After yesterday's post about artificial lens blur using Photoshop, I decided to deploy the 500mm f/4 (set at f/5.6) with the motion trigger today to get some real lens blur. The good news is it worked. That bad news is the depth of field is so shallow that some other images that would have been better than this were out of focus. Any bird at the front of the bath and a small bird at the back of the bath is out of focus. And with the 1D's 1.3x crop, the field of view is a bit too tight with the long lens. In four of these images where the tail is off the screen, it wasn't cropped that way by choice. But these are good examples of real lens blur.
After collecting the first five images shown here, I swapped out the 1D for the 5D, which is a 1.0x crop vs. 1.3x, gave me a little more tail room without moving the lens. But it's still not as much as I want. Also, I bumped the aperture up to f/8, which will make a very slight difference in depth of field. Next time I shoot with the 500, I will take a few more steps back OR focus on the left edge.
Looking at the images that were not in focus, I spotted a female flicker lurking in the background (no red slash on chin). Hopefully she steps up and gives me the chance to get a portrait.
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