Detail from the 50-150mm f/2 on an A1 II

[AlphaWorld]

This is more of a "I didn't expect that" post than anything else.

I was trying (again) to photograph Welcome Swallows flying, using the 50-150 (my fastest zoom) on an A1 II (for detail). Mostly an exercise in frustration, because the 50-150 isn't long enough.

I got this shot of one perched (same place as a shot I posted in Birds Not in Flight using the 400-800).

Shot at 150mm on the 50-150, wide open at f/2 (lovely background separation), at 1/2000, ISO 640 on the A1 II.

Not an awful shot, but not particularly special. OK, after posting the next shot, I think this IS an awful shot

But this is the full frame of that shot:

That image is a crop of 1500 pixels square (2.25Mp) out of a 50Mp frame. Definitely an extreme crop. I was surprised by the level of detail in that, and thought you might find it interesting.

 

[AlphaWorld]

Digging further through my images from the day, here's an example of how I SHOULD have shot this

The same bird (I believe) on the same stick (definitely), but this time a much more modest crop from a longer (but less expensive!) lens.

Shot using the 400-800 G at 400mm, f/8, on the A9 III at 1/2000, ISO 12800 (denoise applied, but affected the background much more than foreground). You can see the full frame after the crop, so you can judge the crop.

I'd say it's pretty clear that the longer lens is definitely to be preferred over a ridiculous crop. But hey, you already knew that