Bridge, MFT, achromats, dSLR, primes - a journey of exploration

[GardenersHelper]

I found a review on Amazon.com that referred to the hot shoe attachment as optional. "The receiver is palm sized, except for the flash foot (fitted with a locking collar) optionally used to secure it to a flash shoe." So it looks to me that it doesn't have to be mounted in the hot shoe so you would have that free for your flash. That extra cable is brilliant!

Thanks Deb.

 

[GardenersHelper]

I went out to one of the local nature reserves this morning. I took the heavy Magic Arm setup and the pie dish diffuser. It all worked fine ... until the Magic Arm stopped working. The joint at one end has locked solid. It's been giving me intermittent problems like that for a couple of days, but previously I've been able to get the joint moving again after a few tries. But not this time. I tried some silicon spray when I got home but it had no effect. I think it must be a fault with the mechanism.

I've sent it back for a replacement, but I won't be surprised if the replacement dies too. I suspect I just put too much pressure on these devices. I'll use the Velbon arm on the Benro tripod again for a while, this time with my old ball head rather than the pistol grip. I may try some of the same sort of shots in the garden to make it somewhat of a like for like comparison compared to the Magic Arm rig.

I took the 70D and the FZ200 with me this morning. This meant I had two bags and the (heavy) tripod to carry around. I very quickly decided to take the 70D back to the car so I only had one bag (a back pack) to deal with. It turns out that once the camera is on the tripod I very much want to use two hands to carry it, not so much because of the weight but more because I'm concerned that something will give and the camera will crash to the ground. (The rig did tip over early on this morning, but luckily the camera didn't have far to fall and seems to be ok. But that was operator error not equipment failure.)

I was perfectly happy using the FZ200 including (unusually for a nature reserve session) for flowers a fair proportion of the time. I haven't answered John's question yet because I'm still thinking about it ...

But if you were allowed only one camera which would you choose as the compromise you could live with the most

... but I'm edging towards admitting to myself that it would be the FZ200, for all that I think that the 70D should be better.

 

[DayDreamer]

Nick - I feel for you as I have become extremely indecisive & even the most simple of decisions melts my brain down - yet I used to be the extreme opposite.

It would be good if you could get to one camera & enjoy the shooting instead of the huge amount of time taken in the comparisons - but you may enjoy the scientific research.

The best of luck with your continuing deliberations.

 

[GardenersHelper]

Nick - I feel for you as I have become extremely indecisive & even the most simple of decisions melts my brain down - yet I used to be the extreme opposite.

It would be good if you could get to one camera & enjoy the shooting instead of the huge amount of time taken in the comparisons - but you may enjoy the scientific research.

The best of luck with your continuing deliberations.

Thanks John. I do enjoy the exploration of alternatives - actually, it used to be part of my job.

I don't know that I'll get to one camera. It seems more like a case of working out which camera is best for which type of session or shot. And I think I'm getting there (with some little detours concerning tripods and flash arrangements at the moment).

I am enjoying the shooting (by and large, except when stuff breaks etc). I'm capturing loads of images at the moment. I know there's not much evidence of it, because I'm spending a lot of time capturing images and not much processing them, apart from dipping in and looking at a few for the purpose of comparison or verifying that a new approach (like my new diffuser) is actually working. In fact I've captured so many images in the past month or so that I've just had to order some more disk drives.

I'll post some stuff in the forum here once I've got around to selecting and processing some of the growing backlog. But I don't know how much I'll post because I'm sure I will have lots of quite similar images.

 

[DayDreamer]

Nick as long as you are enjoying it that's all that matters - the rest of us, reading your findings, are enjoying following your journey .

 

[GardenersHelper]

Nick as long as you are enjoying it that's all that matters - the rest of us, reading your findings, are enjoying following your journey .

Thanks John. Talking of enjoyment, and doing comparisons ...

I'll use the Velbon arm on the Benro tripod again for a while, this time with my old ball head rather than the pistol grip. I may try some of the same sort of shots in the garden to make it somewhat of a like for like comparison compared to the Magic Arm rig.

... I did spend some time with the Benro tripod, Velbon arm and old ball head (and new pie tin diffuser) in the same areas of the garden I have used in the past few days for testing out tripod and flash arrangements. There were some similar (in some cases with spiders, actually the same) opportunities involving tricky "stretches" to reach the subjects and fairly precise positioning needed to line up with gaps in the foliage and/or point at suitable backgrounds to avoid flash "black backgrounds".

It is true that the Magic Arm can stretch further than the Benro/Velbon rig and can reach positions the Benro/Velbon rig can't even when the stretch is within the Benro/Velbon's capability because it can (sometimes) "work around" the legs. However, it is not at all one-sided.

• It turned out that most of the time these Magic Arm advantages didn't apply
  
• It is more intuitive and quicker getting the Benro/Velbon arrangement to new positions - my eyes and hands find it much easier to work out what adjustments to make and the adjustments "come to hand" very naturally. In comparison, with the Magic Arm I sometimes find it difficult to work out what combination to use of the three "hinging" arrangements (both ends of the arm and the middle) and the two rotations (of the ball fittings on the ends of the arm). This is complicated by the fact that rotations of the ball fittings on the end of the arms are sometimes needed to align the slots correctly before the required adjustment can be made. These issues of understanding and execution interact. Basically, it can be quite awkward and involve a bit of experimentation and re-trying to get to the required position.
  
• There is far more residual "flex" and settling in the Magic arm than the Benro/Velbon arrangement, and this makes the previous issues worse. (And, not that it was particularly relevant for these comparisons because I was using a hands-on tripod-assisted approach with flash, but for natural light hands-off shots using a remote shutter, because of the flexing it takes much longer for vibrations to die down with the Magic arm.)
• Vertical adjustments are much easier and faster with the Benro/Velbon rig because the tripod central column slides up and down really easily. Adjusting the vertical column on the big old tripod to which the Magic arm is attached is much more difficult because it doesn't slide up and down at all easily, and there is also considerably more weight attached to it, which makes it more difficult to manipulate; the (metal) Magic arm and the two Super clamps are far heavier than the Velbon arm, which is really light.
• Adjusting the legs is a far more practical proposition with the Benro/Velbon rig because of the quick release clamps on the legs (versus screw fittings on the big old tripod). The whole Benro/Velbon rig with camera attached is also much lighter than the Magic arm rig, and this helps when adjusting the legs because it is easier to lift the rig when extending the legs.
• I am more confident about leaving the Benro/Velbon rig because I'm less concerned that it might slip - a simple turn of the handle (and not a very large turn) gives a very positive lock. In contrast I'm nervous about slippage with the Magic arm. You need to turn the wheel several half turns to tighten it up and it isn't at all obvious how tight is tight enough (which is possibly why the Magic arm broke, because of my over-tightening it. I'll be more cautious about that with the replacement.) With the Matic arm I tend to keep one hand close enough to catch the camera if the rig does slip, and this makes life quite difficult, for example when changing between achromats.
  
• As it only needs a small amount of turning to tighten it, the Velbon arm is much quicker to unlock to make an adjustment, and similarly quicker to retighten. Also, the amount and direction of the turning impart far less motion to the other end of the arm in comparison with the multiple (and sometimes quite muscular) turns of the wheel on the Magic arm.
• I am happy carrying the Benro/Velbon rig one-handed. As well as being much lighter (and smaller too, which helps), I can use the arm as a carrying handle and (difficult to describe) the rig often fits "under my arm" which stops things moving around (and the rig is more rigid in any case). This makes a two camera approach much more practical - backback on back, second bag in left hand and tripod rigged with camera in right hand. As I feel the need to use two hands when carrying the rigged Magic arm setup, the second bag is a real problem, even for the short distances I typically walk during photo sessions.

At this point I suspect I'm going to end up using the Benro/Velbon rig more than the Magic arm rig. But, as always, that may change in the light of more experience.

 

[GardenersHelper]

I went out to one of the local nature reserves this morning. I took the heavy Magic Arm setup and the pie dish diffuser. It all worked fine ... until the Magic Arm stopped working. The joint at one end has locked solid. It's been giving me intermittent problems like that for a couple of days, but previously I've been able to get the joint moving again after a few tries. But not this time. I tried some silicon spray when I got home but it had no effect. I think it must be a fault with the mechanism.

I've sent it back for a replacement, but I won't be surprised if the replacement dies too. I suspect I just put too much pressure on these devices.

Hmmmm..... It didn't even need much pressure.

The replacement arm arrived today. Nice and quick. Very good.

I tried to fix the pistol grip to the arm. Both have female threads and you need to use a male to male adaptor to join them. I used Manfratto's own connector, made for the job. It is made out of brass and I had noticed someone complaining in a review that they had one and it had snapped off. Of course, I didn't take any notice of that - that sort of thing only happens to other people doesn't it.

Well, actually ....

I had put a 3/8 to 1/4" converter in the pistol grip. The Manfrotto connector is 1/4" at one end and 3/8" at the other, so I screwed 1/4" end of the the connector into the pistol grip, hand tight (and actually not really tight at that stage). I then tried to thread the connector into the arm, but before I could achieve that the 1/4" end had snapped off inside the converter in the pistol grip. The converter was so tight inside the pistol grip that even though the converter has a screwdriver slot (not a very good slot, being too wide, very shallow and with rounded edges at the top of the slot) I couldn't get the converter out of the pistol grip. And of course, with the broken off end of the connector inside it, it was useless.

I have sent the whole lot back for a refund: Magic arm, Superclamps, pistol grip, connectors and spare Superclamp wedges. That rather settles what I shall be using as my tripod.

 

[Testudo Man]

Well, I havent been that active on this forum for a couple of months, but i will always try to catch up on this fascinating thread of yours Nick even though, at times, its almost "painful" to read...well, not exactly painful, but i think you know what i mean.
As you know, i too have a couple of bridge cameras, as well as a DSLR, so im always comparing them side by side, shot for shot, under the same conditions, whilst using a Raynox 250 with them too.
Actually, i have just sold my Nikon D7000, with a view of upgrading to either a D7100, or perhaps, even taking a sideways step, and going for an older D300S??
Im still not sure what to do, as in- which camera to go for?...........but then, along comes this new Panasonic FZ1000!!! which looks to be a serious bridge camera indeed.
Im not sure if you have seen the specs of the FZ1000 Nick, but if you get a free 5 minutes, then it would be good to gauge your opinion.

Key features are:

• 20.1 megapixel 1"-type MOS sensor
• 25-400mm equiv. F2.8-4 Leica lens
• 5-axis 'Power OIS' stabilization
• XGA OLED electronic viewfinder with 2.36M dots
• 3-inch fully-articulated LCD with 920K dots
• 4K (3840x2160) video at 30p, 100Mbps MP4
• 1080p at up to 60p, 28Mbps (MP4 or AVCHD)
• 120fps quarter-speed 1080p
• 3.5mm microphone socket
• Clean HDMI output
• Zebra pattern and focus peaking
• Wi-Fi with NFC
• 360 shots per charge (CIPA standard)

Cheers Paul.

 

[GardenersHelper]

Well, I havent been that active on this forum for a couple of months, but i will always try to catch up on this fascinating thread of yours Nick even though, at times, its almost "painful" to read...well, not exactly painful, but i think you know what i mean.

I do indeed. "Painful" it is at times, as in annoying, frustrating, disappointing - and sometimes just hard, hard work trying to work out exactly what is going on, like at the moment I'm trying to compare the 70D and FZ200 for flowers. You'd think (well, I thought) it should be quite straightforward. Ha! I can't believe how complicated these comparisons can get. And in trying to pin things down it can get really tedious, plodding step by step through repetitive, boring comparisons. I'm not a great football fan, but I've been watching the World Cup a lot - displacement activity. Well, "activity" isn't quite the right word for slumping in front of the telly and overeating of course, but you know what I mean.

Anyway ...

As you know, i too have a couple of bridge cameras, as well as a DSLR, so im always comparing them side by side, shot for shot, under the same conditions, whilst using a Raynox 250 with them too.
Actually, i have just sold my Nikon D7000, with a view of upgrading to either a D7100, or perhaps, even taking a sideways step, and going for an older D300S??
Im still not sure what to do, as in- which camera to go for?...........but then, along comes this new Panasonic FZ1000!!! which looks to be a serious bridge camera indeed.
Im not sure if you have seen the specs of the FZ1000 Nick, but if you get a free 5 minutes, then it would be good to gauge your opinion.

Key features are:

• 20.1 megapixel 1"-type MOS sensor
• 25-400mm equiv. F2.8-4 Leica lens
• 5-axis 'Power OIS' stabilization
• XGA OLED electronic viewfinder with 2.36M dots
• 3-inch fully-articulated LCD with 920K dots
• 4K (3840x2160) video at 30p, 100Mbps MP4
• 1080p at up to 60p, 28Mbps (MP4 or AVCHD)
• 120fps quarter-speed 1080p
• 3.5mm microphone socket
• Clean HDMI output
• Zebra pattern and focus peaking
• Wi-Fi with NFC
• 360 shots per charge (CIPA standard)

Cheers Paul.

... ah, the FZ1000. Yes, I've been very interested in that as you can imagine. Unfortunately, on my current understanding I won't be using it, for two reasons.

The first reason I could live with, if it was the only issue, although by itself it might well be enough to dissuade me from getting an FZ1000. Unlike the FZ200, FZ150 etc, there is no provision for attaching an adaptor tube. For the way I prefer to use achromats like the Raynox 250, that is bad news - I zoom in and out a lot on my subjects and I love being able to do that without moving the camera. That is why I got the 45-175 lens to go with my G3, because it doesn't extend. But the FZ200 with an achromat on the tube is even better, because not only don't you have to move the camera when you zoom in or out, but you can do the zooming with the slightest of movements of the right hand index finger, which is really quick and easy compared to having to rotate the ring on the lens, and doesn't jiggle the framing around like rotating the ring can, especially at higher magnifications.

But like I said, I could live with that - my SX10 didn't have a tube, and extended, I used a 45-200 on the G3 before getting the 45-175, and the 45-200 extended, and so does the 55-250 on the 70D. Extension is a definite slower-down/aggravation/shot loser, but liveable with. However, ...

... I'm reading (over at the Panasonic forum at dpr, where I'm spending a fair amount of time these days) that the minimum aperture on the FZ1000 is f/8. I find this hard to believe, but people there seem convinced that it is the case. I've been crunching some numbers ...


DOF equivalence for various sensor sizes by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

... and this suggests that with a 1" sensor the minimum aperture should be f/16 to give the sort of dof that all the other systems give. With f/8 rather than f/16, it would only provide half of the dof (or a bit less) than my other cameras (using f/8 on the FZ200 with its 1/2.3" sensor, f/22 on the G3 with its micro four thirds sensor, and using f/22-f/32 depending on focal length on the 70D with its APS-C sensor). I couldn't live with that.

I suspect (and I hope) that this will turn out to be a false alarm, and that like the 1" sensor RX10 it will go to f/16. We'll see.

Another issue to watch is whether the fast DFD focusing will work with an achromat. Apparently it works by understanding the characteristics of OOF bokeh, and putting another piece of glass on the front could well mess that up. I use autofocus a lot, so this might matter greatly to me. Of course, it may have quite fast non-DFD autofocusing, so perhaps it wouldn't matter anyway.

I don't yet know what the flash sync speed will be. Hopefully fast, like with the FZ200, with which I'm now often using a shutter speed of 1/1600 sec when using flash - and that is normal flash, not FP/HSS, which I find slow, awkward and really not very satisfactory. I definitely want it faster than the very slow 1/160 sec on the G3. (It is 1/250 on the 70D, and even that isn't fast enough for my preferences - for example when flies preen themselves their legs move around at very great speed, and I like to be able to freeze the motion to get them sharp.

Pending some clarification of these issues, I haven't spent much time thinking through the specs and issues. If it really does turn out only to go to f/8 then there's absolutely no point my spending time thinking about it. That said, there are some things that I know now are of no interest to me:

• 4K (3840x2160) video at 30p, 100Mbps MP4
• 1080p at up to 60p, 28Mbps (MP4 or AVCHD)
• 120fps quarter-speed 1080p
• 3.5mm microphone socket
• Clean HDMI output
• Wi-Fi with NFC

I could live with the low number of shots per battery charge - it uses the same batteries as the FZ200 I think, and I already have 5 batteries for that.

I haven't thought through the implications of the smaller reach than the FZ200. I suspect it would be ok for my purposes.

My experience with other sensor sizes suggests that the improved noise characteristics compared to the smaller sensors in other bridge cameras may not be too significant from my point of view. The G3 and 70D have the same advantage, but the benefit gets eaten away by often having to use higher ISOs. This is because I like to use natural light, but need to use smaller apertures to get the dof I want, and when the illumination is less than bright that means using higher ISOs in order to get manageable shutter speeds; the larger the sensor, the smaller the aperture and the higher the ISO. This tends to even things out between my cameras. I have found similar issues when using flash.

For things other than close-ups there would be obvious advantages with the larger sensor. However, for landscape/skyscape/sunsets, where I do work with low light levels after the sun has set, I plan on using the 70D (haven't done any of that sort of stuff for quite a while now), so that wouldn't be a reason for me to get the FZ1000.

 

[GardenersHelper]

I think some of the (for now at least) final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are falling into place, partly as a result of having, at last, looked carefully at a series of like for like flower images captured at various apertures, shutter speeds and ISOs with the 70D and the FZ200, and partly because of an excellent article on equivalence that I have been reading (but haven't read all of yet - it is very long and detailed).

In the past week or two I looked at some flower comparison shots I captured with the 70D and FZ200 a month or so ago, but they turned out not to be sufficiently like for like for me to draw conclusions from. So, a couple of days ago I had another session devoted to getting like for like flower shots. I selected 101 shots of 9 flower subjects for comparison from 475 that I captured in this latest session. I captured multiple shots of each combination of shutter speed, aperture and ISO and tried to pick the best one for each combination. I was mainly interested in comparing sharpness, dof, detail and noise. I tried to do this after adjusting the images to try to get similar colours and overall brightness, and for a handful of them making additional adjustments to highlights/shadows. For the colours, I used camera profiles generated from colour reference shots captured at the start of the session.

I worked hand held because that is how I like to work with flowers for creative reasons, and that means image stabilisation had to be part of the comparison. In addition, it was a bit breezy for some of the subjects and the light changed while I was tackling some of the subjects (the sun obscured to varying extents by moving clouds and sunlight coming through moving foliage). So the shots are not precisely like for like. However, as I looked carefully back and forth at the 101 shots a clear pattern emerged.

My overall conclusion is that for quite a lot of the images there was no significant difference between the images produced by the two cameras when viewing 1100 pixel high versions of the images. This is my target output size for on screen viewing and from previous experience I believe this conclusion would be equally valid for A4 printed versions, which is the size I print to almost exclusively, on the infrequent occasions when I do print images. (Some of the comparison images look different from one another because the centre of focus is placed at different distances, and this gives an impression of different amounts of sharpness/detail, but this depends where you look in the image and after some initial confusion and wrong conclusions I discounted these differences in my comparisons.)

In the cases where I thought one of the cameras did produce better results, it was in every case the 70D.

For large DOF, the 70D can match the FZ200. The 70D (with the 55-250 lens that I use on it) can produce narrow dof which is (by calculation, not from these comparison tests) around half the depth of the narrowest dof that the FZ200 can produce.

Based on these results, and on the fact that I find the 70D handles well for botanical work (unlike the case for invertebrates) I intend generally to use the 70D for botanical work in future. That said, I will happily use the FZ200 for flowers etc if I am out shooting mainly invertebrates and don't have the 70D with me.

I doubt it will be of interest to anyone, but just in case it is I have posted 1100 pixel high versions of the 101 images selected for comparison here. Even less likely to be of any interest, I also have the original RAW files and full size JPEG versions of these images which I can make available if anyone wants to see them (or some of them, especially in the case of the RAW files - I don't think my free Dropbox allowance will let me post too many of them).

The other recent development has come from the Equivalence article.

As has been apparent from earlier posts in this thread, I have been surprised and puzzled for a while now as to why I seem to be able to get macro/close-up results with my FZ200 bridge camera that more or less match what I can get with my 70D dSLR, even when using top quality macro lenses on the dSLR. Well, here is the answer, from the Equivalence article.

In terms of cross-format comparisons, all systems suffer the same from diffraction softening at the same DOF. This does not mean that all systems resolve the same detail at the same DOF, as diffraction softening is but one of many sources of blur (lens aberrations, motion blur, large pixels, etc.). However, the more we stop down (the deeper the DOF), diffraction increasingly becomes the dominant source of blur. By the time we reach the equivalent of f/32 on FF (f/22 on APS-C, f/16 on mFT and 4/3), the differences in resolution between systems, regardless of the lens or pixel count, is trivial.


For example, consider the Canon 100 / 2.8L IS macro on a 5D2 (21 MP FF) vs the Olympus 14-42 / 3.5-5.6 kit lens on an L10 (10 MP 4/3). Note that the macro lens on FF resolves significantly more (to put it mildly) at the lenses' respective optimal apertures, due to the macro lens being sharper, the FF DSLR having significantly more pixels, and the enlargement factor being half as much for FF vs 4/3. However, as we stop down past the peak aperture, all those advantages are asymptotically eaten away by diffraction, and by the time we get to f/32 on FF and f/16 on 4/3, the systems resolve almost the same.​

For invertebrates, I use even smaller apertures than this - f/22 on 4/3 and f/32 on APS-C, and the equivalent f/8 on bridge cameras. So given that this is how I go about my invertebrate work, it doesn't matter too much which system I use. However, for my botanical work, I do use more normal apertures. A macro lens therefore might be good (for me) for botanical work. I'm going to have to think about this.

And something else (my emphasis):

Equivalence makes no claims whatsoever about which system is superior to another system, especially given that there are so many aspects about systems that Equivalence does not address. For example, in terms of IQ, Equivalence says nothing about bokeh, moiré, distortion, color, etc., and in terms of operation, Equivalence says nothing about AF, build, features, etc. In fact, Equivalence can even work against larger sensor systems by denying them their "noise advantage" when they need to match both the DOF and shutter speed of smaller sensor systems.​

As I'm sure I've said somewhere in this long thread, I often work using natural light at fairly low levels (low, given the apertures that I use), and matching dof requires a smaller aperture from the larger sensor camera and therefore, given the constraints on shutter speed and the fact I want to maximise dof, this requires an increase in ISO on the larger sensor system to offset the smaller aperture that it is using. It's good to see that confirmed too.

And finally, the question of what apertures give a particular amount of dof with sensors of various sizes. I put some figures about this in my previous post. A table in the Equivalence article confirms these calculations, and adds some more, so I have added it to my figures in the following table (which has been corrected for errors in the version in the previous post in my calculations for APS-C sensors.


DOF equivalence for various sensor sizes v1.3 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[Testudo Man]

I do indeed. "Painful" it is at times, as in annoying, frustrating, disappointing - and sometimes just hard, hard work trying to work out exactly what is going on, like at the moment I'm trying to compare the 70D and FZ200 for flowers. You'd think (well, I thought) it should be quite straightforward. Ha! I can't believe how complicated these comparisons can get. And in trying to pin things down it can get really tedious, plodding step by step through repetitive, boring comparisons. I'm not a great football fan, but I've been watching the World Cup a lot - displacement activity. Well, "activity" isn't quite the right word for slumping in front of the telly and overeating of course, but you know what I mean.

Anyway ...



... ah, the FZ1000. Yes, I've been very interested in that as you can imagine. Unfortunately, on my current understanding I won't be using it, for two reasons.

The first reason I could live with, if it was the only issue, although by itself it might well be enough to dissuade me from getting an FZ1000. Unlike the FZ200, FZ150 etc, there is no provision for attaching an adaptor tube. For the way I prefer to use achromats like the Raynox 250, that is bad news - I zoom in and out a lot on my subjects and I love being able to do that without moving the camera. That is why I got the 45-175 lens to go with my G3, because it doesn't extend. But the FZ200 with an achromat on the tube is even better, because not only don't you have to move the camera when you zoom in or out, but you can do the zooming with the slightest of movements of the right hand index finger, which is really quick and easy compared to having to rotate the ring on the lens, and doesn't jiggle the framing around like rotating the ring can, especially at higher magnifications.

But like I said, I could live with that - my SX10 didn't have a tube, and extended, I used a 45-200 on the G3 before getting the 45-175, and the 45-200 extended, and so does the 55-250 on the 70D. Extension is a definite slower-down/aggravation/shot loser, but liveable with. However, ...

... I'm reading (over at the Panasonic forum at dpr, where I'm spending a fair amount of time these days) that the minimum aperture on the FZ1000 is f/8. I find this hard to believe, but people there seem convinced that it is the case. I've been crunching some numbers ...


DOF equivalence for various sensor sizes by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

... and this suggests that with a 1" sensor the minimum aperture should be f/16 to give the sort of dof that all the other systems give. With f/8 rather than f/16, it would only provide half of the dof (or a bit less) than my other cameras (using f/8 on the FZ200 with its 1/2.3" sensor, f/22 on the G3 with its micro four thirds sensor, and using f/22-f/32 depending on focal length on the 70D with its APS-C sensor). I couldn't live with that.

I suspect (and I hope) that this will turn out to be a false alarm, and that like the 1" sensor RX10 it will go to f/16. We'll see.

Another issue to watch is whether the fast DFD focusing will work with an achromat. Apparently it works by understanding the characteristics of OOF bokeh, and putting another piece of glass on the front could well mess that up. I use autofocus a lot, so this might matter greatly to me. Of course, it may have quite fast non-DFD autofocusing, so perhaps it wouldn't matter anyway.

I don't yet know what the flash sync speed will be. Hopefully fast, like with the FZ200, with which I'm now often using a shutter speed of 1/1600 sec when using flash - and that is normal flash, not FP/HSS, which I find slow, awkward and really not very satisfactory. I definitely want it faster than the very slow 1/160 sec on the G3. (It is 1/250 on the 70D, and even that isn't fast enough for my preferences - for example when flies preen themselves their legs move around at very great speed, and I like to be able to freeze the motion to get them sharp.

Pending some clarification of these issues, I haven't spent much time thinking through the specs and issues. If it really does turn out only to go to f/8 then there's absolutely no point my spending time thinking about it. That said, there are some things that I know now are of no interest to me:

• 4K (3840x2160) video at 30p, 100Mbps MP4
• 1080p at up to 60p, 28Mbps (MP4 or AVCHD)
• 120fps quarter-speed 1080p
• 3.5mm microphone socket
• Clean HDMI output
• Wi-Fi with NFC

I could live with the low number of shots per battery charge - it uses the same batteries as the FZ200 I think, and I already have 5 batteries for that.

I haven't thought through the implications of the smaller reach than the FZ200. I suspect it would be ok for my purposes.

My experience with other sensor sizes suggests that the improved noise characteristics compared to the smaller sensors in other bridge cameras may not be too significant from my point of view. The G3 and 70D have the same advantage, but the benefit gets eaten away by often having to use higher ISOs. This is because I like to use natural light, but need to use smaller apertures to get the dof I want, and when the illumination is less than bright that means using higher ISOs in order to get manageable shutter speeds; the larger the sensor, the smaller the aperture and the higher the ISO. This tends to even things out between my cameras. I have found similar issues when using flash.

For things other than close-ups there would be obvious advantages with the larger sensor. However, for landscape/skyscape/sunsets, where I do work with low light levels after the sun has set, I plan on using the 70D (haven't done any of that sort of stuff for quite a while now), so that wouldn't be a reason for me to get the FZ1000.

I have to confess, that i had only given the FZ1000 a brief look! and those "key points" were just copied and pasted! I can always rely on your utter "thoroughness" in such things though Nick, so thanks for the FZ1000 info.

I have just bought myself a mint Nikon D7100, with just 5600 clicks "on the clock", so a bridge camera upgrade will have to wait now!

Without a simple way of attaching a raynox to the FZ1000, it would indeed be a problem.

I think as a whole, bridge cameras(my panny FZ45 an FZ28) seem to work very well when coupled with the raynox 250, it almost appears that the raynox was made for them. They focus very fast(especially in Auto focus) throughout their optical ranges, and since i have set the cameras on silent options(no beeps/noises for focus) they just "sing" when a raynox is utilized.

Where as, my D7000 was a bit of a struggle using the raynox 250. But i think that is more down to the lens i was using(the AF micro 105mm 2.8D).
I wondering whether a raynox 150 might be a better option, when used with a DSLR?

 

[GardenersHelper]

I have to confess, that i had only given the FZ1000 a brief look! and those "key points" were just copied and pasted! I can always rely on your utter "thoroughness" in such things though Nick, so thanks for the FZ1000 info.

I have just bought myself a mint Nikon D7100, with just 5600 clicks "on the clock", so a bridge camera upgrade will have to wait now!

Nice. I hope it works well for you.

Without a simple way of attaching a raynox to the FZ1000, it would indeed be a problem.

Oh, I think it would attach ok. The FZ1000 has a 62mm filter thread, so the clip-on adaptor should work fine, as should step rings. My problem is with the lens extension (on which subject, more below).

I think as a whole, bridge cameras(my panny FZ45 an FZ28) seem to work very well when coupled with the raynox 250, it almost appears that the raynox was made for them. They focus very fast(especially in Auto focus) throughout their optical ranges, and since i have set the cameras on silent options(no beeps/noises for focus) they just "sing" when a raynox is utilized.

That has been pretty much my experience with autofocus, with the Canon 500D (the close up lens of course, not the camera!), Raynox 150 and 250, on all three of my bridge cameras: Canon S3 and SX10 and Panasonic FZ200. As the magnification increases beyond what the 250 can deliver, at longer focal lengths with the 150 and 250 stacked and even more so with the MSN-202, I find autofocus becomes less and less useful, and not useful at all with the highest magnifications.

Where as, my D7000 was a bit of a struggle using the raynox 250. But i think that is more down to the lens i was using(the AF micro 105mm 2.8D).

When I got the 70D I initially got the non-STM version of the 55-250, and while the 500D would autofocus on it, autofocus was iffy on the 150 and the 250 simply wouldn't autofocus at all. I then upgraded to the STM version of the 55-250 and the 500D, 150 and 250 all autofocus on it. However, they don't autofocus as well as on the FZ200.

Compared to most dSLRs live view autofocus on the 70D is a bit special, and quite fast (almost every pixel on the sensor is a phase detect sensor), but it still isn't as fast as on the FZ200.

Out of choice I almost always use the LCD rather than the viewfinder, for which live view autofocusing is much the best option on the 70D. You can (sort of) use normal normal phase detect autofocus using the LCD but it's an awkward cludge of an implementation IMO and I don't find it usable for my purposes. (I did try using normal phase detect focusing with the viewfinder. Quite apart from the fact of how tiring it quickly became - and I do sessions of 5-7 hours out in the field - I didn't find it as flexible or effective as live view single-area focusing with the FZ200 or G3 or for that matter the 70D itself.)

Also, when using autofocus it isn't possible to place the centre of focus as accurately on the 70D as with the FZ200, because although the 70D does have single-area focusing (and with a moveable box), the focus box is significantly larger than the smallest box you can use on the FZ200 and the 70D doesn't necessarily focus on what is in the centre of the box, so there is a significant random element as to exactly what it does focus on.

The 70D seems to be much fussier about the exact distance to the subject, and doesn't give as good visual feedback as my bridge cameras to help get the distance right. They come slightly into better or worse focus as you slightly change the distance, so you can easily tell which way to move. The 70D doesn't seem nearly so good in this respect, and sometimes it can take a long time to gain focus on the 70D when using an achromat while I keep adjusting the distance, and occasionally I have just given up trying (and of course sometimes the subject goes away while I'm hand-wrestling with the focus system).

I find it more difficult to actually find the subject at higher magnifications with the 70D, This is linked to the issue of visual feedback/coming into/drifting out of focus as you change the distance. This is made worse by the large amount that the 55-250 lens extends as you change the focal length - it's far, far easier with achromats on a tube on the FZ200 (or on a lens like the 45-175 on my G3, which doesn't extend). You can zoom right out, get the distance right (which is easier at lower magnification), find the subject (which is easier at lower magnification), and then zoom in to the required magnification without the complication of then having to move the camera backwards to compensate for the lens extending fowards as you zoom in.

I wondering whether a raynox 150 might be a better option, when used with a DSLR?

Possibly. As noted above the 150 autofocused better with my original 55-250 than the 250 did. But given the difference I have found between the behaviour of achromats on two versions of the 55-250, it obviously depends on the lens you are using the achromats on.

 

[LCPete]

Very interesting Nick
Sorry I haven't posted for ages have been busy
Always interested in the way you work especially as it's very different to what I do and you certainly get wonderful results consistently
The way I work handheld with wide apertures is a bit hit and miss sometimes but nice when it works
I've always used F10 and wider normally 5.6 and I always thought that you would get softening at apertures smaller than about 13 but your shots are superb just shows I guess that diffraction softening is not such a problem as it's made out to be
I guess you've looked at the DSLR and 55-250 at different apertures , I can't remember
I wonder if you compared the FZ200 and DSLR at wide open apertures if you would see a more significant difference

 

[GardenersHelper]

Very interesting Nick
Sorry I haven't posted for ages have been busy
Always interested in the way you work especially as it's very different to what I do and you certainly get wonderful results consistently
The way I work handheld with wide apertures is a bit hit and miss sometimes but nice when it works

I think macro/close-ups are generally hit and miss for all of us, whatever our techniques!

I've always used F10 and wider normally 5.6 and I always thought that you would get softening at apertures smaller than about 13 but your shots are superb just shows I guess that diffraction softening is not such a problem as it's made out to be

I think the effects of diffraction need to be balanced against other considerations, especially dof. The parts of an image that are in focus in an image captured with a small aperture will be less sharp than the parts of an image that are in focus in an image captured with a larger aperture. However, the depth of the dof will be larger in the image captured with the small aperture (the dof doubles for each two stops reduction in aperture). An image with deeper dof may give more of an overall appearance of sharpness than one with less dof, even though the parts of the image that are in focus in the latter are sharper.

I think it depends on how sharp is sharp enough. I think that depends on the photographer's intent and aesthetic preferences, and the viewer's visual acuity. In terms of technical considerations, I think it depends on how much you crop, how you process the image and how large the image is viewed or printed. The sharpness of small aperture shots seems sufficient for my purposes given that I don't crop much, I process the images quite carefully and they are viewed on screen at 1100 pixels high and printed no more than A4, or very occasionally 16 x 12, and given that I most frequently capture whole-subject images, in which the subject may occupy significantly less than the whole frame, with a strong preference for deeper rather than shallower dof coverage for my subjects.

I guess you've looked at the DSLR and 55-250 at different apertures , I can't remember

Yes, I have, but see below.

I wonder if you compared the FZ200 and DSLR at wide open apertures

Yes, I have ...

if you would see a more significant difference

... but see below.

Here are the combinations of aperture, shutter speed and ISO I used for the 9 subjects in the latest round of comparisons.


Settings used for 70D vs FZ200 Flower comparison shots by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

As you can see, it got more complicated and varied as the session went on. There was a fair degree of randomness in the outcomes because of the breeze, changes in lighting and the fact I was working hand held. I also didn't do the "equalisation" processing as well as I might have done (I got tired of the tediousness of it, going back and forth between images, changing this and that to try to equalise exposure, shadows, highlights etc. The differences in shot to shot focus placement, illumination and breeze probably made that a bit of a fool's errand anyway.)

To get a clearer picture of what is going on I think it would probably need a similar exercise on a still day with constant illumination and classic tripod use with manual focus, hands off, settling time and remote release, and more careful post processing. I don't know when/if I'll have the opportunity, energy and inclination to do that. I know I'm fairly obsessive about these things, but even I've got my limits.

Just to give everyone a bit of a laugh, I'm currently considering whether to get a Sigma 105 macro. Yes, I know, I sent the Canon 100L back, but having read that Equivalence article, and given that I use varied apertures for flowers, and given that perhaps I could use "crop for dof" for invertebrates, maybe it is time to give a macro lens a more thorough opportunity to show what it can do. That would be for natural light only I think. I've pretty much given up the idea of using flash with the 70D. I just can't get it to work nicely. Operator error, or perhaps a faulty camera? Who knows. Whatever the cause, my patience is exhausted on that front.

 

[LCPete]

Hi Nick am a bit worn out today and going to bed, I've been working nights, will reply properly tomorrow but definately get a sigma 105!
I've got one of the older non OS models and it's an excellent lens I find it's sharp even wide open at F2.8
The only drawback on my older model is that the autofocus is slow compared to the canon 100L but I use it when I think that I will be manually focussing
You can get a nice secondhand one quite cheaply

 

[LCPete]

I think macro/close-ups are generally hit and miss for all of us, whatever our techniques!



I think the effects of diffraction need to be balanced against other considerations, especially dof. The parts of an image that are in focus in an image captured with a small aperture will be less sharp than the parts of an image that are in focus in an image captured with a larger aperture. However, the depth of the dof will be larger in the image captured with the small aperture (the dof doubles for each two stops reduction in aperture). An image with deeper dof may give more of an overall appearance of sharpness than one with less dof, even though the parts of the image that are in focus in the latter are sharper.

I think it depends on how sharp is sharp enough. I think that depends on the photographer's intent and aesthetic preferences, and the viewer's visual acuity. In terms of technical considerations, I think it depends on how much you crop, how you process the image and how large the image is viewed or printed. The sharpness of small aperture shots seems sufficient for my purposes given that I don't crop much, I process the images quite carefully and they are viewed on screen at 1100 pixels high and printed no more than A4, or very occasionally 16 x 12, and given that I most frequently capture whole-subject images, in which the subject may occupy significantly less than the whole frame, with a strong preference for deeper rather than shallower dof coverage for my subjects.


.

I see what you mean with a smaller aperture can look sharper overall, Im going through some shots now taken at a wide aperture and can see what you're getting at
think you've hit the nail on the head there " how sharp is sharp enough" certainly for your insect work at small aperture's they look plenty sharp enough to me
as we said before you may as well use the FZ200 as you're getting good quality and it suits the way you work better than the DSLR setup

 

[GardenersHelper]

I see what you mean with a smaller aperture can look sharper overall, Im going through some shots now taken at a wide aperture and can see what you're getting at

Forgive me if I've linked to this before, but here is an example I often use to illustrate this. It shows a wasp (dead unfortunately, but that is what made a controlled alignment possible) captured with a Raynox 250 on a 45-200 lens on my Panasonic G3 MFT camera, from f/5.6 to f/22.

think you've hit the nail on the head there " how sharp is sharp enough" certainly for your insect work at small aperture's they look plenty sharp enough to me
as we said before you may as well use the FZ200 as you're getting good quality and it suits the way you work better than the DSLR setup

Yes, that's how it looks to me Pete.

I've thought some more about the Sigma 105. Since I use very small apertures most of the time for invertebrates there is nothing much to be gained by using better optics. Last night I went through all the flowers that I have posted at Flickr that were captured with the 70D (by itself, with an achromat or, for a few days early on, with the 100L). I noted down the aperture I used for each of them. Here is the distribution.


70D - Number of flower images captured at various apertures by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

The f/2.8 captures were experiments with the 100L, just to see what f/2.8 looks like (and the results were not "my sort of image" by and large). I think many of the f/8 captures were early on, and since then I have moved towards f/11 - f/16 as my most used apertures for flowers, with a significant amount of use of even smaller apertures. Given that there is progressively less to gain from a sharper lens as aperture decreases, and given the "sharp enough" argument for my at most mildly cropped images with limited output image size, I can't convince myself that a heavy (EF size, and 726g) macro prime would be better for me than my (EF-S size, and half the weight at 375g) 55-250, especially as the zoom gives me (when not using an achromat, which is fairly often the case for flowers) the option of changing the focal length and altering my position so as to get the same subject framing and dof but with variations to the background, and also (when not using an achromat) easier access to some awkwardly placed subjects, some of which might even be impossible to get at with my desired framing with a fixed 105mm focal length.

So my brain tells me that a Sigma 105 (or any other prime macro lens) isn't something I should be lusting after. But I'd still like to have another go at using one all the same. Not logical I know, but there we are.

 

[Tintin124]

I see what you mean with a smaller aperture can look sharper overall, Im going through some shots now taken at a wide aperture and can see what you're getting at
think you've hit the nail on the head there " how sharp is sharp enough" certainly for your insect work at small aperture's they look plenty sharp enough to me
as we said before you may as well use the FZ200 as you're getting good quality and it suits the way you work better than the DSLR setup

I think @TimmyG proved this with stacking example.... think it was a moth and at f11 the image lost intricate detail of the layers of a very small moth whereas the f5.6 version pulled all that detail in however means you have to take more shots. So I think its a playing game for static items might work well but with moveable objects may be a nightmare.

 

[TimmyG]

It is true! See here if you are interested.

 

[LCPete]

It is true! See here if you are interested.

Just had a look and it does show it very well
I guess in macro we are looking to show fine details and Tims example shows more details at the wider aperture

 

[BillN_33]

God this is a long thread and difficult to get thru

I use a Nikon V1 + Nikon 300 f4 for close ups mainly dragonflies
I have started to use a D700 + Nikon 105mm f2.8VR to try to get near a macro
I have also used the D7100 with the Nikon 300 f4 and Nikon 300mm f2.8 VR for close ups

I have used all fvalues from f2.8 to f32

I have found that in the majority of shots the ones I keep are at f8
After that it would be shots at above f8
I have hardly kept any shots at below f8

I have not yet used "stacking"

 

[GardenersHelper]

The story continues......

By the beginning of July I had come to some conclusions about kit. It seemed that using the 70D for natural light shots and the FZ200 for flash work was the way forwards. And the issues about other bits and pieces such as diffuser, tripod arms and heads had settled down. And at that point, I lost all motivation regarding photography. I couldn't work up any enthusiasm at all for capturing photos, even though I could see lots of opportunities in the garden and was sure there would be plenty more at the nature reserves. And no desire at all to do any post processing. I couldn't even bring myself to visit this site or the other site that I spend time on, dpreview. I carried on running the little photography groups that I run, but apart from that, nothing photographic.

It took three months, until the beginning of October, for my interest to revive. It is interesting how quickly my skills had gone stale. I found I was having difficulty demonstrating post processing to my little photo groups because I had forgotten key aspects of how the software worked, and also what buttons to press etc on the cameras.

Fortunately only took a few days to get back up to speed. Except, there were some changes, important ones, on the post processing front. I had previously been using a combination of Lightroom and CS2 because I couldn't get Lightroom to give me the sharpness I could get with CS2, and I couldn't handle noisy images adequately in Lightroom. (A lot of my images are noisy because of my penchant for deep dof, small apertures and natural light, often in not very strong ambient light and/or in the shade, in breezy conditions and/or with moving subjects, all of which leading to my using high ISOs quite a lot.)

As a result I had a routine which involved doing most of the processing on each image in Lightroom and then passing across a tif file to CS2 for sharpening. If noise reduction was needed (mainly for luminance noise on plain background areas), I would pass across two versions of the processed image from Lightroom to CS2, one version with enough noise reduction applied to deal with the worst of the noise in the image, and the other version with no noise reduction applied. I then used layers to combine the two, using no or occasionally just a little noise reduction on the subject and foreground areas, and lots of noise reduction on the background.

Why I needed to do this was that although Lightroom could apply extremely powerful noise reduction to the whole image (enough to kill any amount of noise), when I selected the background and applied noise reduction just to that area the available noise reduction was nowhere near as powerful, and in plenty of cases not powerful enough.

Since my restart I have realised that I have been thinking about this the wrong way round. It turns out that if you apply strong noise reduction in Lightroom to the whole image, and then select the area(s) you don't want it to apply to, you can completely reverse the effect of the noise reduction in the selected area(s), or just use a moderate amount of noise reduction for some of the selected area(s). This is exactly what I had previously been achieving with Lightroom + CS2, but it is far quicker and easier to do just using Lightroom. And far quicker and easier to adjust if you want to go back and alter it later.

It also turns out that I can get as much sharpening in Lightroom as I was getting in CS2. In fact, it is probably slightly better at revealing fine detail. It turns out that the sharpening I was doing in CS2 was making some things (like the hairs on a fly) wider, whereas in Lightroom the edges can be just as sharply defined, but the hairs etc are thinner. Why I couldn't get this to work previously in Lightroom I have no idea.

The upshot is that I'm leaning towards just using Lightroom, and this makes post processing large image sets much easier and faster to handle, especially when coupled with some of Lightroom's other facilities, such as being able to copy changes made to one image to a number of other images in a single move.

I'll still need CS for some things, like difficult cloning, and warping, but I don't do much of that at the moment. In fact, I've just processed the images from a session at the end of May at one of the nature reserves, producing the 160 images in this set, and it was all done in Lightroom. The images aren't top quality – a lot of the shutter speeds were rather slow, including for some of the subjects that were in motion like the snails, or were on foliage that was moving. And a fair number are ISO 1600, a handful are ISO 2000 and one is ISO 3200. But given these constraints, I'm pleased at how well Lightroom handled the selection and processing. Imperfect source images make for good tests of techniques.

Incidentally, as far as the noise reduction is concerned, I could have reduced the noise further, and perhaps I shall in future, it is early days for me with this technique. I don't like to reduce backgrounds to a completely smooth state, and it's a matter of taste how far to take them. I'm pretty sure these images are like they are because of taste/being hesitant about going too far with the noise reduction, rather than a limitation of the noise reduction technique.

Another thing that became apparent to me while processing these images is the potential the 70D images have for cropping, especially when using lower ISOs. I think 70D images have more potential than FZ200 images for creating two or more of the images in a “zooming in” series from a single capture, rather than all from separate captures. There are 16 or so examples of that in this recent set, where I have used two, three or four crops from the same image. A couple of them are a step too far, but I wanted to keep those in the set so I had examples of how far I can (and can't) go.

Here is a set of three as an example. (1100 pixel high versions over at Flckr.) It is a 1 second exposure at f/25, ISO 100 using natural light despite any appearances to the contrary from bright areas on the body.


0603 121 2014-05-31 IMG_4825 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0603 122 2014-05-31 IMG_4825 LR-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0603 123 2014-05-31 IMG_4825 LR-3 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Here is one of the ISO 2000 examples, with a milder crop. (f/25, and 1/25 sec on a moving subject, and I think it could have done with more noise reduction on the background.)


0603 097 2014-05-31 IMG_4643 LR-4 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0603 098 2014-05-31 IMG_4643 LR-4 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Processing this set, and some other small sets of mainly flower images I've captured over the past couple of weeks has convinced me that the 70D really is good (to use, and in terms of results that please my eye) for natural light shots, for both flowers and invertebrates. Encouraged by this, I've tried yet again to use the 70D with flash for invertebrates, but it immediately had difficulty with a scene that the FZ200 handled with no problem. I shall continue using the FZ200 for flash work with invertebrates.

One thing that hasn't changed is dust on the sensor (and other nastiness in the mirror box, like little fibres). I've now bought an LED sensor loupe, so I can see the dust on the sensor and other crud. I bought an Artic Butterfly but I sent it back because the LED wouldn't turn off, and I bought a sensor brush instead (like Bryn advised me to do in the first place ). I'm going to get some chamber swabs as well to see if I can get rid at least the worst of the fibres or whatever they are in the mirror box.

 

[TimmyG]

It is interesting how quickly my skills had gone stale. I found I was having difficulty demonstrating post processing to my little photo groups because I had forgotten key aspects of how the software worked, and also what buttons to press etc on the cameras.

I find the same thing if I haven't picked up the camera for a while, or if I change the set-up in some way. It's seems to take me a while to get back on form. It's scary!

Since my restart I have realised that I have been thinking about this the wrong way round. It turns out that if you apply strong noise reduction in Lightroom to the whole image, and then select the area(s) you don't want it to apply to, you can completely reverse the effect of the noise reduction in the selected area(s), or just use a moderate amount of noise reduction for some of the selected area(s). This is exactly what I had previously been achieving with Lightroom + CS2, but it is far quicker and easier to do just using Lightroom. And far quicker and easier to adjust if you want to go back and alter it later.
[

I'm interested in understanding more about this. Are you saying you are applying noise reduction across the image (maybe utilising the mask available to some extent), but then using the adjustment brush to reduce the noise reduction on key areas? Interesting approach if so, I'll have to give it a go.

It also turns out that I can get as much sharpening in Lightroom as I was getting in CS2. In fact, it is probably slightly better at revealing fine detail. It turns out that the sharpening I was doing in CS2 was making some things (like the hairs on a fly) wider, whereas in Lightroom the edges can be just as sharply defined, but the hairs etc are thinner. Why I couldn't get this to work previously in Lightroom I have no idea.

And this process? Are you applying sharpening to the whole image again (I know there is the mask available here) but then reducing clarity if needed with the adjustment brush?

As we've discussed before, I do my sharpening and noise reduction in PS as I was able to get better results; but if you've found a way to do these steeps in LR I'd be very interested to understand it and see if I can make my life easier...

 

[GardenersHelper]

We are off to Dorset in a few minutes for a wedding tomorrow, so it might need more detail tomorrow evening.

I'm interested in understanding more about this. Are you saying you are applying noise reduction across the image (maybe utilising the mask available to some extent), but then using the adjustment brush to reduce the noise reduction on key areas? Interesting approach if so, I'll have to give it a go.

Yes, noise reduction across the whole image. For the ISO 2000 image I posted above, Colour noise reduction was Color 25, Detail 50, Smoothness 50. This is what I use for all my images, from all my cameras, and it seems to work fine (It is applied on import and I never change it), Perhaps this is the Lightroom default; I don't recall. Luminance noise reduction was Luminance 43, Detail 50, Contrast 0. I think I left Detail at 50 and Contrast at 0 for all of the images in that set, and just altered the Luminance value. As mentioned above, I should probably have used more for this one.

Then I used the adjustment brush to brush over the subject and anything else in the forground that had a bit of texture or detail, in this case the top half of the blade it is climbing on. I used Flow 100 and Density 100 for the Adjustment Brush.

For the most part, and unlike some other cases, when painting for noise reduction it seems that you don't have to be too exact about the painting with the Adjustment Brush. It is much quicker to use it with Automask off; with Automask On the outer boundary is more tightly aligned to the outline of the subject, but you get lots of little areas on the inside that don't get included, and it is fiddly to keep brushing to get them included. It turns out that (mainly) the outer boundary doesn't have to be precise, so you can do a really quick paint job that covers all the internal areas with a single pass and does the boundary well enough. It helps that you can change the size of the brush by just spinning the mouse wheel. And remember that you can adjust the feathering area as well with Shift+mouse wheel. It may be better for this job to use a small or no feathering area.

For the area painted with the adjustment brush I set Noise to -100. With some really noisy images previously, when using the dual layer Lightroom -> CS approach, I varied the amount of noise reduction on (different parts of) subject and foreground areas. I didn't do that for any of these, but you could get the same effect by painting some areas with Noise set to an intermediate value between -100 and 0. I imagine you could get the same effect by using a Density of less than 100 for the Adjustment Brush.

And this process? Are you applying sharpening to the whole image again (I know there is the mask available here) but then reducing clarity if needed with the adjustment brush?

As we've discussed before, I do my sharpening and noise reduction in PS as I was able to get better results; but if you've found a way to do these steeps in LR I'd be very interested to understand it and see if I can make my life easier...

Whole image, no use of the adjustment brush. For the set I linked to I think they were all sharpened with Amount around 50, Radius around 2, Detail around 50. After a while I stopped fiddling with them, and the only thing I changed (when I remembered) was the Masking, which varied in the 50 ish to 90 ish region. When exporting to JPEG I resized to 1100 pixels high, Quality 90 and Sharpen for Screen, Normal.

Time to go. Sorry for any mistakes in this rushed post.

 

[TimmyG]

No that's great, thanks for that. Will play around with this later.

I had thought that the way the adjustment brush works, you would double up on what was done image wide (the gradient filters for example work this way, were you can apply the same filter over the same area and you get double the effect - a good way of reducing highlights or raising shadows by over 100% if you need to), so I imagined the adjustment brush would work in a similar way (i.e. add noise rather than remove noise reduction, if that makes sense).

You are aware if you hold the alt-key down whilst adjusting any of the masking sliders it will show you what is being masked? I tend to use this to judge required settings on an imaghe rather than stick to any specific amount.

Anyway, hope the wedding all goes well and you have a good time!

 

[GardenersHelper]

From the RNLI College in Poole (It's a residential college and they run a normal hotel service using rooms that are not in use for college attendees.)

I had thought that the way the adjustment brush works, you would double up on what was done image wide (the gradient filters for example work this way, were you can apply the same filter over the same area and you get double the effect - a good way of reducing highlights or raising shadows by over 100% if you need to),

I seem to recall experiencing diminishing returns when adding multiple adjustments to image wide adjustments. Even the first adjustment seemed to add only a mild amount at most of whatever the effect was, and adding further adjustments on top of that seemed to do very little, or nothing. But that was a while ago now, perhaps I am misremembering or just didn't appreciate what was really going on. I'll have to try it again.....

.... I've done an experiment. You can see the results here, with descriptions in the file names. There are indeed diminishing returns.

so I imagined the adjustment brush would work in a similar way (i.e. add noise rather than remove noise reduction, if that makes sense).

Yes, the slider should be labelled "Noise reduction" rather than "Noise", but I don't think there is enough space beside the slider to fit that in. Looked at that way, -100 to remove all noise reduction makes perfect sense. That said, I don't know that it does remove all noise reduction. For example, I didn't notice any chroma noise in the areas I did this to, but there again, I was working quite fast, and didn't think to look for it. And that raises another issue about the Radial Filter and Adjustment Brush adjustments. Some of them don't have the subtlety of the whole image operations. For example, with whole image noise reduction you can separately adjust chroma and luminance noise, and in addition to an amount slider, each has a detail slider, and luminance has a contrast slider too (although I haven't noticed this having much effect). In contrast, with an adjustment, there is just a single slider for an amount of noise reduction adjustment, and I have no idea what combination of colour and chroma this is, or what is does to the other parameters. I think it may simply turn up or down the overall effect that you have defined with the five whole image sliders.

You are aware if you hold the alt-key down whilst adjusting any of the masking sliders it will show you what is being masked? I tend to use this to judge required settings on an imaghe rather than stick to any specific amount.

Absolutely. Same here.

Anyway, hope the wedding all goes well and you have a good time!

Thanks.

Have to rush off again. We have a timed booking at the restaurant. Apologies again for any nonsense in this rushed post.

 

[LCPete]

Hi Nick interesting as always even tho a lot of it is over my head
I'm fairly basic with my post processing I just do basic adjustments in lightroom
And often two frame focus stacks with the healing brush in photoshop
normally adjust Raws in LR using
white balance
blacks
Capture sharpening and noise reduction


luminance noise reduction of 43 does seem a lot as it robs details tho I do notice that you go over it in certain parts to reduce it if I understand correctly
I very rarely go above 15 on luminance and colour noise reduction and normally use about 10 even at ISO 800

 

[GardenersHelper]

Hi Nick interesting as always even tho a lot of it is over my head
I'm fairly basic with my post processing I just do basic adjustments in lightroom
And often two frame focus stacks with the healing brush in photoshop
normally adjust Raws in LR using
white balance
blacks
Capture sharpening and noise reduction

Hi Pete. To some extent how much post processing I do depends on what camera I'm using. 70D images often require very little apart from my import adjustments, white balance, exposure (I often underexpose my captures) and cropping. The import adjustments are mild - Clarity +15, Vibrance +5, Sharpening 25,1,25, Colour noise reduction 25,50,50 and Remove chromatic aberration. White balance and exposure have the largest, and sometimes very large, impact. Images from my small sensor cameras often need more fiddling, mostly with Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. (Talking of small sensor cameras, I just bought a Panasonic TZ60 P&S ("Travel") camera, 30x zoom, does RAW, quite like it, to replace my Canon SX240, which my wife has taken possession of for documenting the garden. I've been doing some interesting experiments with it on camera profiles and white balancing, but posting about that elsewhere because it isn't really relevant to this forum, it not being primarily a close up device.)

luminance noise reduction of 43 does seem a lot as it robs details tho I do notice that you go over it in certain parts to reduce it if I understand correctly
I very rarely go above 15 on luminance and colour noise reduction and normally use about 10 even at ISO 800

That was an ISO 2000 image, and painting Noise -100 on the subject meant that the noise reduction was completely removed on the subject. That heavy luminance noise reduction only affected the background. I almost always apply no luminance noise reduction at all to my subjects, even when using ISO 3200. On backgrounds I sometimes apply less luminance noise reduction to areas which are not in focus but have some texture or "soft detail".

 

[LCPete]

Thats really good quality for iso 2000
always like your work even with the small apertures that you use the background is still always nice and blurred
I know that we have discussed this before but I do believe in slightly overexposing and correcting back in raw conversion rather than under exposure and brighten in post processing

 

[GardenersHelper]

Thats really good quality for iso 2000
always like your work even with the small apertures that you use the background is still always nice and blurred
I know that we have discussed this before but I do believe in slightly overexposing and correcting back in raw conversion rather than under exposure and brighten in post processing

As you say, we've discussed it before.

I expose for the highlights, and this often means underexposing according to the camera's reckoning. This is especially the case for flowers, where I seek to avoid not just blown areas (i.e. blown to white) - apart from specular highlights of course - but also what I call "bleached" areas, which I find a particular issue with flowers. With the light at a certain angle on petals (and because of their shapes there is often a surface at that angle) the colours get modified, for example losing intensity even though not "blown". To me bleached areas look just as unreal as (apart from specular highlights) blown areas. That is why my cameras sometimes suggest I'm underexposing by two or three stops, and occasionally more.

On the small aperture front, with flowers I now use the whole range of available apertures, from f/4 to f/32. It's more usually f/22 or more with invertebrates, although even there I use right down to f/4 for "small, distant subject in a big environment" shots, and I'm possibly loosening up a bit even for closer subjects. Maybe. I think we'll have to wait until next season to find out if that really is the case or if it's just my imagination.

 

[GardenersHelper]

I think I may have found a new role for my Panasonic G3, which will take me to a three-camera solution: Panasonic FZ200 and G3, and Canon 70D. That is for close-ups. I envisage using the Panasonic TZ60 for some other subject matter – as a carry-round camera, but also perhaps for sunsets/skyscapes, for which I had envisaged using the 70D as it can produce super quality. However, the TZ60 is so very convenient to use that I may use it to go for “good enough” results for at least some sunsets/skyscapes/ships on the estuary.

I have been working my way through my backlog and based on the results I'm seeing I'm increasingly comfortable with the idea of using the 70D for most natural light work and the FZ200 when I'm using flash. I expect there will be exceptions. Sometimes it is simply fun to use a different camera, and I've just processed some natural light flower shots from last February for which I used the FZ200, and some of them came out quite nicely to my eye. So I may mix it up a bit. For example I might use the FZ200 or even the TZ60 sometimes for flowers. I might occasionally use the TZ60 for large invertebrates such as butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies. I will probably use the FZ200 for natural light shots of invertebrates from time to time, especially when I've been using flash and then natural light is ok for some shots, thus avoiding the hassle of changing cameras, lenses, taking on/off tripod etc.

What I've never really cracked is the really small stuff that I've enjoyed seeing an increasing number of people here photographing; springtails, barkflies etc. The idea of using the G3 in this role arose from the backlog processing I'm doing. I had finished another day's photos and was having a quick look at some other days wondering which one to process next when I came across a partly processed day's images, which included the images I posted in this post earlier in this thread.

My first thought was whether my new post processing approach (just using Lightroom rather than Lightroom followed by CS2) could handle these images. It turned it that it can. In fact, I think it did better. The images had been captured using the G3 with its 45-175 lens, some with the 150 and 250 stacked on it, and some with the MSN-202. I remembered that this was a nice combination to use, much easier than using those same add-on lenses with the 70D.

For small subjects, the FZ200 and the G3 have similar ease of use advantages compared to the 70D, in that neither of them extend when zooming. The close-up lenses are on a fixed adaptor tube on the FZ200. The close-up lenses screw directly on to the 45-175 on the G3, but the 45-175 is a rare zoom lens that does not extend when focusing or zooming (which is why I bought it). I find this lack of extension makes the G3 and the FZ200 very much easier to use for small subjects than the 70D. I also find that flash works better for me on the G3 and FZ200 than on the 70D.

While the G3 and FZ200 share these advantages over the 70D, the FZ200 has a much smaller sensor than the G3, and this puts it at a significant disadvantage when it comes to cropping, which I think is quite important for small subjects.

So, this afternoon I went out with the G3 looking for small subjects. Because of the rain I only managed a little over an hour, but it was a very enlightening hour.

First, subjects. There is nothing much around by way of invertebrates at the moment is there. Well, actually, it turns out that there is. It's just that it's mostly rather small. I found half a dozen or more subjects to work with (and more that moved on before I could get to work on them). I only saw one subject, a fly, of the size I usually work with, and that was gone in a few seconds.

And then the usability of the G3. I started with the 150 and 250 stacked, but some of the subjects I was finding were really too small for that, so I quickly changed to the MSN-202, and left it on for the rest of the session.

At maximum zoom on the 45-175 the MSN-202 covers a scene width of about 4.5mm. This is about 4:1 in terms of the G3 with its 18mm wide micro four thirds sensor, and about 5:1 in terms of a 22mm wide APS-C sensor.

At minimum zoom on the 45-175 the MSN-202 covers a scene width of about 15mm.

It takes about a quarter of a turn to get from minimum to maximum zoom on the 45-175. The zoom ring is really wide and easy to turn, and I can go back and forth between maximum and minimum zoom using the index finger on either hand, depending on how I am holding the camera. This makes it really easy and quick to go to minimum zoom to locate the subject and move the camera to get the distance roughly correct, and then zoom in as far as necessary to frame the shot, without moving the camera.

As well as making it easy to locate the subject and set up shots, it is also easy to take sequences of shots at different magnifications, which is something I like to do so as to get “subject” shots and “subject in its environment” shots, flitting back and forth between the two perspectives.

Getting good shots with small subjects depends a lot on technique. I haven't done much of this sort of photography and so I don't have the “muscle memory” for it. I was using rocking focus using the LCD to try to catch the right moment to press the shutter button, and there is an art to that which I haven't mastered yet. However, in the midst of many failures, I got some good enough results to encourage me to think that that if I practice this might prove to be quite doable.

When processing the images it seemed to me that some non-trivial cropping with the G3 is a practical proposition, and my new Lightroom-only technique seemed to work ok for these images.

All very promising. I shall be going out again as soon as I can to try again. Maybe I've caught the bug. We'll see.

The best of the images from the session, and some crops of some of them, are in a set here at Flickr. All crops are preceded by the full frame from which they are taken. Several of the images have two crops. This is a technical, exploratory set, with variable image quality, particularly in terms of the amount of the subject that is in focus – not enough in most of them for my taste – and where the centre of dof falls – in the wrong place in some of them.

Here are a few of the images from the set.

Full frame

0615 12 2014_11_11 P1840890 LR-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Crop

0615 13 2014_11_11 P1840890 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Slight compositional crop

0615 23 2014_11_11 P1840912 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

More of a crop

0615 24 2014_11_11 P1840912 LR-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Full frame

0615 41 2014_11_11 P1840941 LR-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Crop

0615 42 2014_11_11 P1840941 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Still with the MSN-202, but a much bigger subject – minimum zoom, scene width about 15mm. The first and last in the sort of mini series that I so much like doing.


0615 45 2014_11_11 P1840988 LR-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0615 50 2014_11_11 P1840994 LR-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[GardenersHelper]

Following on from the previous post,

While the G3 and FZ200 share these advantages over the 70D, the FZ200 has a much smaller sensor than the G3, and this puts it at a significant disadvantage when it comes to cropping, which I think is quite important for small subjects.

On reflection, I wondered how much of a disadvantage the FZ200's small sensor was, and whether there were other factors which might outweigh this disadvantage. So this afternoon I spent another couple of hours in the garden using the MSN-202, mainly on the FZ200, but for some shots where the subject stayed put for a while, also on the G3. I wanted to compare the image quality I could get with the two cameras, and also to compare the usability for higher magnification work.

Unfortunately, and unlike yesterday, I did not find many invertebrate subjects. However, one of the ones I did find stayed in much the same place for quite a while, which provided some useful opportunities.

In terms of image quality, the G3 did not do very well today. I went through the images this evening without regard to which camera had taken which picture, but it turned out that all the (not very many) images I thought might be worth working on were from the FZ200. However, I can't really draw any conclusions from this because I only used the G3 for a very few shots and used the FZ200 a lot, and I need to take a lot of shots with these small subjects to get acceptable results.

What became clear very quickly though was that the FZ200 is easier to use than the G3 (which in turn is much easier to use for these small subjects than the 70D). I wrote yesterday how easy it is with the G3 to move between magnifications, and how useful this is. It is just as useful with the FZ200, and it is even easier, because I use the zoom lever which is just in front of the shutter button, and my index finger rests on it the whole time.

It also turns out that autofocus is very usable with the FZ200 a lot of the time with the MSN-202 (and even more so with the – less powerful- Raynox 150 and 250 stacked). It even works at the highest magnification for some subjects (which is around 7:1 in APS-C terms, see below). And it works in quite poor ambient light.

I had not thought to try autofocus yesterday with the G3, but after realising how well it worked with the FZ200 I tried it on the G3 today. It does work to some extent, but is much slower and is prone to prolonged hunting (which the FZ200 isn't), and won't work at all for many of the subjects that the FZ200 autofocus can handle.

I found rocking manual focus easier with the FZ200 too. This is because it is easier to see what is going on when looking at the LCD screen. I'm not sure exactly why this is, but I think one contributing factor is that if you half press the shutter button on the FZ200 the dof increases (it presumably closes down the aperture to what will be used to capture the image).

The FZ200 provides more magnification than the G3, but the G3 provides a greater range of magnifications with each of the close-up lenses.

For example, with the MSN-202 on the FZ200

• The minimum scene width is less than 3mm, which equates to about about 7:1 magnification in APS-C terms.
• The maximum scene width is around 7.5mm, about 3:1 in APS-C terms. (what you count as the maximum scene width depends on when you regard vignetting as kicking in. For each close-up lens, vignetting on the FZ200 makes the lower range of of magnification unusable. I put the close-up lenses on an adaptor tube, and this makes the vignetting issue worse than with the close-up lenses directly attached to the camera lens. However, as previously discussed, putting the close-up lenses on to the camera lens makes it much more difficult to work with higher magnifications.)
• The range of magnifications available with the FZ200, using the adaptor tube, is about 2.3x from minimum to maximum.

With the MSN-202 on the G3

• The minimum scene width is around 4.5mm, which equates to about about 5:1 magnification in APS-C terms.
• The maximum scene width is around 15mm, about 1.5:1 in APS-C terms.
• So the range of magnifications available with the G3 is about 3.3x

To get to the lower magnifications that the G3 can handle with the MSN-202 I have to use the 150 and 250 stacked on the FZ200. In this case

• The minimum scene width is around 5.3mm, which equates to about about 4:1 magnification in APS-C terms.
• The maximum scene width is around 16mm, about 1.4:1 in APS-C terms.
• So the range of magnifications available with the 150 + 250 on the FZ200 is about 3x. (I imagine the range is smaller with the MSN-202 because it has a smaller diameter than the 150 and 250, and this smaller diameter makes vignetting cut in sooner, thus reducing the usable range of magnifications.)

In terms of image quality, I think it is too early to say. Comparing the best of yesterday's G3 shots with the best of today's FZ200 shots is about the best I can do at this stage, and that doesn't lead me to any quick/clear/obvious conclusions, including on the subject of croppability. I had assumed that the large sensor of the G3 would mean better cropping options, but I'm not so sure how strong a factor that is now, because I was surprised at how much I was able to crop the FZ200 images.

One definite downside in terms of FZ200 image quality is that green fringing was visible at higher magnifications, and automatic chromatic aberration removal in Lightroom doesn't get rid of it. However, I'm not sure yet if this is a problem with the FZ200 or (as I suspect) with the MSN-202, because it showed up with a very white subject against a dark background, and I didn't capture any images like that with the G3 yesterday. So the G3 may suffer from the same problem.

At this stage I'm thinking that using the FZ200 for smaller subjects might be the better option overall. The image quality may well be good enough for my purposes (and pretty much as good as with the G3), the FZ200 is easier to use and seems to have a higher hit ratio in terms of getting the subject suitably in focus. The FZ200 provides greater magnification (but is a bit more awkward in terms of needing to change lenses to move between magnifications). Continuing to use two cameras (FZ200 and 70D) rather than adding a third is appealing.

There are some images from today's session here at Flickr. All crops are preceded by the full frame from which they are taken. Several of the images have two or three crops. Like yesterday, this is a technical, exploratory set, with variable image quality. You can see severe vignetting in a couple of cases, and the most substantial crops are probably a step too far.

Here are a few of the images from the set. They are all crops, with the Raynox MSN-202 on the FZ200. (More on crops in the next post.)


0616 03 2014_11_12 P1490664 Crop 2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0616 09 2014_11_12 P1490705 Crop 3 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0616 14 2014_11_12 P1490774 Crop 1 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0616 17 2014_11_12 P1490779 Crop 1 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0616 19 2014_11_12 P1490885 Crop 1 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0616 21 2014_11_12 P1490894 Crop 1 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0616 27 2014_11__12 P1490649 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[GardenersHelper]

I have been aware of “cropping for dof” for a while now, but it has always seemed a bit theoretical. By chance, today's images provided a couple of illustrations of it that I found quite illuminating.

The first example flicks back and forth between an image that uses the full frame and an image which is cropped.


0616 22 2014_11_12 Crop-for-dof-P1490664,666 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Here is the crop.


0616 23 2014_11_12 Crop for P1490664 Crop 2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

The cropped version has significantly wider dof. However, in the areas that are in focus in the uncropped image there is more/sharper detail. That is a bit difficult to see at this size, and in case there could be differences in the sharpness of the originals and/or the post processing to confuse the issue, but looking closely at larger versions of the images that is the way it looks to me in this example (and the next one). As to which is better/preferable is I think a matter of taste.

Here is a second example. In this case both versions are cropped, but one is cropped more than the other.


0616 24 2014_11_12 Crop-for-dof-P1490705,717 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Here are the crops.


0616 25 2014_11_12 Crop for P1490717 Crop 2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0616 26 2014_11_12 Crop for P1490705 Crop 3 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[GardenersHelper]

At this stage I'm thinking that using the FZ200 for smaller subjects might be the better option overall. The image quality may well be good enough for my purposes (and pretty much as good as with the G3), the FZ200 is easier to use and seems to have a higher hit ratio in terms of getting the subject suitably in focus. The FZ200 provides greater magnification (but is a bit more awkward in terms of needing to change lenses to move between magnifications). Continuing to use two cameras (FZ200 and 70D) rather than adding a third is appealing.

The day after I wrote this I went out into the garden with the FZ200 with the MSN-202 mounted, with the intention of concentrating on small subjects. Unfortunately, despite a lot of looking, a found very little of a suitable size. I posted some images here from the best scene I found. The only other small subject I found was this.


0618 17 2014-11-14 P1500388 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Presumably this is exuviae. Despite repeated attempts at capturing it, and a lot of fiddling in post processing, this was the best I could manage.

Everything else was much larger, for example fruit flies. I used the MSN-202 for this shot …


0618 27 2014-11-14 P1500444 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

… but I had to use such a wide angle/short focal length that I was getting vignetting (which I now see, grrrr, that I haven't completely cropped out or otherwise dealt with), so I switched to something less powerful to get shots like the next two from further out, which I prefer for compositional and dof reasons. (I think these must have used the Raynox 250. The first of them had the FZ200 at maximum zoom, which suggests that the 150 and 250 stacked would have been a better tool for the job, offering a better range of magnifications for a subject of that size and my preferences regarding the size of the subject in the frame.)


0618 26 2014-11-14 P1500448 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0618 25 2014-11-14 P1500445 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

There were a few other, larger subjects, captured with a mixture of FZ200 and 70D, and various achromats. (A set of images from the session are here at Flickr.)

Continued in next post - too many images for a single post .....

 

[GardenersHelper]

... Continued from previous post

Although I hadn't got much out of the day by way of results, on reflection about this and the previous day's work with the FZ200, two things stuck in my mind. One was vignetting, the other was noise.

On the FZ200 I have the achromats on a fixed adaptor tube. This keeps the achromat the same distance from the subject as I zoom in and out and this makes finding the subject and framing for composition much easier and faster, increasingly so as the magnification goes up. At full zoom (and hence full magnification) the camera lens sits right behind the achromat. But as you zoom back to wider angles the camera lens pulls back and gets further and further from the achromat. It works fine, except that you start getting vignetting, which becomes severe by the time you have reached full wide angle/lowest magnification. Here is what it looks like with the Raynox 150 mounted on the adaptor tube, with the FZ200 at full wide angle.


0509 04 Vignetting at 4.5mm focal length with Raynox 150 attached to FZ200 tube. by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

The FZ200 is a 24x zoom. You have to use the Raynox 150 and also the Raynox 250 at 7x zoom or more to avoid vignetting. The MSN-202 has a smaller diameter than the 150 and 250, and the vignetting is worse. You have to use it at about 12x zoom or more to avoid vignetting.

As to noise, the FZ200 is well known as being a noisy camera. With flash I can use ISO 100 all the time, but I'm using some quite aggressive sharpening and this brings out the grain, which becomes visible as the crops become more substantial. I'm finding that I need to crop a fair bit with these very small subjects in order to get a reasonable (to my eye) amount of dof. But the combination of cropping and sharpening, with images from a noisy sensor, turns out to be a definite limitation.

Neither the vignetting nor the noise is news, and neither is a killer, but it did set me wondering again about the G3. I knew that it was better than the FZ200 for noise, and a quick experiment suggested that it suffers from no vignetting, not even with the MSN-202. (Actually, I now think the MSN-202 does vignette at full wide angle with the G3, but it is at worst a very slight darkening in the corners.) So, yesterday I took out the G3 with the MSN-202 mounted to look for small subjects.

It was an even worse day subject-wise. In an hour and a half I only found one small subject, but it was moving around quite fast, including dropping off the edge of the leaf it was on. I took 4 shots in 30 seconds and a minute later (having lost sight of it and then found it again) 5 shots in 17 seconds before it disappeared for good. This was the best of the bunch.


0619 29 2014-11-15 P1850254 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

There was nothing else of that size, and not much that was larger, just this (a barkfly?),



0619 02 2014-11-15 P1850139 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

a wriggly little thing which posed nicely



0619 23 2014-11-15 P1850239 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

with some internal organs on view


0619 28 2014-11-15 P1850242 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

and a cooperative fly (perhaps not the same fly, but if not then very similar). This was the only time I managed to get some comparison shots. These are both crops, the G3 image is cropped most.

FZ200


0619 09 2014-11-15 P1500683 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

G3


0619 22 2014-11-15 P1850222 LR-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

And that was it.

In terms of image quality, I think it is too early to say. Comparing the best of yesterday's G3 shots with the best of today's FZ200 shots is about the best I can do at this stage, and that doesn't lead me to any quick/clear/obvious conclusions, including on the subject of croppability. I had assumed that the large sensor of the G3 would mean better cropping options, but I'm not so sure how strong a factor that is now, because I was surprised at how much I was able to crop the FZ200 images.

I've revised my view on this a bit. It's still rather early to be sure, but having played with some of the images from this session it looks to me that the G3 can take more of a crop before it runs into noise issues, and I also suspect that the G3 captures more subtle details. But it is too soon to be sure about that.

One definite downside in terms of FZ200 image quality is that green fringing was visible at higher magnifications, and automatic chromatic aberration removal in Lightroom doesn't get rid of it. However, I'm not sure yet if this is a problem with the FZ200 or (as I suspect) with the MSN-202, because it showed up with a very white subject against a dark background, and I didn't capture any images like that with the G3 yesterday. So the G3 may suffer from the same problem.

Turns out it does, so the problem is presumably with the MSN-202 rather than the cameras.

At this stage I'm thinking that using the FZ200 for smaller subjects might be the better option overall. The image quality may well be good enough for my purposes (and pretty much as good as with the G3), the FZ200 is easier to use and seems to have a higher hit ratio in terms of getting the subject suitably in focus. The FZ200 provides greater magnification (but is a bit more awkward in terms of needing to change lenses to move between magnifications). Continuing to use two cameras (FZ200 and 70D) rather than adding a third is appealing.

My views on this are changing too. (The usability aspect of this takes into account my time out in the garden today with the G3. I'll write about that in a subsequent post. I have not yet looked at today's images so I have no idea which way, if any, they may tip the image quality/cropping/noise issues.)

The G3 has taken a back seat for many months now, so while I'm very familiar with the handling of the FZ200 at the moment, I've lost my familiarity with handling the G3. With a bit of practice over the past few days the G3 is beginning to feel better in use.

For example, I mentioned how easy it was to change zoom/magnification with my (right) index finger with the FZ200. I have now rediscovered that the 45-175 lens I'm using on the G3 has a zoom lever which works the zoom nicely, especially when working hand held, with the lever falling nicely for the left index finger (The lens was designed with video in mind apparently).

I'm very interested to find that I'm increasingly using the G3 hand held, something I generally haven't done much for invertebrates in the past. Rather surprisingly (to me at least), this includes working hand held with the MSN-202.

As to focusing, autofocus isn't as good as with the FZ200, but the difference seems to be less than I thought, and perfectly usable a lot of the time, and I'm finding the G3 very usable with manual focusing too, both rocking and using the focus wheel (I seem to be developing a combination of the two).

I'm no longer convinced that the FZ200 has a higher hit ratio. I have the impression that my hit ratio is getting quite good with the G3, in the sense of being able finding the subject – a significant issue at high magnifications - and achieving focus.

And I find that I really like not having any vignetting to take into account (or have nasty surprises about when I come to look at a day's images, or even sometimes, and rather embarrassingly, after I've posted them).

And I like having a larger range of magnifications available without having to change the achromat when using the G3. I also like having a 1-2 stops more (depending on focal length) narrow dof to play with, although this is more of an issue with flowers than invertebrates.

And lastly, one concern I have had about the G3 is that it has a very slow flash sync speed, 1/160 sec. In contrast, I can operate the FZ200 at 1/1000 sec or more when using flash (I think this is because it has a leaf shutter, although I've never been able to find confirmation of this). However, I've now done an initial indoors test of the G3 with FP/HSS flash and that seems to work. I'll need to test this outdoors (where I've had different results from indoors in the past), but so far it seems promising. That may mean I can use fill flash ok on bright days with the G3, which is what I was most concerned about, although it would also be good more generally to be able to work at a higher shutter speed when flash is not the overwhelmingly dominant light source, so as to avoid “ghosting” from the natural light component of the lighting.

So, although I didn't find much suitable subject matter in my time using the G3 in the past couple of days, it has been pretty productive and thought provoking all the same. I'm now wondering if it will be the FZ200 (if anything) that I drop. In fact, in the back of mind is the heretical thought that if the G3 did replace the FZ200 in my affections, I would inevitably have to ask whether it could replace the 70D as well, in the interests of a radical simplification. But that is further down the line, if at all. First I have to use the G3 more extensively and see where that leads. That starts with looking at today's images. More on that quite soon, hopefully.

 

[GardenersHelper]

First I have to use the G3 more extensively and see where that leads. That starts with looking at today's images. More on that quite soon, hopefully.

A set of yesterday's images is here at Flickr. It won't flow nicely from image to image because I've included uncropped versions of most of the images. They get in the way a bit, but it does make it possible to see how substantial or otherwise the crops are, and then to relate that to the amount of noise in the images. As mentioned in previous posts, noise and cropping are of particular interest to me at the moment, in relation to small subjects in particular. The images were captured as RAW. All of the images in this post, and all but the last image in the linked set, used the G3's base ISO of 160. So as to not confuse the noise/cropping issue, none has had any luminance noise reduction. Apart from that they have all had my (current) normal post processing using Lightroom.

I found three small subjects. I didn't get a good capture of the first one, but the second one remained on the same leaf for 15 minutes while I snapped away. I worked hand held and captured 81 shots, using the MSN-202 at magnifications equating to about 1.5:1 to 2.5:1 in APS-C terms, and using rocking manual focus, judging when to press the shutter button from what I could see on the LCD. That seemed to work quite well, although I suspect that depended on it being overcast. I find the G3 LCD difficult to see in brighter light. I wasn't using my home made LCD hood yesterday, and it does help somewhat in brighter light, but I doubt this method of manual focus will work well in sunlight,

Here are a couple of examples of the second small subject. According to my calculations the head and body are about 1.3mm long.

Like all the examples in this post these are crops.


0620 06 2014-11-16 P1850335 LR-3 Crop 2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0620 12 2014-11-16 P1850359 LR-2 Crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

To my surprise, almost all of the 81 shots were pretty much in focus. To be sure, the dof wasn't large enough in many cases because I zoomed too far in, and the dof wasn't centred quite where I would have wanted it to be in a lot of cases. Still, it was much better overall than I expected, given how unfamiliar I am at working at this scale.

The third small example was rushing around and didn't stick around for long. I suppose that given how reflective it is it was inevitable that there would be a very significant reflection from the flash whatever the diffusion arrangement. (Having written that I immediately wondered if a concave diffuser would help. EDIT: The following is incorrect. Correction given three posts down. A little experiment seems to indicate that given the diffusion I'm already using, if I add anything between the diffuser and the subject it just serves to reduce the contrast to an unworkable degree, for example even with a single sheet of paper. But perhaps there's something I don't understand about how to set up a concave diffuser.)

Anyway, complete with its horrible diffuser reflection, here is the third little subject. According to my calculations the body is about 1mm long. I was again working hand held with the MSN-202 using rocking manual focus, for this shot using the minimum magnification with the MSN-202 on the G3 of about 1.5:1 in APS-C terms.


0620 52 2014-11-16 P1850614 LR Crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

The fly in the next two shots was with me, on and off, for almost exactly two minutes, moving around on and between leaves. I was working hand held, but this time using autofocus. I usually use the smallest available focus box, but in this case I used the G3's "Pinpoint autofocus" (which the FZ200 doesn't have), where you get to point a little cross at where you want to focus rather than a box. The cross, like the box, is movable, but the fly was moving around so frequently that it wouldn't have been practical to move the box to the compositionally appropriate point. So instead I used a combination of focus and compose and "just press the bloody shutter button and sort out the composition later" (if possible).

I used the Raynox 150 for these shots. Being fairly large, this was not a difficult subject, especially as it was on the ground and not on a leaf waving around in the wind. However, the autofocus seemed a bit slow to engage compared to what I'm used to with the FZ200, so I was expecting some poor results. I was surprised to find that every one of the 11 fairly hurried shots that I captured was in focus, with the centre of the dof by the look of it (you can't tell for sure) where I had intended it to be.


0620 54 2014-11-16 P1850623 LR Crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0620 58 2014-11-16 P1850625 LR Crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

I don't know how large the next example was, because I can't be absolutely certain which lens I used. If I used the MSN-202, which I think I did, the head and body would be in the region of 2mm. Here I was working hand held again with rocking manual focus.


0620 84 2014-11-16 P1850689 LR Crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

And to end up with, a couple of silly ones. It was towards the end of the session, the light level was falling, and I was getting tired and possibly a bit cold and hungry too. I did something I don't think I've ever done before, which is to use flash for a droplet shot. I did use the tripod, hands-on to help with the composition and focusing, but I just couldn't bring myself to set up the remote release and wait patiently for the breeze to abate for long exposure natural light shots. As a result there are diffuser reflections. Not natural. Not nice. But for some reason I quite like these shots anyway.


0620 41 2014-11-16 P1850501 LR Crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0620 43 2014-11-16 P1850507 LR Crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Conclusions?

All cameras have their own operating quirks of course, but I found the G3 as pleasant (and almost as responsive) to use as the FZ200 for these sorts of subjects, and I got results with the smallest subjects of a quality I don't think I've achieved before at this small scale. I also like the detail in some of the images, for example the fly images, and the images were very easy to process (easier than FZ200 images).

I'm not sure how much all this is the camera and how much other factors such as happening upon suitable subjects, mood, motivation, having various things sorted out (at least for now!) in relation to camera profiles, sharpening, noise control and other processing issues, etc. But I don't have it in me to try to get an firm, objective, evidence-based answer by doing yet another lot of detailed, tedious, tiresome, "like for like" comparisons at this stage. That is what eventually turned me off photography for several months earlier in the year. So, liking what I'm seeing so far, and being comfortable with the mechanics of capturing and processing with the G3, I'm going to stick with the G3 for flash-based invertebrate imaging for a while and see how it goes.

And flowers, and natural light shots in general? We'll see. That's for another time I think.

 

[TimmyG]

LOL Nick, not only are you getting top quality shots with your smaller sensor camera, but you are also finding some interesting species. I think you've encountered Calvatomina nr. superba in that globby; an import from Australasia, so I'd be interested in knowing if you found it near a specific plant, or just in the leaf litter?

Can you remind me again what your flash/diffuser setup is? You've got it spot on here, with very few reflections on the damp leaf. I'm still struggling getting something I'm happy with for my new setup. Brilliant work Nick and again demonstrates what amazing quality shots are achievable with achromats. I'm very interested in trying some for myself now....

Edit: Just to say the full size images on flickr seem to show a similar level of noise as I expect to see from my APS-C sensor. I really can't see much difference at all.

Edit2: I probably should say I'm shooting around ISO 400 more recently, as I'm using a very low powered flash. This is as high as I like to go, despite the updated sensor technology.

 

[Tintin124]

I agree with Tim, but I don't think it has that much to do with the camera, lighting. I think its all to do with the excellent photographer for instance if I used that kit I doubt very much I would get even half as good images as you do Nick.

Infact you single handed prove that you don't need expensive kit which is what a lot of newbies think.

 

[GardenersHelper]

I suppose that given how reflective it is it was inevitable that there would be a very significant reflection from the flash whatever the diffusion arrangement. (Having written that I immediately wondered if a concave diffuser would help. A little experiment seems to indicate that given the diffusion I'm already using, if I add anything between the diffuser and the subject it just serves to reduce the contrast to an unworkable degree, for example even with a single sheet of paper. But perhaps there's something I don't understand about how to set up a concave diffuser.)

Scrub this comment. I just tried to reproduce this radical contrast reduction effect while preparing a response in Tim's Shaggy thread concerning the loss of contrast. I couldn't reproduce it. The piece of paper just cut the amount of light down. I have no idea how I came to think otherwise earlier today. Sorry to be misleading.

 

[GardenersHelper]

LOL Nick, not only are you getting top quality shots with your smaller sensor camera, but you are also finding some interesting species. I think you've encountered Calvatomina nr. superba in that globby; an import from Australasia, so I'd be interested in knowing if you found it near a specific plant, or just in the leaf litter?

Thanks Tim. No special plant that I'm aware of. Just in the leaf litter.

Can you remind me again what your flash/diffuser setup is? You've got it spot on here, with very few reflections on the damp leaf. I'm still struggling getting something I'm happy with for my new setup. Brilliant work Nick and again demonstrates what amazing quality shots are achievable with achromats. I'm very interested in trying some for myself now....

I hope you aren't disappointed. Different things work for different people (which I suppose is by implication at least one of the themes of this thread really).

Anyway, my flash is a home made dual layer arrangement. The layers are the ones that came with a nine inch softbox that was fractionally too large to work for me.


0590 1 2014_06_17 P1840544 Edit Export standard by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0590 2 2014_06_17 P1840545 Edit Export standard by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0590 3 2014_06_17 P1840546 Edit Export standard by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0590 4 2014_06_17 P1840547 Edit Export standard by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Edit: Just to say the full size images on flickr seem to show a similar level of noise as I expect to see from my APS-C sensor. I really can't see much difference at all.

That's very helpful feedback. Thanks Tim.

Edit2: I probably should say I'm shooting around ISO 400 more recently, as I'm using a very low powered flash. This is as high as I like to go, despite the updated sensor technology.

And your images are far cleaner than mine. I saw that today when I looked at the very big version of the Young Woodlouse image. I use up to ISO 3200, but you never see any of my stuff larger than 1100 pixels high (unless for a technical discussion). And at that ISO it will have been doused with noise reduction anyway.