-= 90D owners unite! Discuss and Post Photos

David_Wales, the bullfinch (MUGURAR in Romanian) and goldfinch (STICLETE) you show us don't seem as sharp as they could be.
What's going on, what do you think is the cause?

Probably because they are taken through a glass window, therefore I am adding reflection. Unfortunately, I'm in the UK shielding group and not allowed outside my home, therefore my photography has to be taken through my window. Once I'm allowed out, I'm sure the clarity will get better - hopefully ߘ

This camera continues to impress for macro work (and other things, but I'm stuck at home).

This is an adult antlion. Something I don't get to see all too often, but have some of the best eyes of the insect work in my opinion. The are mostly nocturnal, and the adults like this tend not to live long so it's a rare occasion that I find one and am able to get a few shots off of it.

Awesome picture!
But how did you get this magnification, did you use extension tubes or how? Thanks for sharing.

taxon wrote in post #19067161
Awesome picture!
But how did you get this magnification, did you use extension tubes or how? Thanks for sharing.

Thanks! I use a Raynox DCR-250 to give the Canon 100mm macro lens a bit more magnification. Also though, these adult antlions are not overly small, this one was probably around 3" in total length, the body in the pic here was probably about 1" long. There's a small crop to this shot to help get it centered.

Actually, you are adding refraction. With a single-pane window there are two glass/air interfaces; with a double-pane (even worse) there are four, and these are not made of optical glass.

Try to shoot as close as possible to normal incidence to minimize the refraction splitting the light path (the splitting varies across the frame because of the range of incident angles and the waviness of the window glass -- the net effect is to blur things out). I have discovered that you can find some parts of a window that are 'pretty good' and if you shoot as close to normal incidence as you can the results are not too terrible, other than the overall light loss from all of the air/glass interfaces (that don't have anti-reflection coatings) costing you light. In my case, shooting through some argon filled double-pane glass you lose 1/2 to 2/3s f-stop.

JayLT wrote in post #19067154
This camera continues to impress for macro work (and other things, but I'm stuck at home).

This is an adult antlion. Something I don't get to see all too often, but have some of the best eyes of the insect work in my opinion. The are mostly nocturnal, and the adults like this tend not to live long so it's a rare occasion that I find one and am able to get a few shots off of it.

Hosted photo: posted by JayLT in
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forum: Canon Digital Cameras

Great shot, Jay. The eye is very interesting, and the purple color adds a lot.

Wow!!

Thanks Russ. Makes sound sense. Science was never my strong point, but I will definitely get closer to the glass, and find that sweet spot. Unfortunately my wheelchair does prevent this, so I will have to get a swivel chair, and haul myself up to be able to get a position to view through the bay window.

Much appreciate the advice.

Regards David

HIBISCUS WITH LONG-LEGGED FLY

Just had her hair done: Going out to Dinner!

Warning: X-rated: Copulating Blue-eyed Darner Dragonflies

Red-tailed Bumblebee!! Well thank God we still got bees!! Was really worried last year

Follow-up to the 90d's MFA/AF problems with 600/4 and telextenders:

I have a chance to photograph some cooperative Bullock's Orioles at much closer distances than usual and didn't need the extenders, so the camera was on the bare 600 giving an effective focal length of 960mm. The distance was somewhere around 30 feet, so atmospheric distortion wasn't a major problem, as it usually is with subjects at greater distances.

It's been unusually cool and wet for early June here in western Oregon, an extension of normal winter weather, so it's really like most of my days in the field. Exposure settings were 1/500 sec, f/8, and ISO1600, more or less. These are my default settings most of the year.

The performance increase of AF was remarkable, based on the percentage of critically sharp eyes (the extra DOF of using two stops closed aperture instead of 1 stop or wide-open with the extenders helps). It was also improved for the bright yellow-colored Orioles' heads versus Black-headed Grossbeaks and black-headed Spotted Towhees done at the same time and same distance. In all cases I was using single point AF, OneShot Mode and held the AF point on the birds' heads, on the eye when possible.

I think this pretty much confirms for me that the 90d's AF system is seriously downgraded from the 5dsR that I've been using. Over several years use I never noticed that the 5dsR performed so much poorer under very similar conditions. And I didn't go out to photograph the birds thinking of, or looking for, a performance test, it just popped out at me as I edited the images.

The 90d is still my primary body, but for other reasons, and I'll just have to put up with it's AF performance (and that damned .CR3 RAW format).

Can you please post the Bullock's shot?