4/6/2010
Chipmunk
Not many birds singing yet in our Maine forests, in this case at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, but the Chipmunks, fully awake and hungry after the winter, are attempting to make up for it. Their high piercing calls are the sound of spring in the Maine woods, as sure as the peepers are in wet pastures. This little guy, uncharacteristically, posed on this pile of downed branches for long enough for me to get off a couple of shots at different focal lengths. Such a privilege. 🙂
So far I have employed the long end of the Canon SX20IS zoom mostly in macro mode, for long distance macros (long in this case being “over 3 feet”). It does have a 560mm equivalent field of view though, which puts birds and small critters just within reach. For this shot, I actually zoomed past the 20x mark and added a small amount of digital zoom: 30x for a 840mm equivalent field of view. Comparisons with a shot at 20x show that the detail held up very well, and I am able to achieve a larger image scale with this shot, especially with judicious cropping. The shot is also at ISO 200 and I am certainly pleased with the lack of noise. Not bad.
But of course, the image is all about cute!
Canon SX20IS at 840mm equivalent (20x optical plus a small digital boost). F5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the highlights on the wood, Blackpoint just slightly right, added Clarity and a smidge of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
beautiful shot!!
Very nice one !
Great shot. I’ll have to turn the digital zoom on on my SX20.
The digital zoom has its limits clearly! But I am finding that the Canon SX20IS is the first camera where I will actually use it. I wish some maker would implement a digital zoom which crops on the sensor, rather than interpolating fake pixels. With a 12mp sensor that would allow you to shoot at 2x you zooms max and still have 6 clean mp to work with!
Gorgeous – I LOVE the maple blooms! We have a maple in our front yard ~ they don’t last long ~ but they are lovely!!