Sony A1+200-600 -- Bosque Del Apache (image heavy)

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

A number of posts I've read, people are shooting above 1/2500th a sec for BIF or you can (not always) end up with shots that look the birds have a "painted" look to them. I ran into this as well.

Here's one (click on the image for full size..SOOC) as an example. But, I don't know for sure what caused me to miss the entire series? The hawk was close, not a tiny dot, it was shot at 1/3200th a sec, hand-held and either mode 1 or 3 on the lens. The AF mode... I can't recall, It looks like maybe there is severe back focusing going on.. if you look at the right wing feathers? This wasn't all that challenging of a shot as it kept a pretty straight path for about 30-40 shots. I have hawk shots taken prior to these that are sharp and look great.

This "look" happened to me a lot... hundreds of images ruined. Now.. is it the lens? The camera? The lens, me, and the camera? I do know as soon as I tuned off OSS things improved as I mentioned before.

oof by hatch1921, on Flickr


Noise... the A1 is noisy even in the lower ISO range, at least my camera is... sounds like yours is as well. Compared to my D850, the D850 is cleaner in the lower ranges. That being said, the A1 appears to be better than the D850 when you get past ISO 3200 on up. I find myself having to do more steps in post to produce nice shots in the end. I never felt this way on the D850. That being said, I didn't like going past ISO 3200... I'll go higher on the A1.

The grip if you like grips, I always use one makes a difference for sure, a much better "feel" in the hands.

Your squirrel example is what is driving me nuts about this lens/combo. Up close, the 200-600 kills it with fine details even with mode 1 turned on....shoot something at distance and it's hit or miss.

Up close.. hand-held... mode 1 I think... and the fine details are great.
Sony A1 + 200-600 by hatch1921, on Flickr

I do think a large part of all of this is technique... I'm hoping with using the monopod and OSS off....and shooting subjects that are closer and larger in the frame, my images will improve. Atmospheric conditions play a part as well... at Bosque the temps swing from 30's on up this time of year and I think the cold ground and warming air played a part as well.

If this second trip mirrors trip one.. I'm selling the Sony gear (not smart enough to use it lol) and sticking with the D850/500pf combo. I'm hoping things improve and I don't end up selling.. I like the overall package and what it's capable of... again.... it might all just be me in the end. :)

Hatch

honestly I think for both of us it’s the way we are doing it. Granted my A1 purchase was knee jerk reaction choice but I remember when I first got my 200-600 I struggled and then the more I used it the better the shots got. I also noticed it did better at f8 than wide open. Not sure you should give up too quick on it, some of your photos look fabulous! I also note on the images I pixel peep is when the noise shows up. I think that’s part of the problem….looking too close. I’d like to see Steve give this thread a once over and get his opinion. Not sure how we do that. As I’m reading his BIF book I can already see severql things I’m doing wrong. The way I have my camera set up is way wrong! I’ve also been checking out this guy on YouTube named mark smith. He’s not a bad bird photo guy and the way he sets up his a1 is soooooo different than I ever would.

my biggest issue is that noise. The odd thing is in a few of my photos I used Lightroom and used the auto adjust setting to get close and it blew out the entire sky and destroyed the image, so I think something fishy is going on. Caught a Downey woodpecker at iso 1600 and it looks pretty darn good until I start zooming in at crazy amounts on the iPad Pro or monitor.
 
Back
Top