Would you please post some shots under sunlight?
I just love squirrels.

Hi Yildiz, yes AF was used. It is a bit soft but I think that may be because the lens was at it's limit as in 300 /5.6. Or it could be because my hand holding is naff. Or because it was in low light. Or the lens is a dud!

I wouldn't know but would welcome feedback on the mater as I wouldn't know to blame the lens or the lens holder . If I ever get a chance to shoot with some sun on the subject I will give it a go but that will probably be the weekend..... if we get any sun at the weekend. I will have to have a go at f/8 see if there are any improvements.

Neil

Another factor is I think I was pushing my luck hand holding with shutter speeds as follows for the images in order of appearance:

1/80 1/100 1/125 1/50 1/125

Even with SSS I think I was expecting a bit much with my shaking hands and the lens at 300

Cheers Sonolta

Any suggestions on the best way to test a lens to make sure it is a good one, that eliminates user ineptitude?

Neil

ellisn wrote:Another factor is I think I was pushing my luck hand holding with shutter speeds as follows for the images in order of appearance:

1/80 1/100 1/125 1/50 1/125

Even with SSS I think I was expecting a bit much with my shaking hands and the lens at 300

Exactly Neil. That's why I was asking you in my above post to shot under sunlight, or try your luck with high ISO shots.
The simplest formula is to use a speed with a number twice the size of the focal length of a lens in APS-C format. Thus if you are using at 300mm then the speed should be 1/600, or with SSS on use a speed equal or greater than 1/150. To be exact, use 1/200 at least.

I knew that you would post them Don. Thanks.
All are great, but #2 is awesome, superb.

Dr. Harout wrote:I just love squirrels.

H, you can have this one with pleasure:


I took this one through a (dirty) window hence the quality.
I have "shot" him several times taking my wild bird feeders to bits to get at the seeds.

He is very lucky I haven't shot him with my Daystate X2 instead of my alpha 700

Everyone knows red squirrels are a lot less blurry than grey

Looks like squirrels will be my training for hand held photography, just wish I had some light in my garden, ISO 800 it is.

Great pics Sonolta I will have to show them to my squirrel and encourage it to behave.

bonneville wrote:

Dr. Harout wrote:I just love squirrels.

H, you can have this one with pleasure:


I took this one through a (dirty) window hence the quality.
I have "shot" him several times taking my wild bird feeders to bits to get at the seeds.

He is very lucky I haven't shot him with my Daystate X2 instead of my alpha 700

Brian, long time no see. Welcome back.

I knew I recognised the name...

ellisn wrote:Had to have a play this morning and see what the lens was like at its limit. [...] The first of each shot is scaled down to show distance and this is followed by 100 % crops. [...]

Judging by your squirrel shots, the SAL 70-300 mm SSM G doesn't look too good. Pretty soft actually ... even when considering that it's at the long end wide open. I feel I'd get better results from my old Minolta AF 75-300 mm lens (a.k.a. 'Big Beercan'), and still better results from the Minolta AF Apo 100-300 mm (D) lens. I think the SAL 70-300 mm SSM G should be able to do better than that.

I suspect the reason for the apparently poor lens performance is inaccurate auto-focusing. Too bad you didn't mention which camera you were using ... was it the A700? Please check your shots carefully if there are areas in the frames before or behind the intended plane of focus which appear sharper than the squirrel. It seems to me you're having a slight case of front-focus, i. e. the lens (or rather the combination of lens and camera) is focusing a bit shorter than it's supposed to.

-- Olaf

Hi Olaf, as Sonolta points out it is most likely the user rather than the equipment. So busy thinking about keeping the lens at 300 f5.6 I didn't even think about shutter speed, 1/50 was just asking for failure. I will try to get outside again today and be a bit more careful and less of a numpty

I will also do a tripod test just to make sure the lens/camera is focusing OK. Better to check these things while I am in the 7 days grace period.

Sonolta wrote:

Love that shot Don!

/Z!