How far do you crop your distant birds and my recent thoughts on fine tune

PropilotBW · Apr 6, 2013

Here's a pic of a Northern Flicker I caught in my backyard. The bird was about 150' away. This is cropped over 75%, shot with a 200mm on the D5100.
Clearly there are some limitations of my lens.
...I'm in the market for a longer reach!

coastalconn · Apr 6, 2013

I'm starting to suspect fine tuning at a long distance has far more impact than near MFD. I was shooting my songbirds all winter someplace between 0 and +3. I don't remember exactly. But this morning I was shooting at +8 for my Ospreys. When I got home this Chickadee just had a nice pose in the sun. So even at +8 up close I think it is still looking good...

Chickadee by krisinct, on Flickr

bc_steve · Apr 6, 2013

Ideally I would be close enough/have enough reach so that I wouldn't have to do any cropping, but that is rarely the case unfortunately. Usually I just crop an image as much as I feel is needed and then let that limit what I will use the image for.

I find it useful to keep an uncropped or less cropped .PSD file just in case. I don't know of a way to crop an image as a non-destructive edit, and if you do end up needing particular dimensions or need to include a little more background to increase the pixel count a bit for printing or something you would need to start over with the RAW file.

I have examples of really cropped pictures and others I haven't really cropped at all, but I'm not sure if it would help anyone out to see them. I took a few pics today of a hawk that we keep seeing when we take the dogs for a run that we would like to try to identify. I have them cropped down to 100% and it doesn't look that great, but they are pretty useful for identification purposes. (we think we may have a rough-legged hawk but the identification is inconclusive ...)

coastalconn, a zoom lens will most likely require a different AF Fine Tune value at different focal lengths (and different apertures I believe) so it is best to calibrate it to how you shoot most regularly. For this reason, AF Fine Tune works best for primes. I think it's a case of the more you know your lens, the better. I am impressed with the sharpness that you are getting out of your Tamron @ 500mm by the way. I am hoping to upgrade my telephoto in the next year and you are making a case for those long zoom lenses ...

baturn · Apr 6, 2013

Great thread! Thanks to Shefjr for info on manual.

SCraig · Apr 6, 2013

bc_steve said:
I find it useful to keep an uncropped or less cropped .PSD file just in case. I don't know of a way to crop an image as a non-destructive edit, and if you do end up needing particular dimensions or need to include a little more background to increase the pixel count a bit for printing or something you would need to start over with the RAW file.

Nikon Capture NX2 does a non-destructive crop. NOTHING that software does to a file is destructive unless the file is saved and overwritten. The file can be saved as a RAW file with a different name and all the editing steps are saved, however any and all steps can be unchecked to disable them.

shefjr · Apr 7, 2013

coastalconn said:
My biggest problem was my lens seemed so good close up, I assumed it was just the lens. I did try fine tuning between -5 and +5 but didn't seem to make any difference. Their are so many "scientific" ways you can google. I had a moment of clarity when I was looking at a brick chimney about 300 feet away. I have my d-pad set to 100% zoom. I decided to play. Took a shoot at 0 then +10 when I zoomed in I was like holy crap!

For most of my close up shots I still have it fine tuned, even since having it married to my camera. I actually did the "scientific" test on my lens prior to sending it in to Sigma and that is what prompted me to call them and inevitably send it in. I am happier with it than I was though that is for sure. I feel like I'm getting much more consistent results.
As for chimping in the field, for me I guess I just don't feel like I'm able to really view the back of my camera well enough to make the af adjustment. Even zooming in.
Baturn, glad I could help!:thumbup:

This is my eagle shot that I was talking about where is was 126m or 413feet away. I'm fairly happy with the results.

Eagles with their nest in the background by Shefjr, on Flickr