The 1.4x Teleconverter Doesn't Cut It!

[Flying Panda]

JT

 

[Donde]

Agree lacks father detail. What equipment are we talking?

 

[Space Face]

Shutter speed looks a bit on the slow side which doesn't help.

 

[480sparky]

Being so close to wide open probably doesn't help either.

 

[ronlane]

Which 1.4x TC are you using? The Canon 1.4x TC version II is said to be soft.

 

[dxqcanada]

Exif data says
Nikon D850
focal length of 600mm
lens 150-600mm F5-6.3

 

[photoflyer]

I have the Canon 1.4 and on a 300mm f4 L it does a good job in full light. I suppose one must weigh the quality relative to the cost of other options.

 

[zulu42]

Am I crazy? It looks acceptable to me. You can see the pin feathers. Looks like the focus point was low on the bird, shooting upward put the head behind the focal plane.

Looks sharper than my Tamron when its racked to 600mm...

 

[weepete]

150-600s don't tend to take teleconverters well. But 1/320th second a bit slow for 800mm focal length I think. ISO seems low too and there's a lot more colour noise than I'd have expected to see on a Nikon full frame at a resonably low ISO. How much did you raise the exposure in post?

 

[TWX]

The things that distract me in a negative way are the branch in the foreground and the color-shift on the branch on the upper right, which appears to continue into the bird's head. That branch is also much more strongly focused than the rest of the surrounding branches, which draws my attention away from the bird.

I expect the narrow depth of field was necessary in order to reduce the effect of the foreground branch in front of the bird, but since it wasn't possible to get all of the branches save the perch itself out of focus, it seems to have an unusual quality about it with that one branch so detailed compared to the others.

 

[K9Kirk]

I'm not zooming in 100% to look at the fine detail but if that hawk were far away and you got that kind of detail (and hand held I'm assuming) it's nothing to scoff at. As @zulu42 mentioned, you can see the pin feathers but it does appear that everything is a hair on the soft side. As far as the light is concerned I"ll admit I'm a little confused about lighting. If increasing the ISO generally makes things brighter then wouldn't it make the background too bright or is that something people generally ignore when exposing for the subject?

 

[Original katomi]

Hiya, is there much difference with or without the converter. Eg will a shot without be able to be cropped in tight and still have good IQ.

 

[weepete]

If increasing the ISO generally makes things brighter then wouldn't it make the background too bright or is that something people generally ignore when exposing for the subject?

Yes, and if you can hold both that's perfect. However in wildlife photos it's generally considered better to expose for the subject and let the background do what it wants if it's a choice between them.

 

[K9Kirk]

If increasing the ISO generally makes things brighter then wouldn't it make the background too bright or is that something people generally ignore when exposing for the subject?

Yes, and if you can hold both that's perfect. However in wildlife photos it's generally considered better to expose for the subject and let the background do what it wants if it's a choice between them.

Someone told me recently on another forum that when it's bright out to expose for the light and in post edit to brink up the light in the shadows (on the subject) to more closely match the surrounding light. I tried it on one pic and it seemed to help. Can't say it was perfect, though. Just putting that out there for anyone interested in a possible solution to the problem.

 

[weepete]

Someone told me recently on another forum that when it's bright out to expose for the light and in post edit to brink up the light in the shadows (on the subject) to more closely match the surrounding light. I tried it on one pic and it seemed to help. Can't say it was perfect, though. Just putting that out there for anyone interested in a possible solution to the problem.

As a rule of thumb it's not a bad one, generally speaking with digital it's better to expose for the highlights and do shadow recovery in post. But with photography as in life there's an exception to every rule and generally speaking, the subject in wildlife photography is so intrinsic to the shot that it's often better to get best quality on the subject and minor deficencies elswhere can be forgiven.