Photoblographer will no longer review DSLR’s

signgrap wrote:Dan you should bear in mind that the ability to auto focus BIF (action AF) with a mirrorless camera is a very recent capability that is only a year or two old.  In addition the long lenses needed for BIF are also are recent additions, at least for Sony.  Olympus has had long lenses for a while but have lacked the fast AF needed for BIF.  This the reason you see a small percentage of BIF images made with mirrorless cameras. [snip]

What are you talking about Olympus does not have the fast AF needed for BIF? Of course it has and I can prove it

Like I said before, there's no need to get into mirrorless now. Things will just get better and better so why the hurry especially if BIF is important to you? But then, if I am brand new to photography, have no camera, knowing what I know, I'd like will get a mirrorless today.

Shooting sports are easier. You don't need as fast an AF as it's needed for shooting BIF. Human beings move slower and they're bigger than birds and so easier for the AF to lock on. Racing cars are fast but they're also bigger than a flying sparrow.

Gary Irwin wrote:

Dan Kearl wrote:If Mirrorless is so good and the future its now, how come I never see BIF images from them?
Just peruse this site or others and you do not see good BIF shots done with mirrorless cameras...
Where are they?

I think the evidence is there...I've seen some BIF shots from the Sony A9 that IMO no DSLR could ever capture. Look for a guy named "Arbitrage" over on the FM Sony forum. Notwithstanding the new Canon 1DXIII and Nikon D6, it's clear to me that the future belongs to mirrorless and computational photography. In terms of the latter just consider what the iPhone 11 can do for both stills and video. In ten years you won't recognize the photography market. I'm sure DSLRs will still be around, but nobody will be talking about them. 

I’ve got a wonderful location not too far from my house to shoot flying ducks. It’s my “acid” test for autofocus capability and I take every new camera I get, there to see how it performs. Until recently I shot an Olympus m1 mark2, and that was the first Olympus camera I’ve used that could sort of do flying ducks. I say “sort of,” because, while it could be used for the task, the number of keepers was not great. In fact, it often could not produce a sharp image with a lone bird against a plain sky background. 
I’ve also tried using the Nikon Z7 and it’s pretty much hopeless, there’s just too much lag and I get few keepers. 
Fast forward to the Sony A9, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. The best success I’ve ever seen with any camera, and that includes cameras like the 1DxM2 from the DSLR world. It’s more you look for how few are not in focus versus looking for the sharp ones. 
I’ve also acquired the A7R4.  I haven’t had much chance on flight yet, but it does well for birds jumping around on perches. 
I also test AF with my dog running straight at the camera and the results mirrored my flying ducks experience. 

True that Olympus does demand more from the photographer is what I found when it comes to shooting BIF. Bright light, fast shutter speeds with the right settings help. Bigger, slower birds are certainly easier to shoot with higher success rates than smaller, faster one. One review I came across suggests that the EM 1X ( I read that people use the airplane mode to shoot birds) is better but I don't have one nor am I planning to get one. Calvin1calvin has it so may be he can share some light on it if he wishes.

Then again, there's always Sony A9. And I have the D500

Here’s a link to an article on using Olympus for BIF:

https://learnandsupport.getolympus.com/ ... hotography

Some of the images are outstanding. Settings are always critical to getting your best image, as with any camera.

Joe

DChan wrote:True that Olympus does demand more from the photographer is what I found when it comes to shooting BIF. Bright light, fast shutter speeds with the right settings help. Bigger, slower birds are certainly easier to shoot with higher success rates than smaller, faster one. One review I came across suggests that the EM 1X ( I read that people use the airplane mode to shoot birds) is better but I don't have one nor am I planning to get one. Calvin1calvin has it so may be he can share some light on it if he wishes.

Then again, there's always Sony A9. And I have the D500

It demands more because it doesn't work as well. It's not it has bad autofocus, just that it's simply not even close to the best tool for BIF. Any camera can be used for any function, and in the right hands, or with enough time spent, it'll produce keepers.
Unfortunately with some cameras, you cull your images looking for the sharp ones first, and other cameras, better suited for BIF, you cull by picking the best wing position, background, etc. then check for sharpness. Or that's at least how I do it with the A9, most are sharp so I don't look at that variable until the second viewing. With the Olympus, I'd started by discarding soft ones, because they made up the majority. But maybe that's just because I used 15fps, and generated a lot of images, who knows.

Scott Fairbairn wrote:

DChan wrote:True that Olympus does demand more from the photographer is what I found when it comes to shooting BIF. Bright light, fast shutter speeds with the right settings help. Bigger, slower birds are certainly easier to shoot with higher success rates than smaller, faster one. One review I came across suggests that the EM 1X ( I read that people use the airplane mode to shoot birds) is better but I don't have one nor am I planning to get one. Calvin1calvin has it so may be he can share some light on it if he wishes.

Then again, there's always Sony A9. And I have the D500

It demands more because it doesn't work as well. It's not it has bad autofocus, just that it's simply not even close to the best tool for BIF. Any camera can be used for any function, and in the right hands, or with enough time spent, it'll produce keepers.
Unfortunately with some cameras, you cull your images looking for the sharp ones first, and other cameras, better suited for BIF, you cull by picking the best wing position, background, etc. then check for sharpness. Or that's at least how I do it with the A9, most are sharp so I don't look at that variable until the second viewing. With the Olympus, I'd started by discarding soft ones, because they made up the majority. But maybe that's just because I used 15fps, and generated a lot of images, who knows.

Well, some camera has better AF than other. Fact of life.

Personally, any image that is not sharp I consider it a failure despite its wing position, head-angle, etc. Any fly-away shot is also a failure in my book unless it's flying towards something interesting like a beautiful sunset. Don't blame me, blame Artie cuz I learned that from him

This took far, far longer than I expected. Was predicting this ever since the first mainstream dSLRs were released around 2000. Mirrorless took forever to arrive and once here it took forever to exceed dSLRs in the autofocus department, but the release of the A9 marked the death-knell of the dSLR use case and now everyone can see that dSLRs will join rangefinders and view cameras in the hobbyist realm shortly.