Do these look good?

I haven't had as much opportunity to shoot my 150-500 OS as I'd like but I managed these shots. They have been processed including some USM but I'm wondering if, in general these look good and are they as sharp as you'd expect from this lens?

Thanks in advance.

1.

Looks like you were fighting some severe light conditions. Personally, they are not as sharp as I prefer but to each his own. I had the 150-500 and ended up selling it because it just wasn't as sharp as I had expected. Ended up giving up 200mm and going with a canon 300L and have never been sorry. I know there are some on here who have one and do quite well with it so don't give up, just keep taking pics and trying to get more out of it.

Mike

Thank you for the honest feedback. I do need to just keep shooting. Those conditions were pretty insane so that's probably not the best test of the lens. I'll have to keep it up and see what else I can get.

In a few of them, it looks like the lens missed focus...to the rear (see some feathers vs the eyes/beak). Since you have the 50d, try a micro-adjust on the lens at longer focal lengths and see if you need to dial it in better.

I haven't yet calibrated this test but I did a quick test the other night and it appeared to be back-focusing. I didn't make any changes because the test was "quick and dirty". I will spend some time calibrating this weekend. These were all also shot through double-pane glass and I'm sure the camera/lens had a tough time focusing with the flying snow.

I'm not making excuses, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

The double-pane glass could make them soft, I think, even if the lens isn't back-focusing.

The feather detail and eye sharpness are the best on the female cardinal, good enough that I don't see a back-focusing problem with them.

The only way to know whether the lens is any good is to test it under better conditions. Through the glass is going to throw any image off.

Double glazing makes a crap filter, but you should be able to do a lot better, I think the conditions were against you, perhaps the softness of the snow bled into the images

No way to test a lens's sharpness shooting through double pane glass. Get outside, remove any filters on the end of the lens and then test it.

I would agree shooting through Glass or any Filter's is not going to be a Fair test for any Lenses abilities, as for the snow, that should not cause you any problems as theres not enough detail for the AF to grab onto provided your on the bird and its not a Blizzard.

another thing I see you shot these at 500mm. and your shutter speeds were in the 1/200th to 1/320th range on the few I checked, Increasing this and trying to maintain your Lenses focal length in this case 500 mm. a 1/500th would be the lower end of where you want to be with regards to shutter speed.

Of course technique solid rest etc play heavily into this and good shots can still happen at these lower shutter speeds, but you will have to have caught the subject not moving at the point of shutter for a High IQ shot regardless of technique or rest, simply due to the bird's movement at capture...

Dan

Again, thanks for all the input guys!

They are nice shots, some are a bit soft but could be due to bad lighting condition.

How about these shot not through any glass? Better?

They look a bit better to me.