not sharp enough

I had 600... It weighed as nice RPG setup or more, and I still couldn't get a photo in most cases. That is I believe a very typical issue with most of wildlife. And if I could, the MFD was too long anyway for smaller birds for a frame filling shot... You have to be able to get close enough with any lens in both technical and practical sense.

I’ve found the 600 awesome. Mine has min focus distance of 4.5m. If my maths is right with angle of view 3.4 degrees, tan is .06, the minimum width of scene is 27cm and 18cm high for 3/2 sensor. So yes not frame filling for a small bird. On the other hand a small bird of 12cm or so is going to look very decent, subject to lighting ;) of course!
 
I’ve found the 600 awesome. Mine has min focus distance of 4.5m. If my maths is right with angle of view 3.4 degrees, tan is .06, the minimum width of scene is 27cm and 18cm high for 3/2 sensor. So yes not frame filling for a small bird. On the other hand a small bird of 12cm or so is going to look very decent, subject to lighting ;) of course!

mk2? A lot lighter and closer MFD. Mine was 5.5m and 5.4kg. I could get cormorants, geese, pigeons, to fill the frame. On a crop body this would be reasonable in that respect. I never managed to get used to panning with monopod so that was the final nail for a "fun" project lens. mk2 is a lot better in every way, but also more ££££.
 
I had that same lens as a kit lens when I got my first camera a 1200D. It was not sharp at 100% on any camera at any focal length or aperture. It was fine for snapshots, but anything more "serious" like birding I think that you are simply butting up against your equipments limits.
If you read the posts again you'll see he used a Canon EF 70-300 IS to take that photo, not a 'kit zoom'. Also, until he tells us, we don't know how much of a crop (if any) that image was.
 
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mk2? A lot lighter and closer MFD. Mine was 5.5m and 5.4kg. I could get cormorants, geese, pigeons, to fill the frame. On a crop body this would be reasonable in that respect. I never managed to get used to panning with monopod so that was the final nail for a "fun" project lens. mk2 is a lot better in every way, but also more ££££.

makes sense, yes mk ii. It’s what I meant earlier about the cost to get a lot better results.
 
If you read the posts again you'll see he used a Canon EF 70-300 IS to take that photo, not a 'kit zoom'. Also, until he tells us, we don't know how much of a crop (if any) that image was.
Not sure how you actually measure how much you crop a photo but Id say I cut out about 50% of it if that makes sense.
 
Something else to take into consideration is when you see beautiful sharp well lit images here and other places the photographer is not showing the sometimes hundreds of not so sharp images tucked away on their hard drive. If the condition are not perfect you'll be very lucky to get the perfect image you desire. A lot of time and effort can be involved not just expensive kit.
 
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This bird pic of mine was shot with an old canon 70-210mm lens from the 1990's which I bought for £45 from ebay. The OP with his newer 75-300mm should be able to easily equal or better the image quality that I get from my 20+ year old lens. The exposure for this shot was 500th\sec F6.3 & ISO 500 & it was shot on a Canon EOS M5 so no top end kit was used here.
The main reason for the difference in sharpness and detail between mine and the OP's picture was his was shot in dull flat lighting while mine was shot in decent lighting conditions.collareddove112.jpg
 
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Agree with redsnappa about the lighting, coincidentally the entire country has perfect birding conditions all weekend.
 
I took it in RAW and I
use lightroom.

I have a weird thing with RAW and lightroom.

In lightroom the RAW picture isn't as sharp as the JPG (camera post processing? what does it do?)
Then if I upload the JPG to flickr it seems to look even sharper.

See examples below:

1st is a screenshot taken off Lightroom and the second is the same picture taken as a screenshot off Flickr.

lr1.png

Flickr below

f1.png

Like night and day.

So picture one is the same image that was uploaded, although I did have to export in Lightroom to get this new picture saved. Maybe it saved it as a JPG and did something ?

Weird
 
Snip:
coincidentally the entire country has perfect birding conditions all weekend.
It was foggy all day here yesterday, so I'd have to disagree there! :(

Never mind, it did give me the chance to demonstrate what a shot in dull, flat lighting conditions can look like! It was far from the ideal conditions to take crisp looking photos of birds themselves, but (while not being a fantastic composition) I think it captures something of the mood of a cold, damp, miserable, foggy winter's day. That's the thing with photography, there's always a photo to be had if you look for it (and yes, I could have looked harder!), and the biggest limitation will often be our own imagination rather than equipment... and, in my case, a lack of willingness to go outside on a cold, damp, foggy winter's day!

 
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I have a weird thing with RAW and lightroom.

In lightroom the RAW picture isn't as sharp as the JPG (camera post processing? what does it do?)
Then if I upload the JPG to flickr it seems to look even sharper.

See examples below:

1st is a screenshot taken off Lightroom and the second is the same picture taken as a screenshot off Flickr.

View attachment 266385

Flickr below

View attachment 266386

Like night and day.

So picture one is the same image that was uploaded, although I did have to export in Lightroom to get this new picture saved. Maybe it saved it as a JPG and did something ?

Weird

An out of camera jpeg has been processed, the Raw file hasn't so yes a jpeg will always be sharper than an unprocessed Raw. You have to process Raw files to get a decent photo out of them. Flickr applies it's own sharpening to uploaded files to make things look better so what you're seeing is normal
 
Wouldn't expect the raw to be as sharp because you need to process it, that includes sharpening.
Think you need to get a better idea of the whole raw, jpeg and lightroom process
 
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Wouldn't expect the raw to be as sharp because you need to process it, that includes sharpening.
Think you need to get a better idea of the whole raw, jpeg and lightroom process

I do, that is true, that is why I post on forums with knowledgeable people who will explain without patronising.

Thanks
 
I do, that is true, that is why I post on forums with knowledgeable people who will explain without patronising.

Thanks

How is that patronising, bit blunt maybe.
So why not do some research of your own or ask about Lightroom on the post processing section.
I and many others are more than willing to help, but you have to make some effort too.
What version of Lightroom are you using?
 
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It's all new to me, photography at a non point and shoot level, lightroom, soft pictures sharp pictures. I can google a million times, but sometimes you get better answers on forums.

Thanks
 
Coming from someone who's developed from a total beginner to one step up from total beginner, I think so much more goes into producing a sharp image, other than gear.

Technique plays a huge part, knowing what shutter speed to go for and what your iso capabilities are go a long way to help too. I think these get overlooked a bit wjem we just start out in favour of blaming the lens. I did the exact thing.

That Robin photo the OP posted looks good to me, just seems like there just wasnt enough light! Take my advice with a pinch of salt though as im far from being an expert.
 
You know, I'll also mention AFMA (Auto focus micro adjustment). The 100D unfortunately does not support this, and it is one of the other advantages of a mirrorless body like the M5, or newer bodies have. But basically due to manufacturing allowances you can end up with lenses that focus front or back of subjects (and this can change depending on the zoom too). Resulting in images that look soft. My wife used to shoot with a 100D and recently changed to an M50. You could try shooting some AF test cards and see how well your camera and lens work together?
 
You can drive yourself crackers about sharpness if you're not careful, with things like lenses that front or back focus, high ISO and poor light softening things, very narrow depth of field on telephoto lenses (especially on full frame cameras), and camera shake and/or subject movement if the shutter speed is too low, etc. all conspiring against you.

The following photo doesn't look too bad, until you look closely and see the bird isn't pin sharp as the lens was front focusing (now sorted, hopefully!). The narrow depth of field at f/6.3 on the 400mm lens didn't give much leeway either.

With the seemingly steady increase in megapixels/resolution with each new model DSLR and mirrorless that comes out, the situation will probably only get worse, showing up any user error and lens defects even more. Still, it gives us something to talk about, doesn't it!




There we go... focus sorted (plus it's closer and the light is better - never underestimate the importance of these two elements!):

 
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Sometimes you get lucky. A chance snapshot as the heron took off. Didnt know if I captured anything, But the shaft of sunlight caught his wings and made all the difference. The lighting was so much better than when I took the pic of the robin and could use 1/500 sec here.
 

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