Tag: passerine

Posted on

7D Mk II High ISO Performance

Last week I went out in the evening to run my new 7D Mk II through its paces with bird photography (most likely my primary use for this camera). Since my mind was in test mode, I decided to stay out after sunset (much later than normal for bird photography) to see how the camera performed in low light situations. I left the camera in auto-ISO mode to let it decide how high it needed to go. About a half hour after sunset, I was packing it in and heading back to the car, when I saw this blacktail jackrabbit eating from a patch of grass.

A blacktail jackrabbit ventures out into the grass just after sunset, Redwood Shores, CA.
A blacktail jackrabbit ventures out into the grass just after sunset, Redwood Shores, CA.

I was a bit skeptical that anything would turn out given how dark it was. Not even sure if the auto focus would be able to work well in the darkness, I splayed out my tripod legs and got very low to the ground. Auto-focus seemed to be tracking well, so I started firing off bursts of shots, not really paying attention to the ISO. I knew it was high, but I wanted to see how high the ISO could go and still produce a usable image. This was highly dependent on the noise produced at high ISOs, and the amount of reasonable noise reduction I could perform in post processing.

The image above was shot at ISO 25,600! While I realized this produced far too much noise for a large print, it seems to be perfectly usable for web-sized images. You can also see here that the auto-focus was extremely accurate, even in low light.

So how does this translate into changes in the way I photograph? Nothing, really – a shot with this much noise is more of a curiosity than any hard data with which to change my workflow. However, let’s look at another example at a more reasonable ISO.

A hermit thrush pauses briefly on a branch in the last night of the day, Redwood Shores, CA.
A hermit thrush pauses briefly on a branch in the last night of the day, Redwood Shores, CA.

I photographed this hermit thrush a little earlier in the evening than the jackrabbit. It was around sunset, but the sun had already set over the coastal mountains, so the light was certainly waning. Because of the extra light, the camera chose a more “reasonable” ISO of 5000 for this shot. But still, ISO 5000 is very high!

With my previous camera, ISO 1600 was really pushing the boundary of acceptability, with only about 50% of those images being able to hold up to the noise level. After running noise reduction on this image however, it became clear that images shot as high as 5000 ISO would be usable for many circumstances. This probably still wouldn’t hold up for a 16 x 20 inch wall print, but would most likely do fine for editorial use.

Finally, in order to show how smooth the images really are at ISO 800, I’ve included a shot of an anna’s hummingbird, followed by the 100% crop of its head.

An anna's hummingbird perches on a thin branch, surveying the landscape, Redwood Shores, CA.
An anna’s hummingbird perches on a thin branch, surveying the landscape, Redwood Shores, CA.
A 100% crop of an anna's hummingbird. At ISO 800, the Canon 7D Mk II performs with amazingly low noise.
A 100% crop of an anna’s hummingbird. At ISO 800, the Canon 7D Mk II performs with amazingly low noise.

With previous cameras, I’ve always used ISO 400 as my standard starting point, moving up and down the range as light would allow. But with the 7D Mk II, I will likely start shooting at ISO 800 most of the time. I’ve run a slight amount of NR on the hummingbird shot, but the noise is so low that I’d rather have an extra stop of light to play with and get faster shutter speeds than feel the need to drop down to a lower ISO.

Posted on

Bird Photography With The Canon 7D Mk II

A great blue heron stalks fish in still shallow water, Belmont, CA.
A great blue heron stalks fish in still shallow water, Belmont, CA.

I spent about an hour this morning doing some bird photography with my new 7D Mk II. My primary use for this camera will be birds and wildlife, and I found and photographed some of the usual suspects around my home. This is not meant to be a formal review by any means, but I wanted to share some of my first impressions.

A black-crowned night heron perches above water in pre-dawn light, Belmont, CA.
A black-crowned night heron perches above water in pre-dawn light, Belmont, CA.

Aesthetics

Before we get to performance, I have to address how the camera felt out in the field. It was a real joy! The build quality is solid and the camera was extremely responsive and accurate. Ergonomically, the buttons are laid out well, and I can tell a lot of thought went into designing the UI. The number of settings on this camera can be daunting, but almost everything can be customized to suite your exact photography needs.

A golden-crowned sparrow perches atop an ornamental bush, Belmont, CA.
A golden-crowned sparrow perches atop an ornamental bush, Belmont, CA.

Auto-focus

Obviously auto-focus capabilities are one of the headliner features for this camera. Canon’s new auto-focus debuted on their flagship pro body, and have been filtering down to less expensive cameras in the last couple of years. I haven’t tried out the myriad AF algorithms available (I’ll do further testing with these using birds in flight), but I can say that auto-focus was fast and accurate. Almost everything I captured was tack sharp. I’ll be setting up the camera with different AF settings depending on whether I’m photographing stationary animals or birds in flight.

A blacktail jackrabbit pauses in the morning light to watch for predators, Belmont, CA.
A blacktail jackrabbit pauses in the morning light to watch for predators, Belmont, CA.

Noise Performance

As the sun was rising, I shot mostly at ISO 1600, gradually dropping down to ISO 400 as the day got brighter. At ISO 1600, there is still some noise visible in the shadows, but it was easily corrected in post processing. I found very clean shadows at ISO 800 and below. With my previous camera (7D), my starting ISO was usually 400 and I’d go up from there if the situation demanded it. Based on the performance of the Mk II, I will probably do most bird photography at ISO 800, giving me a full stop of extra light to play with in most circumstances.

A great blue heron is reflected in still water in early morning light, Belmont, CA.
A great blue heron is reflected in still water in early morning light, Belmont, CA.

Frame Rate

Shooting at 10 frames per second felt awesome. Even though I’m used to 8 fps with the older 7D, the incremental speed boost was noticeable. While I didn’t have any action situations that called for this speed this morning, having that capability was reassuring. With the large buffer, I never hit any card write delays, even though I was shooting with a slow card.

A black-crowned night heron stands on a buoy, watching for fish, Belmont, CA.
A black-crowned night heron stands on a buoy, watching for fish, Belmont, CA.

Silent Shooting

At one point, I crept close to a black-crowned night heron and began to fire off 10 fps bursts (mostly just for fun). The chatter of the shutter was loud enough to get his attention, and he stared at me, looking a bit anxious. I then remembered that the camera features a silent shutter mode (it applies extra dampening to the shutter mechanism so that it is very quiet). I set the camera to silent burst mode. This reduces the fps from 10 down to what felt like 3 or 4 fps, but it was nearly silent! I continued shooting photos of the now comfortable bird. This feature will actually be very helpful for getting close to some of the more sensitive wildlife – a nice little bonus.

A greater yellowlegs is reflected in shallow still water, Belmont, CA.
A greater yellowlegs is reflected in shallow still water, Belmont, CA.

Overall Image Quality

So far, the results are fantastic. One caveat is that at the time of this writing, Adobe does not yet support the camera’s RAW files, so I had to use Canon’s software to convert to tiff before processing them in Lightroom. I’m sure I’ll get better results once I can process the RAWs directly with Lightroom, as Canon’s processor seems very poor. But the images are sharp, and the tones are pleasing. Auto white balance seems accurate. If anything, it seems that the Mk II overexposes a little more than the 7D, but I’ll get a feel for where the exposure compensation needs to be for various lighting conditions as I use the camera more.

Of course, the camera also has some goofy crowd-pleasers like multiple exposure and in-camera HDR. While I wont be using these for any serious work, they can be fun to muck around with if you’re bored.

A black-necked stilt fishes in shallow water, Belmont, CA.
A black-necked stilt fishes in shallow water, Belmont, CA.

Overall, this is a fantastic camera, and I had a very enjoyable first time out with it!

Posted on

Evening Grosbeaks

An evening grosbeak perches on a branch of a chinese pistache tree, Sunnyvale CA.
An evening grosbeak perches on a branch of a chinese pistache tree, Sunnyvale CA.

I recently finished processing a series of photos I took of a flock of evening grosbeaks that invaded a neighborhood in Sunnyvale, CA, a little south of my home. For several days, the birds were repeating a pattern of flying into the area in the morning, and perching on a row of chinese pistache trees, so I decided to head down and see if I could locate the flock.

I arrived in the neighborhood just after dawn when I figured the birds would be busy eating. I began to walk up and down the streets, occasionally stopping to listen for the distinct crunching sound of the birds eating the fruit off of the trees. All the while I was under the watchful eyes of the residents, who probably don’t often see someone walking past their house with an 800mm lens mounted to a large tripod.

An evening grosbeak perches on a branch of a chinese pistache tree and eats a small seed, Sunnyvale CA.
An evening grosbeak perches on a branch of a chinese pistache tree and eats a small seed, Sunnyvale CA.

Finally, I was on the verge of giving up and decided to make my way back to my car. On my way back, I passed under one of the many chinese pistache trees and heard the soft crunch crunch crunch. Looking up I could just see one or two of the grosbeaks in the upper most branches. Thrilled, I set up my gear on the sunny side of the tree (so that the birds would be front lit), and waited until some of them ventured to lower fruit.

An evening grosbeak reaches for food on the branches on a chinese pistache tree, Sunnyvale, CA.
An evening grosbeak reaches for food on the branches on a Chinese pistache tree, Sunnyvale, CA.

In all I hung out for about 20 minutes before the birds lifted off and flew elsewhere. It is always a treat to get such opportunities to photograph seasonal migrants.

Posted on

Dark-eyed Junco

A dark-eyed junco perches on a tree branch and flashes his tail feathers
A dark-eyed junco perches on a tree branch and flashes his tail feathers

Dark-eyed juncos are most often seen on the ground, pecking around for bits of seed. But in this photo, I managed to capture one perched for a long period of time in a tree branch, seemingly displaying his tail feathers.

Normal courtship behavior for a male is to stand on the ground near the female, dip his head and raise his tail feathers while fanning them out to each side. I had never before seen one fanning its feathers up in a tree. And no females were anywhere to be seen. If this bird was attempting a courtship display, he was going about it all wrong.

But it was amusing for me, and I snapped away, capturing a behavior and location that I had never seen before with this bird.

Copyright 2017 Hank Christensen