Kicking off this year's odds and sods with Starlings in a rainbow on that extreme rarity: sunshine.
It was early morning, with the sun barely cresting the tree line. We were able to get out for our morning walk as it wasn't raining. This photo is my trusty Canon 80D and Sigma 18-300mm lens zoomed in at 300mm.
Pulling back a bit.
And finally all the way back.
Oh, 2024 got off to a good start with this.
So far my cat, perhaps two neighbouring cats visiting our garden, a local fox and Tawny owl, and this trap have accounted for at least five of the beasties. Sightings of rats in our garden are getting rarer, so I think I'm winning. Two rather timid and wary rats, that I know of, are proving more elusive to catch. I've resorted to buying a lethal trap. The trap was triggered, yesterday, but no rat, sadly. Though a mouse might have triggered it, and was small enough to be within the kill bar.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
You are an absolute hero, BD. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to investigate this for me.
After your post, well in the evening when I got back, I tried using DPP-4's RAW burst extraction tool. I extracted a single image, produced a CR3 file, opened it in FireStone (my favourite - i.e. free - software editing tool) and saw that the image size had been reduced to 25% of original.
After your report, I was now a little bit suspicious of this alleged image size, so I opened the photo in Photos - I think MS photos. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Photos said the image size was 6984x4660 pixels - what it is supposed to be. I could even zoom in a long way, showing the extracted image was full size.
The culprits appear to be DPP-4 and the R7's in camera extraction tools. These tools encode CR3 files in slightly different ways.
The R7's extraction tool encodes CR3 files in such a way that FireStone can open them with their original size.
DPP-4's extraction tool encodes CR3 files in a slightly different manner such that FireStone thinks the image size is a quarter that of the original.
I then thought I'd try editing an extracted file in DPP-4. The image was the original size, 6984x4660 pixels! I could now zoom in, crop, adjust, save as JPG, etc. However, I don't like DPP-4. It's slow, unwieldy, quite illogical, and both a memory hog with memory leaks.
To make matters worse. I thought the extraction tool would allow people to extract a set range of images from a burst roll. Indeed it does, but it simplly creates another burst roll !!! Which simply puts us in the same boat again - can't get the images out of a roll.
The only good things about using DPP-4's extraction tool over the in-camera extraction tool are a) I can see a much, much larger image (the camera's LCD is small), and b) the process is less tedious. Once I have extracted images, I can then use DPP-4's batch functionality to convert all the CR3 images into JPG images, and then edit the JPGs in FireStone.
Canon IT really need to get their heads examined and design a decent piece of software.
Once again, eternal thanks for your help in this matter.
Some further images to show that CRAW burst is useful, if a little tedious.
Angus M said:You are an absolute hero, BD. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to investigate this for me.
You're very welcome Angus, I like to help out when I can. I think the Pre-Shooting feature like other features, needs practice, but it is such a faff from setting up to getting the picture you want on your pc screen, I for one haven't put the effort in. I also think that one of the essentials is a fast shutter speed, because if you are using this feature you are probably expecting something to move quickly. I have never tried any of the in camera extraction or RAW conversion tools, I like to work on my desktop pc with a 27" monitor, (it's the old eyes yer know!) I normally shoot in RAW and JPG, download using the cable, then delete what I don't want. As I have said before I find RAW editing a laborious task, but it can be useful to save an otherwise rubbish shot if necessary or sometimes to improve on a particularly good shot. But most times I delete the RAW file after a quick look through on my pc ...
Mmmm Tesco Multiseed. And it's all mine ...
A few from the last few days. Up on the moors and in the local valley.
Fab variety Bob, thanks for sharing
Thanks PB. Quiet on the moors but will get busy soon. Struggled a bit with the camera even though the light has been great. I'm thinking possibly too bright although I'm no expert..
A very nice selection Bob, I do like you owl.
Great selection Bob, good to see Mrs K!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Stunning photos and hard to choose a favourite but the Little Owl does make me smile !! What brilliant sightings Bob, thanks for sharing.
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Regards, Hazel
The Stonechats were keen to say hello on The Malverns, today. Always a pleasure to see them