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Canon SX40HS

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February 26, 2012 12:18 pm

Kingfisher in Late Sun, and other window shots.

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by    in bridge cameras,cameras,Canon Powershot,Canon SX40HS,p&s4wild,superzooms,technique

One of the advantages of today’s long zoom Point & Shoot cameras is their relative speed and ease of use, when compared to either a digiscoping rig, or a conventional DSLR long lens combo. The Canon SX40HS I use is tiny compared to either, and rides securely in the passenger seat while driving loops at places like Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Bosque del Apache, or even Viera Wetlands (a municipal wetlands…settlement ponds…designed for birding). It is up and in my hand and pointed out the window of the car quicker than I can write this sentence.

And, with the useful digital tel-extender function putting you out at 1240-1680mm equivalent fields of view, you have the reach to capture many birds without getting out of the car.

That is the only way (in my experience) to catch at Kingfisher at any reasonable distance at Merritt Island. Kingfishers on Black Point Wildlife Drive are skittish to say the least. Only once have I ever successfully gotten out of the car to set up my digiscoping rig before the bird was off down the channel, or up over the mangroves and out of site.

This bird was perched on the far side of the water channel next to the road just beyond the eagle nest station. I pulled up beside it, rolled down the window on the passenger side (thank you for electric windows!) got the Canon SX40HS up and got off a burst of 6 shots before she took flight. The light was amazing. The distance was reasonable. I could not have done it with either a digiscoping rig or a long lens (unless I had the long lens mounted on a window mount and ready to go).

This is another out-the-window shot, this time on the driver’s side. The bird was right below the car, at the edge of pond, up against the dyke. As you see if you look closely I was shooting down through grasses, reeds, and even a small mangrove bush. The bird was feeding actively, never still. It got so close I backed off on the 1240mm equivalent full optical zoom and 1.5x digital tel-extender would have given me to shoot at about 1000mm equivalent.

This Great Egret was at the foot of the dyke at Viera Wetlands on the driver’s side. Again, I pulled up, pointed the Canon SX40HS at full optical (840mm equivalent), and shot point blank. It does not get any better than that.

Same drill on these White Ibis (2nd shot is an immature) a bit further around the loop.

Finally here is a comparison shot of the view out the passenger window at Merritt Island. The first is at 42mm equivalent, so it is about what the naked eye would see. The second is at 230mm equivalent. They were taken within seconds of each other. Not possible with any other kind of camera. Superzooms rule!

At least they rule the window shot.

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February 6, 2012 6:51 am

White Ibis Feeding. What P&S4Wildlife is all about.

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by    in bridge cameras,cameras,Canon SX40HS,p&s4wild,superzooms,technique

Looking through my images from the Space Coast Birding Festival, I don’t have many shots of White Ibis. In fact, in retrospect, I didn’t see a lot of White Ibis: maybe a half a dozen birds total, scattered widely in the ponds at Black Point Drive. Other years they have been more abundant…but they are never present in the numbers of say, the Great and Snowy Egrets.

This mostly backlit shot is a good example of how implicitly I have come to rely on the exposure systems and dynamic range (enhanced as it often is, an is here, by special in-camera processing)  in today’s digital cameras…cuppled, of course, with the post processing available in programs like PhotoShop and Lightroom. Not so long ago, and certainly back in the days of slide film, this would have been a very tricky exposure, especially with the birds in constant motion. Today I just frame and shoot. To me that is the essence of the Point and Shoot method. Let the camera do what it is good at…exposure…focus…white-balance…and stay concentrated on the behavior of the subject, or the changing light on the landscape, and make full use of the zoom framing tools today’s cameras provide.

The other thing that pops out here it the forgiving depth of field of today’s superzoom cameras. We have here the framing of a 1240mm lens on a full frame DSLR (840mm optical zoom, plus the Canon’s unique 1.5x digital tel-extender), yet the depth of field of 150mm lens. The extended depth of field of a superzoom can be a problem with macro and close up shots…but at the telephoto end it is a real blessing. To achieve this effect with a conventional DSLR and a long lens, you would probably need focus stacking…multiple images taken with different focus points and digitally combined for greater depth of field…which of course would be pretty difficulty with subjects moving rapidly across the field, like the Ibi.

Canon SX40HS as above. f5.8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 125. Program with iContrast (for the dynamic range enhancement I was talking about) and –1/3EV exposure compensation (my standard setting for this camera).

Processed for intensity, clarity, and sharpness, with some fill light to further open shadows, in Lightroom.

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October 29, 2011 1:09 pm

1680mm handheld? Canon SX40HS makes it possible!

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by    in Canon Powershot,Canon SX40HS,p&s4wild,wildlife

I have covered the use of superzoom Point and Shoots for wildlife, and birds in particular, in some detail not too long ago, in a two part article…the second part of which focused on small birds…warblers in particular. (See…Wicked Warblers.) Warblers, kinglets, sparrows and the other small passerines are not easy to photograph at the best of times. I have had some success with my digiscoping rig when birds are resting or feeding in a predictable pattern, but for most small birds you need something faster. Most people carry a DSLR with 300mm f2.8 or one of the 100-300mm or 100-400mm zooms…and then crop heavily to get image scale and fill (what is left of) the frame. I carry an advanced P&S with a long zoom.

Over on my Point and Shoot 4 Landscape site, I have detailed my latest superzoom, the Canon SX40HS (in comparison to my previous superzoom, the Nikon P500). The Canon is a clear advance in image quality over any other existing superzoom (with the possible exception of the Panasonic FZ150 which is also getting good reviews) and I am loving it for general photography. This weekend I had a chance to give it a workout as a Point and Shoot 4 Wildlife camera.

The shot above was taken at full zoom on the SX40HS. That is 840mm optical. But Canon has built in a digital tel-extender…not to be confused with any incarnation of digital zoom you have experienced in the past. The Canon DTE is not continuous…it can only be set to 1.5x or 2x, but, through the magic of the new Digic 5 processor and the super fast Back-Illuminated CMOS sensor, Canon has managed to nurse pretty amazing image quality out of the system. As you see above the DTE goes well beyond simply blowing up the pixels.

So, the shot was taken with 2x DTE on, which gives it the equivalent field of view of a 1680mm lens! Here is another shot, taken when the bird was a foot closer.

At any normal display or print size this shot looks pretty fine. At full resolution, viewed 1 to 1 pixels on the screen you can easily see the digital artifacts. What is interesting is that they disappear totally in normal viewing. Canon has calculated very well for human perception and matched the output at reasonable sizes to what we want to see.

Now, consider that the top image is at ISO 320, and the bottom image, which is more bird and less background, is at ISO 640. And, further, consider that both are handheld…at 1680mm, the first at 1/200th and the second at 1/400th. Between the super efficient image processing in the Digic 5 engine, and the amazing hybrid image stabilization system in the Canon lens, you can achieve some amazing results.

Here is a House Wren at 1.5x DTE plus full optical.

and a Catbird at the same settings.

All these shots are in Programmed Auto, with iContrast and auto focus. I keep continuous auto focus on and set the focus frame to the smallest rectangle in the Flexfocus setting. The SX40HS will lock on focus very quickly almost every time. Though I have not had much chance to try it…it will even lock on flying birds. This Osprey was at regular 840mm optical zoom, and then cropped slightly for image scale.

And of course the Canon SX40HS works on non-feathered wildlife too.

1.5x DTE.

2x DTE.

Yes, you might say I am having fun with the SX40HS. Great camera for landscpes. Great camera for macro. Great camera for wildlife and birds.

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