Testing limits of a 70-200

Yeah, gonzo's dead on there. You're shooting a mobile subject sitting on a mobile object; if there is any sort of a breeze (even light enough that you can't feel it yourself) it's entirely possible for that to move things enough to soften things too. Also, the higher your shutter speed the more ability you have to stop motion; which can help mitigate that motion as well.

And, no, on modern dSLRs, especially full frame bodies like the 6D you really don't need to worry about ISO much at all. That body is one of the best ones Canon makes for handling high ISO, being able to go up to a whopping 25600, without boost.

As an example, this shot was taken with my 7D @ 6400, and as you can see it handles the detail and grain just fine: https://flic.kr/p/mjnr​ng, and your sensor will handle it even better.

I strongly urge you to just go out and shoot at different settings to see what your new toy is capable of; it's one of the beauties of digital...you don't blow money on your 'test' shots

If you are leaning towards macro a set of Kenco extension tubes (with the electrical connection to the lens) are amazing on the 70-200, I almost always carry at least one with me. You then normally use MF.

Snydremark wrote in post #17226622
Yeah, gonzo's dead on there. You're shooting a mobile subject sitting on a mobile object; if there is any sort of a breeze (even light enough that you can't feel it yourself) it's entirely possible for that to move things enough to soften things too. Also, the higher your shutter speed the more ability you have to stop motion; which can help mitigate that motion as well.

And, no, on modern dSLRs, especially full frame bodies like the 6D you really don't need to worry about ISO much at all. That body is one of the best ones Canon makes for handling high ISO, being able to go up to a whopping 25600, without boost.

As an example, this shot was taken with my 7D @ 6400, and as you can see it handles the detail and grain just fine: https://flic.kr/p/mjnr​ng, and your sensor will handle it even better.

I strongly urge you to just go out and shoot at different settings to see what your new toy is capable of; it's one of the beauties of digital...you don't blow money on your 'test' shots

Wow, well this is exciting, and that's a wonderful photograph of the owl. I am definitely experimenting with high ISO's now.

It seems I had heard that cameras keep more of their value if there aren't too many exposures taken, but I generally use everything up before giving it away, so yes I'll be testing away.

Martin Dixon wrote in post #17227046
If you are leaning towards macro a set of Kenco extension tubes (with the electrical connection to the lens) are amazing on the 70-200, I almost always carry at least one with me. You then normally use MF.

So those are like multipliers? Back in the day (the 80's) I bought one of those 1000mm Minolta lenses and a 2x multiplier and I could see the craters on the moon.

I guess you could read between the lines and could tell this camera is an unusual purchase for me but I looked up those tubes and that seems like it may be financially doable in the future when I start getting comfortable with the camera.
Thank you for the suggestion, I didn't realize it was an option for close-ups.

Actually the first thing I need is panorama capability. I'm just trying to learn in a balanced manner. I failed with my first attempt for a panorama that day but wanted to learn from the bee pictures.

I kinda have some product ideas, anyone curious that's been following this thread could pm me if they cared to, especially if you're skilled in panoramas.

underd0g wrote in post #17227147
So those are like multipliers?

No! I'm talking about extension tubes, which are essentially just hollow tubes. They just reduce the minimum focus distance, so you can get closer. In fact when you do this the zoom acts like a focus control. With 200mm you are relatively far from your subject, which I find very helpful.

Don't get the really cheap ones that have no electrical connection as this stops the aperture control working!

For pano work see this brenizer thread https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1138306 which shows what you can do handheld.

PS can usually handle stitching so long as you have decent overlaps. Hugin (free) is in some ways better though the interface may be a little intimidating at first.

Martin Dixon wrote in post #17227172
No! I'm talking about extension tubes, which are essentially just hollow tubes. They just reduce the minimum focus distance, so you can get closer. In fact when you do this the zoom acts like a focus control. With 200mm you are relatively far from your subject, which I find very helpful.

Don't get the really cheap ones that have no electrical connection as this stops the aperture control working!

Oh, I see. Thanks for the warning, I'll be careful. It'll be a while for me to do that though.

Martin Dixon wrote in post #17227186
For pano work see this brenizer thread https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1138306 which shows what you can do handheld.

PS can usually handle stitching so long as you have decent overlaps. Hugin (free) is in some ways better though the interface may be a little intimidating at first.

On this though, sorry, but I looked through a lot of them and saw the Wikipedia page on it, however I couldn't see the benefits of so much work for the image.
Seems like you could layer in Photoshop and blur anything you wanted. Of course my eye isn't very sophisticated yet.

But I need panoramas that are of a large area of landscape.

Oop, found one I liked... Page 97 post # 1443.
That made a distinct difference.

Here's one I did that got me disqualified in a photo contest using the layered method.
In my defense I didn't know it was illegal. I just wanted to make it pop more.

IMAGE LINK: http://s108.photobucke​t.com …fied_zps9480ff9​c.jpg.html

The purposes of image stirching for Brenizer and stitching for panos is different. WIth Brenizer you are overlapping a lot in every direction to manipulate the firld of view at shallow DOF. With a pano you need overlap but generally not nesrly so many images.

gonzogolf wrote in post #17227465
The purposes of image stirching for Brenizer and stitching for panos is different. WIth Brenizer you are overlapping a lot in every direction to manipulate the firld of view at shallow DOF. With a pano you need overlap but generally not nesrly so many images.

Yeah, the pieces are coming together. They had images with upwards to 50 pictures. Man.

Pano or Brenizer, share quite a lot IMHO. I have done both hand-held and tripod. The main thing is to get your exposure and focus right then lock them both (manual, MF or BBF is good if your camera does it).

Take about 50% overlapped images (I usually use portrait orientation for landscape - depends on lens). If your computer can hack it, you can import directly into PS , auto align then auto blend layers (I prefer to separate operations so you can go back and erase patches where errors are occurring) then tidy up.

Hugin needs tiff (or jpg) so you need to export from LR (or dpp) first. Hugin allows intermediate files to be saved I founld this helpful once when hugin's blending didn't work so well - PS did better, though it had failed to align that particular set.

Looking forward to seeing these.

Martin Dixon wrote in post #17227531
Pano or Brenizer, share quite a lot IMHO. I have done both hand-held and tripod. The main thing is to get your exposure and focus right then lock them both (manual, MF or BBF is good if your camera does it).

Take about 50% overlapped images (I usually use portrait orientation for landscape - depends on lens). If your computer can hack it, you can import directly into PS , auto align then auto blend layers (I prefer to separate operations so you can go back and erase patches where errors are occurring) then tidy up.

Hugin needs tiff (or jpg) so you need to export from LR (or dpp) first. Hugin allows intermediate files to be saved I founld this helpful once when hugin's blending didn't work so well - PS did better, though it had failed to align that particular set.

Looking forward to seeing these.

A lot of information to learn, it'll be a while.