Have I finally got one in focus..?

superpippo

superpippo

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Alan
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Nuthatch today.
I don't understand the % used on crops e.g. some people say '100% crop', but I don't know what that means - but this is about 1/3 of the original image.
Slightly sharpened, but not a lot.
No colour alteration.
Cropped slightly to the left to give the bird an area to look into.
Perch is not a natural piece but the area on which they land before feeding.
I have tried to take into account what I have read in other posts and so I would welcome C&C, but don't mind how critical you are :)
Still seems to me that other examples on this site are crisper.
C&C very welcome.

 
100% crop means one pixel on the screen = 1 pixel from your camera.

Typically for web presentation, a small amount of sharpening is required (do it as the final step when you generate the JPG for upload - don't overdo it!) - this will give you the crispness you desire and see elsewhere.

Otherwise, nice shot. Bit more light front of the bird would be ideal, preferably giving a 'catch-light' reflection in the eye.

Andy
 
First things first - it's not bad at all for someone starting out in bird photography, but it isn't critically sharp. What camera and lens combination were you using? You can get away with big crops like this with high pixel density crop sensors and decent glass, but if you don't have that, then what happens is that you don't have enough pixels left in the image to render detail after you've cropped, and even an image which was well focused will start to look a bit pixelated.

The other think is the light looks very contrasty which makes it difficult to get decent shots too.

Nothing there to be despondent about though, you seem to be on the right track. (y)
 
CT said:
First things first - it's not bad at all for someone starting out in bird photography, but it isn't critically sharp. What camera and lens combination were you using? You can get away with big crops like this with high pixel density crop sensors and decent glass, but if you don't have that, then what happens is that you don't have enough pixels left in the image to render detail after you've cropped, and even an image which was well focused will start to look a bit pixelated.

The other think is the light looks very contrasty which makes it difficult to get decent shots too.

Nothing there to be despondent about though, you seem to be on the right track. (y)
Click to expand...

Thanks for this.

I think that is my disappointment - it is not critically sharp, not like those posted by you, u8myufo, kaz and many many more.

Gear is Nikon d80 with 70-300 VR lens at the 300 end.
Light was bright sunlight from the right (facing about south) with a stone wall to rear.

nevertheless, I think that this is my best so far, and there are 2 nutties which come to the feeder so I hope that I will have more opportunities.
 
Don't get despondent. 300mm is probably the bare minimum for birds unless you're shooting from a hide. I rarely get decent shots in contrasty light like that. The best light is bright but slightly overcast which avoids all those blown highlights and heavy shadows.

Make sure you use the single centre AF point, continuous servo AF and try your best to get the AF spot over the eye or on the head at least.

You'll nail 'em just keep at it. ;)
 
about 100% question
i asked about this ...got several explanations
and then explained it to somebody else like this

" you need to do an example, then it falls into place - did for me....

ok - open a picture in yer editor -i use free ones ATM till I can justify buying PhotoShop Elements 6

so open in Gimp or Paint.NET [which i use] - at the top you'll see................ - Window +
either click on + till the image gets to 100% or select 100% in the "Window" icon box

the image will get BIG and the PC monitor will only see a portion of the 100% image

select the crop tool - select the area you want - click the crop button -save as.. whatever
you now have a 100% crop - it's used to look at the image quality of different lenses

sorry if I've dumbed it down, but at 2am today I didn't get it
I saw it in Lens Review Sites and didn't understand

cheers "
 
Hi Superpippo, looks like you've had some great advice on this already so il add only a little... Your ISO is too high for a crisp shot on the d80 shoot at 200 iso and this will sharpen your image before you even get it in an editing program.. change your metering to spot if its not on it already.
400th of a second is too slow.. your using a 300mm lens on a cropped sensor so your 300mm is actually closer to 500mm (theoretically) so your shutter speed needs to be an absolute minimum of 500th of a second this will give you sharper shots too.
shoot at your maximum frame rate its better to have 200 shots and 3 keepers than 3 single poor shots.
now you have it right in camera your output image needs to be sharpened... everyone has there own way of doing this I simply use nik sharpener pro 3 as I find it does everything I need it to with the least amount of effort.
Hope this helps and look forward to seeing your new work.
Cheers; Oskanoears
 
oskanoears said:
Hi Superpippo, looks like you've had some great advice on this already so il add only a little... Your ISO is too high for a crisp shot on the d80 shoot at 200 iso and this will sharpen your image before you even get it in an editing program.. change your metering to spot if its not on it already.
400th of a second is too slow.. your using a 300mm lens on a cropped sensor so your 300mm is actually closer to 500mm (theoretically) so your shutter speed needs to be an absolute minimum of 500th of a second this will give you sharper shots too.
shoot at your maximum frame rate its better to have 200 shots and 3 keepers than 3 single poor shots.
now you have it right in camera your output image needs to be sharpened... everyone has there own way of doing this I simply use nik sharpener pro 3 as I find it does everything I need it to with the least amount of effort.
Hope this helps and look forward to seeing your new work.
Cheers; Oskanoears
Click to expand...


Thanks for this.

The 800ISO was a mistake because I had the camera set to that for the previous shoot at an indoor event. And I forget to reset. I need to be more careful.
Accepting that 1/400 is too slow, I am not sure what is the answer. The aperture was set as wide as poss, so no room for manouvre. If I lower the ISO, which would be better to give a crisper shot, then I would need to make the shutter speed longer, but that would defeat the object of shooting as high as poss with the 300mm. Should i just accept an under exposed shot and use PP to brighten, contrast etc?:thinking:
 
Cedric,CT, has offered some great advice here bud............(y)

He usually does, take heed and you will get better,been there, listened and got better myself.........:)
 
The main thing that would improve your shots is having the sun behind you, the Nuthatch is nearly all in shadow, get the sun behind you, ideally coming over your shoulder and watch the definition of your shots improve. (y)
 
1/400 is not too slow for 300mm, so long as you can keep the camera steady :) I've even seen some lovely examples of speed slower than the lens length (from CT I believe as well!).

You don't need expensive glass to take good pictures. It does help, but is not absolutely necessary. Though if you are looking for IQ like that found in CT's shots for example, then yes you will need expensive glass :LOL:

If you are happy with this shot and it keeps you interested in photographing birds, please do so and share with us all. Take on peoples advice, but don't take it as gospel (including mine ;) but except CT's).

Oh and I must also confess ... I don't use continuous servo AF on my bird shots, I blooming hate it :LOL:
 
It's a good shot - definitly one I'd keep. (y)
Post-processing: I use PSE7 - good investment for those tweaks.
Also if you are shooting in RAW you can do a lot with layers, selective editing, etc. to adjust dark and light in different areas.
 
Jo said:
1/400 is not too slow for 300mm, so long as you can keep the camera steady :) I've even seen some lovely examples of speed slower than the lens length (from CT I believe as well!).

You don't need expensive glass to take good pictures. It does help, but is not absolutely necessary. Though if you are looking for IQ like that found in CT's shots for example, then yes you will need expensive glass :LOL:

If you are happy with this shot and it keeps you interested in photographing birds, please do so and share with us all. Take on peoples advice, but don't take it as gospel (including mine ;) but except CT's).

Oh and I must also confess ... I don't use continuous servo AF on my bird shots, I blooming hate it :LOL:
Click to expand...

I'm reasonably happy shooting birds if I can get a shutter speed of around 1/250th or faster tbh, Jo, and that's using the 500mm , even with a 1.4X TC, but to be fair it's invariably tripod mounted (shooting birds hand held is very rare for me) and you do get a few blurry ones even when you're picking your moment to give you the best chance of a sharp shot. I have got away with much slower, but you can't gamble your next meal on the results. :D
 
Believe me taking pics of birds and getting them critically sharp is NOT easy - I reckon only about 10-20 of mine are worth printing.

Of course the one good thing about digital is that every shot is FREE!

I have the 70-300mm IS ISM lens on a 450D (12 MP) but trying to get the eyes sharp takes a lot of trial and error - and a lot of pics.

The trick is simple - keep at it!

Good luck.
 
I agree with Fracster and CT. However, I'm not entirely sure why the bird isn't dead sharp as you should be getting there with a resize from a crop size of 2000 pixels on the longer side. I suspect it may be a combination of very slight camera shake, and a touch of back focussing. Work on your technique, and/or use a tripod or monopod to get better. Also, as a non-Nikon user, I don't know how good your zoom is. I'm not knocking it but I would do some tripod mounted test shots at various apertures. You may find if your lens is a bit soft at F5.6 then stopping down just 1/3 stop to F6.3 could improve the resolution of the lens substantially.

Using high iso can work, but if you shoot jpeg only then the in-camera noise reduction can smudge detail. Shooting raw can seem a pain, but it pays dividends, particularly at higher iso because PC based noise reduction techniques are invariably better at holding onto detail.

HTH, Mike.
 
Hi Superpippo, some sound advice as already mentioned from all. If you work one step at a time from Cedric`s advice you will soon be seeing some results, but practice and patience is a must which I am sure you have. The only thing I could add to all of this is technique, something which imo gets overlooked. we probably all got our own priority`s but I would say, lighting > shutter > metering > aperture and control of posture and breathing, the last thing you do before gently squeezing that button :)

What you have to realise, is that in the excitement of it all when the heart is pounding, you will never produce a sharp image if the camera and lens has moved in the slightest the moment the image is being captured, and we have all been there ( Tom`s Duffers ).

Getting yourself comfy is a must :) a solid resting place with the use of a bean bag, or tripod will assist you beyond your wildest dreams :LOL: You might well be putting this into practice already so apologies if that is the case. As Cedric mentions do not get despondant ;) things will very shortly fall into place and you will be doing all that is needed to produce a good shot out of habit (y)
 
u8myufo said:
Hi Superpippo, .....a solid resting place with the use of a bean bag, or tripod will assist you beyond your wildest dreams :LOL: You might well be putting this into practice already so apologies if that is the case. As Cedric mentions do not get despondant ;) things will very shortly fall into place and you will be doing all that is needed to produce a good shot out of habit (y)
Click to expand...

Hi , Thanks for this - much appreciated. I think that my next move will be to try with a tripod to see how much difference it produces. I empathise with the 'excitement' of the shot probably inducing some camera shake.:D
 
superpippo said:
Hi , Thanks for this - much appreciated. I think that my next move will be to try with a tripod to see how much difference it produces. I empathise with the 'excitement' of the shot probably inducing some camera shake.:D
Click to expand...

:LOL: I forgot to ask if you use any kind of hide and seating? If not then a cheap cammo net is always useful for stringing up and one of those three legged fold up shooting/fishing seats are helpful if you are using a tripod. Look forward to your results :D
 
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