liquidstone

The sharpest lens I ever shot is my 400 2.8 IS (I've used an 800 5.6L, a 600 f4 IS I and II, a 500 f4 IS and several copies of the 300 2.8 IS). I've owned and used extensively the 400 2.8 IS and ...

AF slows down a bit with a 1.4x III on the 7D II + 400 DO II, but it's still fast enough for fast action. Here's an 8-frame burst using a 1.4x III at a raptor dive-fishing . With a 2x III, the ...

I'm not an expert in vector graphics but I believe the earth's surface features are too complex to be represented efficiently in polygons, nodes and points.

Yup. And this is only the consumer grade GE which is available to the public. I'd imagine the major military organizations have even higher res earth images.

Thanks for giving me a great idea on how to approximate it, Flakey! Here's my math: 1. I zoomed in at a Google Earth typical high-res image until the resolution looks similar to that of a 100% crop ...

I  just noticed recently that Google Earth's resolution has improved dramatically. Anybody has an estimate how large (in pixels) is the current composite Google Earth image? :-)

VF - viewfinder. Of course, this method works for me, but YMMV. :-D

Thanks, Steve! I've used only two big whites that can do well with a 4x TC at moonshoots - my 400 DO II and 400 2.8 IS. My previous 500 f4 IS can handle only up to 2.8x TC, any additional TCs yield ...

7D + 100-400 IS + Canon 2x TC, 800 mm, f/13, 1/25 sec, ISO 100, 475B/3421 support The 100-400 II with its improved optics should get one much better.

Thanks! Your combo should be able to capture a good one on a clear night. :)

The 400 DO II is among the sharpest lenses I've used - as sharp or very nearly as sharp as my 400 2.8 IS, and sharper than my previous 500 f4 IS.

Seeing conditions were not so bad over our islands early this morning, so I dug out my doublers to try out the 400 DO II at mooning. Live View CD AF on the 7D2 surprisingly works fairly fast even ...

Thanks for the detailed summary. I tried using my old DTP94 on a Windows 10 laptop via a similar approach and it works. :)

Nice to hear from you, Chris! I've been busy with non-birding things for a while, but lately I'm finding more time to go birding. :-)

TCs are my anti-aliasing palliative too - a beneficial side effect in wanting to get a longer reach via TCs. I hope Canon comes out with a FW for cropped video with the 7D II. That would allow a ...

I tried 'overclocking' my 400 DO II to 1600 mm by stacking a 2x II and a 2x III behind it, mainly for FHD video. VQ is still very decent. Here's a thread at FM where I posted samples. :-)

Thanks, Doug. I still have my old 400 5.6L, and at BIFs with busy BG, I prefer to use it bare for maximum AF speed. At static birds and using a tripod, my old 400 is useable up to a 2x TC.

Thanks, Armando, for the kind words. :-)