Puzzling double image/reflection with Canon EOS R

[nardes]

Here is a photo of an Australian Grebe in deep shade and backlit with a low sun, taken with the Canon EOS R, Canon 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 L IS Mk II with a shoe mounted Canon Speedlite 600EX RT in HSS Mode.

SS=1/800 sec, F9, ISO800 at 400mm focal length. The bird was darting around and diving quickly, hence the 1/800 sec as 1/640 and lower produced a blurred result.

Notice the “real” smaller dark shadow which I assume is the natural shadow from the low sun behind the bird, then there is the fainter, semi-transparent outline shadow, almost a mirror reflection of the outline of the bird overlaid by OOF highlights in the water.

Weird to say the least – is this some kind of High Speed Sync artefact from the on-camera Speedlite?

Note the AF missed the bird’s head.

Cheers

Dennis

[arthurking83]

I'd say it's the true reflection of the water surface(more than likely) .. can't say for sure, but that's what it appears to be.
Assumption tho, is that there are floaties on the water that give the rendering.

So to describe my thinking:
Dark shaded part of the reflection minimises the effect of the floaties on the water, so render a clearer reflection of the birds neck area.
Where the birds shadow isn't on the water, the water's normal reflection is affected by the floaties creating the sparkling effect.
There is at least one anomaly area on the water reflection, from the brids left wing(what we see on the RHS) up to its head, a weird wobbly line, but it's easy to assume that some turbulent stuff in the floaties on the water.

I reckon an interesting image too, considering all the elements in play here .. but then again, I say that being a sucker for interesting elements in an image.
eg. an interesting abstract image proposition, crop the image from bottom edge to a line where the physical bird is removed, and just leave the reflection/shadow showing, then invert it 180°.

Of course I could be totally wrong in what I reckon has happened and it could well be a strange HSS thing, but I'm not seeing it.

[nardes]

Thank you for your analysis and reply Arthur, I appreciate it.

After looking at other similar images in the series, the semi-transparent reflection is almost indiscernible when the water around the bird is disturbed as it paddles about. It only becomes more prominent when the bird is stationary, with the calmer water then acting like a mirror to reflect the light back from the shoe mounted Speedlite.

Some quite unusual lighting conditions with the low sun, sometimes back-lit and the bird darting around then remaining still.

Thanks also for the alternate view suggestion, I will have a go and post the result later, could be quite interesting.

Cheers

Dennis

[tandeejay]

I wonder... is the surface of the water quite smooth, and all the sparkly reflections are from small leafed water plants just below the surface? Then the birds shadow blocks the sunlight from reflecting off the sparkly below the surface objects so you see the clear reflection from the smooth surface, and where you see the birds reflection in the sparkly parts, the reflection is still off the smooth water surface, but it is partially obscured by the sparkly reflections from the below the surface objects?

[nardes]

Hi John

The location was in deep shade, early morning with a low sun behind the general scene. The water was very clear, you could easily see the legs/paddles of the Grebe as it fought to stay down whilst searching for breakfast. Grebes can be very active and this one was darting around like an out of control rocket ship, with bursts of inactivity before setting off again and it kept moving into then out of the sun, so I grabbed a few shots under quite different lighting conditions.

On some of them, the water looks very transparent but on those where the Grebe was in line-of-sight of the BG sun, the water was alive with these specular reflections.

I had to use a fast shutter as on the sunlit shots, the Grebe's movement blurred at anything less than 1/800 sec, so I decided to use the High Speed Sync setting but the Speedlite did not always keep, up so I missed several shots.

It now makes complete sense that on the strongly back lit shots, you should be able to see both a shortened, dark shadow of the bird from the BG sun, along with a font reflected image from the Speedlite, especially when the bird and water were both still, with the lake then acting like a mirror when the angle was just right.

Cheers

Dennis

PS - for Arthur - here is the rotated abstract shot, quite an interesting look to it. I like the concentric patterns of the OOF diffraction rings of the lens, along with the subtle colour variations. My first piece of abstract photography.

[ameerat42]

I like the bokeh of that lens

[Tannin]

(not participating in this thread 'cox my head hurtz!)

[nardes]

I think these images illustrate the difference in size/area of the single AF point between the 5D Mk IV and the EOS R.

Whilst I don't have a same day, same bird, same moment comparison, I did shoot these birds on consecutive days with the Canon 5D Mk IV and then the Canon EOS R. Both with the Canon 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 L IS Mk II.

I then opened each RAW SOC frame in Canon DPP at 100% and hit "Alt-Print Screen" then "Paste" into Photoshop to show the different red AF Point rectangles as drawn by Canon DPP.

Unfortunately, I had the EOS R in "AF Point expansion:top/bottom/left/right" Mode whereas the 5D Mk IV was in "1-Point AF" Mode. However, I am guessing that the red rectangle in both images represent the 1-Point AF area of both camera bodies, the 5D Mk IV being the smaller area.

Ignore the different size of the bird in each frame, they were at different distances. The size of the red AF rectangles were at the same 100% resolution in Canon DPP, then cropped full res at 1024x1024 in PS, hence are directly comparable.

Cheers

Dennis

EOS R.
EOS R vs 5D Mk IV AF Crop 1024 EOSR.jpg

5D Mk IV
EOS R vs 5D Mk IV AF Crop 1024 5D Mk IV.jpg

[Tannin]

Yay! I understood that bit!

This confirms my seat-of-the-pants experience with the EOS R Dennis. It does seem a little vague as to exact focus points.

Something else I have noticed which seems strange. As I understand it, the R system is able to use any part of the sensor as its focus area. However, the available focus patterns do not provide a whole-sensor option, nor a "most-of-sensor" wide area one like that on all the Canon DSLRs. Instead, we have a tall, narrow one and a wide flat one, both of then similar to patterns available on (e.g.) the 5D IV, but no tall wide one.

Murphy's Law in operation here: 98% of the time, on my other cameras, I use either the smallest possible single point, or the largest possible whole-of-frame - i.e., the very two that the EOS R doesn't provide.

Yesterday I experienced some of the not-very-predictable reluctance to focus you mentioned earlier. No big deal, but it takes a little getting used to.

[arthurking83]

....

Cheers

Dennis

PS - for Arthur - here is the rotated abstract shot, quite an interesting look to it. I like the concentric patterns of the OOF diffraction rings of the lens, along with the subtle colour variations. My first piece of abstract photography.

Yeah, looks as cool as I hoped it would.

And the more I look at the abstract, the more I'm convinced that your gear is working fine .. just looks like standard reflection(s) and shading.