charley5 wrote:
Okay Nick. Sorry it took so long to reply.
No problem. These things go at their own speed.
The part that really struck me is: "If you want to photograph smaller subjects however, such as the ones below, a small sensor bridge camera may be a worthwhile experiment, with the FZ200 going to smaller scene sizes than the FZ50."
I do want to photograph smaller objects with the FZ50, especially the ant world. Photographing ants with the X-T2 and a Raynox 250 is challenging due to the razor thin DOF.
Thin DOF is going to be an issue whatever kit you use. I use minimum aperture to maximise DOF, and I then crop, which gives greater DOF than I would have got by going in closer and framing the shot how I wanted it to look and using it uncropped. (You might want to look at this post which demonstrates this effect. If you follow through the argument that arose from that post as to whether this effect is real or a figment of my imagination, please be sure to see this post which seems, so far at least, to have terminated the argument.)
Of course, the smaller the aperture the more you lose from diffraction blurring, and the more you crop the more you lose from noise and from the loss of perceived sharpness from looking closer. This is where, it seems to me, post processing can make a significant difference. My post processing is the result of a decade's experimentation and is a bit complicated. I'm sure one could do just as well with a much simpler process; we all have to find the approach which we are most comfortable with.
I feel I can get more from post processing, sometimes pushing things a bit further, by starting with raw files rather than JPEG images from the camera. As with much else in this area of course, opinions differ as to the relative efficacy of raw and JPEG shooting; it is another personal decision to be taken in the light of one's own experience, preferences, skills, equipment, subject matter etc.
I also limit the size of my finalised images, currently to 1300 pixels high. That hides imperfections that would be visible on closer inspection, and it is the acceptability (to my eye and for my preferences) at that output size that guides my processing and how far I am prepared to push the processing. It also guides the extent of the sharpening I apply, which is done specifically to optimise (to my eye) the apparent detail/sharpness when viewing images, unresized on the screen, at that 1300 pixels high.
You may also notice that my invertebrate images are very often side on or top down, or close; this helps make best use of the limited DOF available.
Moreover, I have to crop significantly in order to magnify the subject and that introduces a lot of noise. I look at your ant image below and i am thinking that is a lot sharper and the DOF much wider than what I have been able to accomplish with the X-T2 and the R250. Did you crop your ant shot at all?
Here are the crops used for those examples, including the ant.
I generally reckon that if I fill the frame with the subject I'm not going to have enough DOF for my taste (for some reason I keep doing it though, although I know at the time that it's probably not going to work. Odd). Almost all of my invertebrate images are cropped (unlike with lower magnification botanical shots, which I tend to use close to the original framing; for me different considerations apply for flowers etc and DOF coverage of the subject is not the dominant issue it is for me with invertebrates).
Especially with smaller subjects I tend to crop as much as I can while the image quality remains just better than unacceptable. It is a delicate balance, and a matter of personal taste as to what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable. I know my standards have changed over time. Looking back over my invertebrate images I'm not comfortable with the quality of a lot of them, probably most of them, and sometimes I go back and reprocess some using my latest software and workflow, which can sometimes improve matters somewhat.
You mention the FZ200 and that I should be able to get even closer with it. Is that a function of the sensor or some other feature?
I simplified a bit. Here is a longer version.
The FZ200 goes to a longer full frame equivalent focal length (600mm) than the FZ50 (420mm) and it has a smaller sensor (6.17mm wide) than the FZ50 (7.14mm wide). This means that at maximum zoom with a given close-up lens you can fill the frame with a smaller scene using the FZ200 than with the FZ50. However, you can go smaller by using a more powerful close-up lens or combination of close-up lenses.
For example, If I am using a Raynox 150 (it doesn't matter what camera and lens we are talking about here) and want to capture a smaller scene I can switch to the Raynox 250. If that doesn't get me small enough I can switch to a more powerful close-up lens such as the Raynox 202. Alternatively I can use a Raynox 150 and 250 together, or two 250s, both of which combinations go smaller than the Raynox 250 but not as small as the 202. There is a lot of overlap between the scene sizes you can cover with different close-up lenses singly and in combination so it is a matter of convenience/habit/what lenses you have available as to what close-up lens arrangement to use.
So, you can go smaller with the FZ50, just not with the same close-up lens as on an FZ200. And if you have a single close-up lens, such as the Raynox 250, you can capture smaller scenes with the FZ200 than with the FZ50.
Below are a couple of my ant shots as well to give you a sense of what i have been able to accomplish with the X-T2.. In all fairness I have only had 2 outings in which i focused on ants and could probably do much better.
I find ants very tricky and I have very high failure rates. I don't have exact numbers on this, but one in ten to twenty working out well enough to want to use might be in the ball park. It depends, for example on how much the ant is moving around. The ones I find are quite often scampering around, pausing only very briefly from time to time. It is a challenge just keeping them within the frame - I keep losing them - let alone focusing on them. They tend to be on foliage too rather than solid surfaces, so there can be the motion in the breeze of what they are on complicating things too.
Sometimes things drop into place and the success rate can be much higher, but not often. And to be honest I don't try photographing ants very often anyway; they are a bit too difficult for my taste and patience.
It also depends on the size of the ant of course. The ones I see seem quite small to me, but I don't really have any idea what other sizes of ants there are that you might come across. I suspect there are some rather larger ones. There may well be much smaller ones for all I know.
After just two outings with ants I think you are doing rather well.
I'm still concerned not to lead you down the path of using different kit because that may not lead to the improvements you are looking for. Do bear in mind that I get similar results whatever of my kit I use, indeed results that are indistinguishable to my eye. Below I've reposted nine examples captured with nine different cameras over the course of 12 years, some captured as JPEG, some raw, all reprocessed recently. I have removed the Exif data. In this context you might find it helpful to see if you can identify which ones used the smaller sensors. That may in turn provide some additional context for your decision-making about using alternative kit, or not.
Thanks again for your huge effort!
It's a pleasure. Even though lately I've not actually been capturing or processing any images I do still enjoy discussing this stuff.
.........
Nine example images, 2007 to 2019, using the following nine cameras, in no particular order. For this exercise (a little while ago) I produced the images 1150 pixels high; I don't recall why I chose that height.
1.2.3" bridge cameras: Canon S3is, SX10is, Panasonic FZ200, FZ330
Micro four thirds cameras: Panasonic G3, G5, G80, G9
APS-C camera: Canon 70D
