# How far do you crop your distant birds and my recent thoughts on fine tune



## coastalconn (Apr 5, 2013)

Awhile ago I posted a thread about lack of sharpness at a distance.  I've found my answer finally, but it's not an easy solution.  Up close my lens is pretty good at neutral fine tune.  I've come to the conclusion that at 500mm I need someplace between +7 and +10 to get sharper images.  I confirmed this in real life today and with the old brick wall test.  

These shots in the past would have just been a blurry mess...  Osprey flying directly at me with a background that is confusing to the camera.  They are pretty close to 100% crops I think.  I know they are not perfect, but I am thrilled to get "useable" images from this distance.  My lens considers 89 meters infinity so this is well over 270 feet...

For the long range wildlife shooters, how far do you crop when you shoot birds at a distance?  Anyone want to play and show me some before and afters?  I'm thinking my lens is doing pretty good now but it would be cool to see some comparisons..

Just so you have an idea of the range, the first one is uncropped (sorry for the crooked horizon, I don't pay much attention when I'm tracking birds...)




Here is the cropped version from the above image.  I did a background noise reduction.  I shoot a D300 so I have a much lower resolution than some of you...



Osprey incoming 3 by krisinct, on Flickr

And the next frame...



Osprey incoming 2 by krisinct, on Flickr


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## cgipson1 (Apr 5, 2013)

With the D800, I have sometimes cropped to 100%.  I usually try to never crop more than about 30% if possible, but I haven't been shooting wildlife that much lately. It usually requires more cropping.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...l-size-100-crop-70-200-2-8-vrii-handheld.html


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## coastalconn (Apr 5, 2013)

Thanks Charlie!  The D800 has some incredible resolution!  I was hoping some of the birders would post some shots also.  I thought it might be a good discussion thread.  Looks like a bunch of people viewed the thread but no one else felt like chiming in...


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## baturn (Apr 5, 2013)

I have no help for you,sorry, but I have a question- what is this fine tune you speak of? I have a D300s. Is it in the manual? I don't shoot birds
at great distances because I thought it just wasn't possible to get good focus out that far. Lens is Sigma 150 - 500.


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## dbvirago (Apr 5, 2013)

This one was at 200mm on a crop sensor. It is a bit soft, but it's my only non duck/goose BIF, so I'll take it for now


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## shefjr (Apr 5, 2013)

baturn said:


> I have no help for you,sorry, but I have a question- what is this fine tune you speak of? I have a D300s. Is it in the manual? I don't shoot birds
> at great distances because I thought it just wasn't possible to get good focus out that far. Lens is Sigma 150 - 500.


Page 312 of your owners manual explains where your fine tune is. I have and have used the AF fine tune to dial in my sigma 150-500


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## shefjr (Apr 5, 2013)

Kris, even though I had my lens "married" to my camera, I still have it AF tuned to -6 to -10. I have found it makes my images look much crisper when the images are at a distance. I have an image of 2 eagles that were 450+ feet away and are fairly crisp with 100% crop. I don't have anything to compare the older images with though because I have gotten in the habit of immediately deleting unusable images. I should also mention that my distance subjects are all stationary unlike your bif images.

Pout of curiosity, how do you go about adjusting in the field? I feel like chimping the back of the camera is not nearly as goodie easy as looking at it on my laptop. 

You have really clean crisp shots. I still think that lens outshines the sigma. Than again, it could just be my own operator error.


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## SCraig (Apr 5, 2013)

coastalconn said:


> Thanks Charlie!  The D800 has some incredible resolution!  I was hoping some of the birders would post some shots also.  I thought it might be a good discussion thread.  Looks like a bunch of people viewed the thread but no one else felt like chiming in...



Sorry, been one of those days.  I saw this earlier but had no time to say anything.

I crop mine as much as it needs to get rid of extraneous junk.  Sometimes it costs more resolution than I'm willing to give up so I junk it.  From a numeric standpoint I honestly have no idea what percentage it is.  I'd say about the most I ever crop is around 50% but I've never really paid it any attention.  These two are probably about as far as I ever go:











I've never checked my 150-500 to see if it's autofocusing properly or not.  I get sharp shots from it so I honestly don't worry about it.  That shot above is from 60 meters across a small lake.


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## matthewo (Apr 5, 2013)

i guess it depends on if its just for a med. resolution web file,  or for printing or publication.

usually with a d800 and NR and sharpening.  for websized i can get away with some pretty extreme cropping if its a sharp in focus photo.

if its for printing.  i almost want full frame, cause i print 13x19 for my portfolio


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## matthewo (Apr 5, 2013)

matthewo said:


> i guess it depends on if its just for a med. resolution web file,  or for printing or publication.
> 
> usually with a d800 and NR and sharpening.  for websized i can get away with some pretty extreme cropping if its a sharp in focus photo.
> 
> if its for printing.  i almost want full frame, cause i print 13x19 for my portfolio



btw,  i know guys who own and can afford a d4 but own and use a d800 for wildlife


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## coastalconn (Apr 5, 2013)

I'm glad everyone is chiming in.  This could be a really helpful thread for some people!  Maybe we can help get Baturn's lens fine tuned!
@dbvirago  Looks like you were really close!


shefjr said:


> out of curiosity, how do you go about adjusting in the field? I feel like chimping the back of the camera is not nearly as goodie easy as looking at it on my laptop.


My biggest problem was my lens seemed so good close up, I assumed it was just the lens.  I did try fine tuning between -5 and +5 but didn't seem to make any difference.  Their are so many "scientific" ways you can google.  I had a moment of clarity when I was looking at a brick chimney about 300 feet away.  I have my d-pad set to 100% zoom.  I decided to play.  Took a shoot at 0 then +10 when I zoomed in I was like holy crap!


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## KmH (Apr 5, 2013)

coastalconn said:


> *How far do you crop your distant birds*



As much as I think is necessary.

500 mm, about 200 feet away


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## Aloicious (Apr 5, 2013)

I try to fine tune my lenses especially the superteles, I don't change the fine tune settings in the field though, I usually just do some tests in a controlled environment at a few distances, get what works best for the range I typically shoot at, and set it, and forget it. I tried the FoCal fine tune software but it rarely gave any consistent results, I wasn't very happy with it, I get better results either with the ruler method, or the green dot method, the green dot is more helpful for slower lenses where you can't get that clear cut shallow DOF. 

here's a question for you that use Teleconverters though, I was recently fine tuning a few of my lenses with my only TC (the 1.7x). and getting some strange results I'm wondering if its normal....so with my 3002.8, the bare lens needs a -8 to be spot on perfect....with the teleconverter it needs +10, which is an increase of +18 from the bare lens...okay I expected the TC to require a good amount of correction, most of them are like that from what I hear....now the strange thing is that when using the same TC on a different lens, the correction is radically different, on my 600, the bare lens needs +4....okay....but with the TC it needs -4....so a difference of -8, completely the opposite direction that the same TC/body needed with the 3002.8....now I know the tolerances between bodies/lenses/converters/etc are specific to each combination, but when using the same body and TC, I would expect the correction required to be a similar, at least in the same direction (+ or -)....anyone ever seen something like that before? is that odd, or am I just thinking about it incorrectly?

cropping amount depends on the shot, with the d800 I can get pretty extreme in cropping and still maintain a decent resolution, so that is very helpful when its needed, I've gone to 100% with a good clean starting image, but I don't like cropping that far if I don't have to. I like some good headroom with the resolution so if I end up printing or something, I have some leeway to work with. most of the wildlife images I've taken recently have been cropped in the 30-50% range. sorry I don't have access to any examples at the moment, I'm stuck at my second job right now.


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## matthewo (Apr 6, 2013)

sorry have not had the time to af fine tune my new lens and tc,  but doing a few quick test shots on angled text show that it looks like its pretty close to perfect by itself.

the problem i have with fine tune, is what do i optimize it for.  i take photos of distant large birds near infinity and also small birds near min. focusing distance, and there seems to be a decent difference between the two


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## Aloicious (Apr 6, 2013)

what kind of difference are you getting between the different distances? there isn't a HUGE difference between a few points on the AF fine tune, sometimes you need to choose a happy medium, kindof like tuning a zoom


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## PropilotBW (Apr 6, 2013)

Here's a pic of a Northern Flicker I caught in my backyard.  The bird was about 150' away. This is cropped over 75%, shot with a 200mm on the D5100.  
Clearly there are some limitations of my lens. 
...I'm in the market for a longer reach!


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## coastalconn (Apr 6, 2013)

I'm starting to suspect fine tuning at a long distance has far more impact than near MFD.  I was shooting my songbirds all winter someplace between 0 and +3.  I don't remember exactly.  But this morning I was shooting at +8 for my Ospreys.  When I got home this Chickadee just had a nice pose in the sun.  So even at +8 up close I think it is still looking good...




Chickadee by krisinct, on Flickr


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## bc_steve (Apr 6, 2013)

Ideally I would be close enough/have enough reach so that I wouldn't have to do any cropping, but that is rarely the case unfortunately.  Usually I just crop an image as much as I feel is needed and then let that limit what I will use the image for.

I find it useful to keep an uncropped or less cropped .PSD file just in case.  I don't know of a way to crop an image as a non-destructive edit, and if you do end up needing particular dimensions or need to include a little more background to increase the pixel count a bit for printing or something you would need to start over with the RAW file.

I have examples of really cropped pictures and others I haven't really cropped at all, but I'm not sure if it would help anyone out to see them.  I took a few pics today of a hawk that we keep seeing when we take the dogs for a run that we would like to try to identify.  I have them cropped down to 100% and it doesn't look that great, but they are pretty useful for identification purposes.  (we think we may have a rough-legged hawk but the identification is inconclusive ...)

coastalconn, a zoom lens will most likely require a different AF Fine Tune value at different focal lengths (and different apertures I believe) so it is best to calibrate it to how you shoot most regularly.  For this reason, AF Fine Tune works best for primes.  I think it's a case of the more you know your lens, the better.  I am impressed with the sharpness that you are getting out of your Tamron @ 500mm by the way.  I am hoping to upgrade my telephoto in the next year and you are making a case for those long zoom lenses ...


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## baturn (Apr 6, 2013)

Great thread! Thanks to Shefjr for info on manual.


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## SCraig (Apr 6, 2013)

bc_steve said:


> I find it useful to keep an uncropped or less cropped .PSD file just in case.*  I don't know of a way to crop an image as a non-destructive edit,* and if you do end up needing particular dimensions or need to include a little more background to increase the pixel count a bit for printing or something you would need to start over with the RAW file.


Nikon Capture NX2 does a non-destructive crop.  NOTHING that software does to a file is destructive unless the file is saved and overwritten.  The file can be saved as a RAW file with a different name and all the editing steps are saved, however any and all steps can be unchecked to disable them.


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## shefjr (Apr 7, 2013)

coastalconn said:


> My biggest problem was my lens seemed so good close up, I assumed it was just the lens.  I did try fine tuning between -5 and +5 but didn't seem to make any difference.  Their are so many "scientific" ways you can google.  I had a moment of clarity when I was looking at a brick chimney about 300 feet away.  I have my d-pad set to 100% zoom.  I decided to play.  Took a shoot at 0 then +10 when I zoomed in I was like holy crap!



For most of my close up shots I still have it fine tuned, even since having it married to my camera. I actually did the "scientific" test on my lens prior to sending it in to Sigma and that is what prompted me to call them and inevitably send it in. I am happier with it than I was though that is for sure. I feel like I'm getting much more consistent results.
As for chimping in the field, for me I guess I just don't feel like I'm able to really view the back of my camera well enough to make the af adjustment. Even zooming in. 
Baturn, glad I could help!:thumbup:

This is my eagle shot that I was talking about where is was 126m or 413feet away. I'm fairly happy with the results.



Eagles with their nest in the background by Shefjr, on Flickr


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## matthewo (Apr 10, 2013)

forgot to post this one,

View attachment 41972

for web this works fine, of course not print worthy.  of and that's 700mm with a bird not very far away, warblers are small man


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