a real world AS test? - Handheld ducks with 600mm equivalent

Finally got my 7D last night - Whoo hoo!

Got up first thing this morning to go out birding and took the camera with my cheap, beat up slow Tokina 100-400 zoom. It was gloomy, overcast and raining.

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600. Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Here's the full frame (these are highly reduced in size without any sharpening - I did tweak the overall levels a bit)



Here's a crop of the oldsquaws. They aren't going to appear on any magazine covers, but notice that they are pretty darn sharp for a crop taken with a handheld 600mm lens at 1/400th. I am very pleased with the results.



Also, for those that are wondering about old flashes, I tried the 2000xi and 3500xi and everything was grossly overexposed, as predicted. Didn't try moving the flash to compensate for the full power, but I did find that there is no TTL control at all. 3600HSD, here I come!
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Hey Chris,

Certainly not the most orthodox test, but one of the 'real world' type. The type some shooters really shoot. Interesting results.

I don't know your lens and wonder if you recomment me buying one? I don't have anything that long yet, and not even sure if it will be enough as I ramp up my photo activity. The 400mm (600 crop; not equivalent) seems to reproduce well for the web. Have you had any big prints?

Thanks for your post.

Gene

charrison said:

Finally got my 7D last night - Whoo hoo!

Got up first thing this morning to go out birding and took the
camera with my cheap, beat up slow Tokina 100-400 zoom. It was
gloomy, overcast and raining.

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken
handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark
morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600.
Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give
me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Here's the full frame (these are highly reduced in size without any
sharpening - I did tweak the overall levels a bit)



Here's a crop of the oldsquaws. They aren't going to appear on any
magazine covers, but notice that they are pretty darn sharp for a
crop taken with a handheld 600mm lens at 1/400th. I am very
pleased with the results.



Also, for those that are wondering about old flashes, I tried the
2000xi and 3500xi and everything was grossly overexposed, as
predicted. Didn't try moving the flash to compensate for the full
power, but I did find that there is no TTL control at all.
3600HSD, here I come!
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Click to expand...

--
JusGene
'The easiest thing you can be ... is wrong!' -Me (7/29/1993)
'Statistically, people make mistakes 70% of the time' -Independent Research Firm
'The more you know, the more you don't know' -Me (8/14/1987)
'Life is nothing, but for a bunch of words' -Me (11/4/1990)
RD-175, X-9, 450si(DATE), SPxi, Mamiya 645, D7u

I expected pictures of handheld ducks but this was interesting anyway

charrison said:

Finally got my 7D last night - Whoo hoo!

Got up first thing this morning to go out birding and took the
camera with my cheap, beat up slow Tokina 100-400 zoom. It was
gloomy, overcast and raining.

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken
handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark
morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600.
Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give
me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Here's the full frame (these are highly reduced in size without any
sharpening - I did tweak the overall levels a bit)



Here's a crop of the oldsquaws. They aren't going to appear on any
magazine covers, but notice that they are pretty darn sharp for a
crop taken with a handheld 600mm lens at 1/400th. I am very
pleased with the results.



Also, for those that are wondering about old flashes, I tried the
2000xi and 3500xi and everything was grossly overexposed, as
predicted. Didn't try moving the flash to compensate for the full
power, but I did find that there is no TTL control at all.
3600HSD, here I come!
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Click to expand...

If you are using a 400mm lens, then your 1/400 shutter
will counter hand-held shake, without a need for AS.

The 1.5 crop factor has no bearing on the amount
of shake. That is, if you had a non-antishake camera
like Canon Digital Rebel, and you use a 400mm lens
plus 1.5 crop factor (600mm equivalent), you still
just need 1/400 sec shutter speed (not 1/600 sec) to
shoot handheld.

You need to repeat your test with an even slower
shutter speed. According to the Minolta specs and
performance of KM A2, you should be able to take
a nice sharp image at 1/40 second using that
400mm lens of yours.

-Matt

charrison said:

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken
handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark
morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600.
Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give
me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Click to expand...

His test, I believe, is using a portion of AS. While I do say that he is not using AS to its fullest potential, he is showing that at 600mm, he is taking advantage of at least 1-stop of extra stop of exposure speed.

A 300mm lens requires 1/500 sec of exposure speed to be somewhat decent, as decent as a handheld 50mm requires 1/60s. at 600mm, he would normally require 1/1000th of a second, unless he were data and had motor servos to dictate where his hands ought to go.

Matt Cham said:

The 1.5 crop factor has no bearing on the amount
of shake. That is, if you had a non-antishake camera
like Canon Digital Rebel, and you use a 400mm lens
plus 1.5 crop factor (600mm equivalent), you still
just need 1/400 sec shutter speed (not 1/600 sec) to
shoot handheld.

You need to repeat your test with an even slower
shutter speed. According to the Minolta specs and
performance of KM A2, you should be able to take
a nice sharp image at 1/40 second using that
400mm lens of yours.

-Matt

charrison said:

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken
handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark
morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600.
Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give
me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I deleted the pic I took under exactly the same conditions without AS, and it was much less sharp.

I'm not sure I agree about 1/400th being fast enough to handhold. I certainly should have tried a lower shutter speed (had my goal been to perform a rigorous test) but handholding a 400/600 at 1/400th still doesn't usually produce sharp shots, in my experience. In spite of the inverse focal length "rule", I find that it doesn't apply well above 300mm or so. But maybe I just have unsteady hands.

For the record, I did a bunch of AS tests last night in the house using things in the living room with and without AS, and I know it works. I just wanted to see what would happen in a practical application.
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

JusGene said:

Hey Chris,

Certainly not the most orthodox test, but one of the 'real world'
type. The type some shooters really shoot. Interesting results.

I don't know your lens and wonder if you recomment me buying one? I
don't have anything that long yet, and not even sure if it will be
enough as I ramp up my photo activity. The 400mm (600 crop; not
equivalent) seems to reproduce well for the web. Have you had any
big prints?

Click to expand...

The lens is a Tokina 100-400 4.5-6.7 zoom. I am not an expert of glass quality, but it seems to produce decent results. I haven't noticed any major optical flaws.

It does suffer from zoom creep when carried on the camera and mine is a little tough to zoom (but that may be due to the weeks it spend working in the sands of the Kalahari!).

Truth be told, I am thinking about upgrading it to a better 100-400 range zoom. So, if you are looking for a starter long zoom, it isn't bad, but it also isn't the best. I would have to do some comparative shopping. If there is no other recommended zoom in the price range (other than something by a lesser lens maker), I would probably buy it again. If there are other choices from major brands that get highly rated, I would do a little research first.

---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Something is definitely wrong here.

KM literature cleary states the faster shutter that A/S can work with is 1/125. A/S on a sensor will be limited by the x-sync speed!

Recommend you try shooting at 1/125 (use shutter priority), a series of shots with A/S on, then with A/S off. You should be able to tell a difference that is attributeable to A/S.

-gt

charrison said:

Finally got my 7D last night - Whoo hoo!

Got up first thing this morning to go out birding and took the
camera with my cheap, beat up slow Tokina 100-400 zoom. It was
gloomy, overcast and raining.

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken
handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark
morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600.
Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give
me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Here's the full frame (these are highly reduced in size without any
sharpening - I did tweak the overall levels a bit)



Here's a crop of the oldsquaws. They aren't going to appear on any
magazine covers, but notice that they are pretty darn sharp for a
crop taken with a handheld 600mm lens at 1/400th. I am very
pleased with the results.



Also, for those that are wondering about old flashes, I tried the
2000xi and 3500xi and everything was grossly overexposed, as
predicted. Didn't try moving the flash to compensate for the full
power, but I did find that there is no TTL control at all.
3600HSD, here I come!
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Click to expand...

Matt Cham said:

If you are using a 400mm lens, then your 1/400 shutter
will counter hand-held shake, without a need for AS.

Click to expand...

No. That's wrong I'm afraid. The direct co-relation between camera shake, and the minimum shutter speed needed to cancel it, works for ONE format only, and that is full frame 35mm, no other.

[Don't be too hard on yourself. Many people make the same mistake.]

Matt Cham said:

The 1.5 crop factor has no bearing on the amount
of shake.

Click to expand...

Errrr. No, it does increase it, I assure you.

Image format size does influence the speed that can be hand held because the field of view is different for the same f/lengths. And it is field of view which is important here, NOT the f/length in millimetres that yields it.

This means that the shutter speeds which quell camera shake are all the same for the same field of view on any format you might use. What makes full frame 35mm special in this respect is the fact that the "anti shake speed" just happens to match the focal length (when measured in millimetres) that provides that field of view.

Taking just one focal length as an example.........

Let us say that a 'standard' 50mm lens can be handheld safely at 1/50 (1/60th?) second on full frame 35mm -- most people will concur with that.

So what is the safe speed for handholding an 80mm 'standard' lens on a 6x6cm Hasselblad?

Well, the answer is the same speed -- 1/50th. It is still a 'standard' lens, after all, and it still covers the same field of view. It is NOT necessary to raise the speed to 1/80th, say.

In fact, ALL 'standard' lenses can be hand held at about 1/50th, whatever format they are, as long as the camera in question isn't too hard to hold. But only full frame 35mm cameras have standard lenses that happen to be 50mm in length, and therefore provide an easy way remember the figure.

It is something unique to the format, and nothing to do with the focal length itself.

So, if we DO choose to constantly refer back to those conventions that had their origins in 35mm photography, it is important to use 35mm equivalent focal lengths in determine safe hand held shutter speeds -- just as we did with the Hasselblad.

For the case in point it would be 1/600th sec, not 1/400th.

Hope this is now clear.

Regards,
Baz

Didn't know about the 1/125th limit. I can't imagine that my hands alone contributed to the relative sharpness of the previous shot.

Here's another cropped shot using the same 600mm effective focal length, shot on auto ISO (the camera chose 400). f/13 at 1/100th. Again, not publishable, but considering it is about 20% of the original image after cropping, you can still tell they are Long-tailed Ducks. Without my 7D, I wouldn't have gotten even that.

By conventional wisdom, that is 2+ stops better than normal handholding minimum. I guess if I had been "testing" the efficacy of the AS, I should have pushed it slower as well.



BTW - the exif data doesn't mention AS. I kind of wish it did.

--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Where does it say that - yes the flash sync is limited to 1/125 with AS but I don't see why this would suggest AS won't work above 1/125

daveR

greentoe said:

KM literature cleary states the faster shutter that A/S can work
with is 1/125. A/S on a sensor will be limited by the x-sync
speed!

Recommend you try shooting at 1/125 (use shutter priority), a
series of shots with A/S on, then with A/S off. You should be
able to tell a difference that is attributeable to A/S.

-gt

charrison said:

Finally got my 7D last night - Whoo hoo!

Got up first thing this morning to go out birding and took the
camera with my cheap, beat up slow Tokina 100-400 zoom. It was
gloomy, overcast and raining.

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken
handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark
morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600.
Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give
me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Here's the full frame (these are highly reduced in size without any
sharpening - I did tweak the overall levels a bit)



Here's a crop of the oldsquaws. They aren't going to appear on any
magazine covers, but notice that they are pretty darn sharp for a
crop taken with a handheld 600mm lens at 1/400th. I am very
pleased with the results.



Also, for those that are wondering about old flashes, I tried the
2000xi and 3500xi and everything was grossly overexposed, as
predicted. Didn't try moving the flash to compensate for the full
power, but I did find that there is no TTL control at all.
3600HSD, here I come!
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

charrison said:

3600HSD, here I come!
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Click to expand...

After spending all that money, why limit yourself now with the 3600? Why not save a little more and get the 5600HSD? I think in the long run you will be much happier...

Congrats on your new camera, I'm still saving $$ for my purchase.

Pat Trev

In this test is that your subject is moving
(both duck and water are moving). This will make a
handheld shot even more difficult.

If you dropped your shutter speed to
1/40 second, the motion blur may not be
due to antishake but due to subject movement,
which of course AS cannot counter.

-Matt

charrison said:

Didn't know about the 1/125th limit. I can't imagine that my hands
alone contributed to the relative sharpness of the previous shot.

Here's another cropped shot using the same 600mm effective focal
length, shot on auto ISO (the camera chose 400). f/13 at 1/100th.
Again, not publishable, but considering it is about 20% of the
original image after cropping, you can still tell they are
Long-tailed Ducks. Without my 7D, I wouldn't have gotten even that.

By conventional wisdom, that is 2+ stops better than normal
handholding minimum. I guess if I had been "testing" the efficacy
of the AS, I should have pushed it slower as well.



BTW - the exif data doesn't mention AS. I kind of wish it did.

--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Click to expand...

greentoe said:

Something is definitely wrong here.

KM literature cleary states the faster shutter that A/S can work
with is 1/125. A/S on a sensor will be limited by the x-sync
speed!

Recommend you try shooting at 1/125 (use shutter priority), a
series of shots with A/S on, then with A/S off. You should be
able to tell a difference that is attributeable to A/S.

-gt

Click to expand...

Not exactly :-}

Flash sync with AS is limited to no faster than 1/125, without AS that limit is 1/160.

KM suggest that AS will be effective up to 2 or 3 stops slower than your normal handheld limit for a given lens (which will differ from lens to lens and person to person) as long as the shutter speed is 1/4s or faster. They make no claims for longer shuter speeds, though I'm sure some people with some lenses will be able to push that limit a little.

So, if you have a 500mm lens and you are an average photographer with a good stance, the normal limit would be 1/500s, AS should allow you to go down to 1/125 or even 1/60. With an 18mm lens normal limit would be 1/20, AS should get you to about 1/4 but not longer. I have a 14mm lens and AS should still be effective to about 1/4 even though 3 stops under the normal limit of 1/15 would be 1/2s.

Hope this helps,

--

Dave

'Third one from the left — Konica Minolta 7D Adoption Society'

Thanks very much for sharing your experience...)

but to why having tested AS with a 1/400 s shutter speed at ISO 1600 ?

why not having tried at a more decent ISO (i.e. 100 or 200) with a much slower speed ? (which would have been more appropriate to test AS performance !)

May I ask you if you could re do the tests (no necessarily shooting ducks!) but clearly using your 400 mm zoom lens (i.e. 600 mm here), shooting something far (and not moving), at... let's say :

• ISO 100 (or 200) (to minimise noise)
• with f/11 (or bigger apperture if required) to maximize DOF
• and at an as slow as possible shutter speed : 1/50 s or 1/30 s

That, IMHO, would be more adequate to really test the AS performance !)

regards

hdophan

charrison said:

Finally got my 7D last night - Whoo hoo!

Got up first thing this morning to go out birding and took the
camera with my cheap, beat up slow Tokina 100-400 zoom. It was
gloomy, overcast and raining.

I figured I would put the AS to the test. Here is a shot taken
handheld at 400mm (600mm equivalent), standing up, on a gloomy dark
morning. In order to be realistic, I cranked the ISO up to 1600.
Shot the pic at f/13 and 1/400th second, which would normally give
me a nice light blur where the Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) is.

Here's the full frame (these are highly reduced in size without any
sharpening - I did tweak the overall levels a bit)



Here's a crop of the oldsquaws. They aren't going to appear on any
magazine covers, but notice that they are pretty darn sharp for a
crop taken with a handheld 600mm lens at 1/400th. I am very
pleased with the results.



Also, for those that are wondering about old flashes, I tried the
2000xi and 3500xi and everything was grossly overexposed, as
predicted. Didn't try moving the flash to compensate for the full
power, but I did find that there is no TTL control at all.
3600HSD, here I come!
--
---------------------------
Chris Harrison

Click to expand...