Baby owls - DOF question

If you setup on a tripod, lock everything, select a single focus point for each individual, (your 7d2 should have plenty to choose from), it should only require stacking 4 shots.


Edit: I had completely forgotten about subject movement, taking time to select points is prolly not going to work.

They were not physically moving much, but their heads are in motion most of the time.

I think you should pm me your address so I can come by and we can figure this thing out.

I know you've answered these types of questions many, many times. And I should be able to get this through my head, but for some reason it's not clear to me.

Wilt wrote in post #19072516
...Backing up and framing looser, but then cropping tight during postprocessing will DO NOTHING FOR DOF!!!...

Crop sensor, f/11, 200mm at 20' yields 1.188' DOF. Backing up to 30' (and changing the focus), but leaving everything else the same yields 2.705' DOF and I'd have to crop in post. Yeah, I'll throw away pixels, but if I'm posting to social media, I'll still have plenty left over.

I know that in this case, the OP's view was blocked if backing up, so it's a theoretical question. What am I missing? (I know that I'm missing something.)

@duckster
Very cute!

dasmith232 wrote in post #19073530
I know you've answered these types of questions many, many times. And I should be able to get this through my head, but for some reason it's not clear to me.

Crop sensor, f/11, 200mm at 20' yields 1.188' DOF. Backing up to 30' (and changing the focus), but leaving everything else the same yields 2.705' DOF and I'd have to crop in post. Yeah, I'll throw away pixels, but if I'm posting to social media, I'll still have plenty left over.

I know that in this case, the OP's view was blocked if backing up, so it's a theoretical question. What am I missing? (I know that I'm missing something.)

If you crop, then you magnify the out-of-focus parts (the circles of confusion) and need a tighter DOF.

Archibald wrote in post #19073539
If you crop, then you magnify the out-of-focus parts (the circles of confusion) and need a tighter DOF.

Okay, I see your point now. Thank you.

This is true for any enlargement, cropping or not. This sounds more like DPI/PPI than DOF. Conversely, if I compress an image it creates the illusion of sharper focus. This is why newbies "trust" the clarity on the rear screen of the camera and are then disappointed when they see the same image on the computer at home. Don't trust the rear screen for determining focus.

But illusions aside, backing up will increase the DOF. And if I'm going to post to social media (or any other low-pixel count rendering), then I probably have an abundance of pixels and I'm probably not needing to enlarge anything...?

dasmith232 wrote in post #19073570
Okay, I see your point now. Thank you.

This is true for any enlargement, cropping or not. This sounds more like DPI/PPI than DOF. Conversely, if I compress an image it creates the illusion of sharper focus. This is why newbies "trust" the clarity on the rear screen of the camera and are then disappointed when they see the same image on the computer at home. Don't trust the rear screen for determining focus.

But illusions aside, backing up will increase the DOF. And if I'm going to post to social media (or any other low-pixel count rendering), then I probably have an abundance of pixels and I'm probably not needing to enlarge anything...?

Low res photos like on social media allow for a lot of slack in quality, and the LCD screen on cameras even more, as you say. DOF gets really complicated when you get into the details, like size of the finished photo, viewing distance, and so on. The sharpness and contrast and even lens quality influence perceptions and thus apparent DOF. Today's DOF calculators are based on an ancient circle of confusion that made sense with the quality of lenses and film back in the day. Today that CoC would need to be updated, because our tools have improved so much. But we don't update that CoC because that would just add to the complexity.

But with a broad brush we can dismiss the detail. It all comes down to aperture. To gain DOF, you need to stop down.

duckster wrote in post #19072524
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I went up as high as f13 but those were really not good...
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Why weren't they good?

I shoot birds at apertures like f13 frequently, when I want greater depth of field, and the images turn out the way I intend them to.

If you could post your f13 images, and let us know what yu didn't like about them, then we could try to troubleshoot for you.


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I will see if I kept any of the f13 images. They seemed more blurred than the lower apertures. Maybe I just missed focus, which is certainly possible.

Archibald wrote in post #19073765
It all comes down to aperture. To gain DOF, you need to stop down.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19073882
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Why weren't they good?

I shoot birds at apertures like f13 frequently, when I want greater depth of field, and the images turn out the way I intend them to.

If you could post your f13 images, and let us know what yu didn't like about them, then we could try to troubleshoot for you.

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I agree with Archibald and Toms comments....Reducing the aperture size increases the depth of field of the image. So a higher aperture (e.g., f/18 & f20 as seen in the photos below) although means less light is entering the camera this setting is better for when you want everything in your shot to be in focus. I will often use f/20 and even higher if there are several birds and the light is right. The last photo is at f/36.

Photo from PCousins's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (932776)

Photo from PCousins's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1030412)

Photo from PCousins's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1015222)

Photo from PCousins's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (869265)

Photo from PCousins's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (941617)

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …44519649835/in/​datetaken/

Little Egret

Great shots!

On looking through the shots, f8 was the smallest aperture that I kept. It was pretty shady where I was and the ISO was already climbing at f8, 1/160. The couple of shots that I tried at f11 seemed to be worse in focus but maybe it was some noise

Are you shooting in one of the semi-automatic modes, like Av? If so, then as you stop down the aperture (to f/8, f/11 and smaller) is your shutter speed slowing down and that's the real reason for blurred pictures?

You described that you were getting higher ISO speeds, but I wasn't sure if you were manually selecting higher ISO speeds or if the camera is doing that automatically (along with shutter).

duckster wrote in post #19074050
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On looking through the shots, f8 was the smallest aperture that I kept. It was pretty shady where I was and the ISO was already climbing at f8, 1/160. The couple of shots that I tried at f11 seemed to be worse in focus but maybe it was some noise
.

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Personally, in a situation like you had with those owls, I would stop all the way down to f16, keep the ISO at 1600, and then use a much slower shutter speed of 1/60th of a second.

Better yet, I would actually have probably lowered the ISO to 800 and cranked the shutter speed down even slower, like 1/30th of a second. . So many photographers seem to think that they need shutter speeds so much faster than they really do. . I'm not sure why so many people feel a need to "keep the shutter speed up" when they are photographing stationary subjects.

The 100-400 v2 that you have has such good IS that you should be able to hand hold at 340mm and get tack sharp shots at 1/25th or 1/30th, no problem.

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Tom Reichner wrote in post #19074068
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Personally, in a situation like you had with those owls, I would stop all the way down to f16, keep the ISO at 1600, and then use a much slower shutter speed of 1/60th of a second.

Better yet, I would actually have probably lowered the ISO to 800 and cranked the shutter speed down even slower, like 1/30th of a second. . So many photographers seem to think that they need shutter speeds so much faster than they really do. . I'm not sure why so many people feel a need to "keep the shutter speed up" when they are photographing stationary subjects.

The 100-400 v2 that you have has such good IS that you should be able to hand hold at 340mm and get tack sharp shots at 1/25th or 1/30th, no problem.

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Spot on Tom!