What Am I doing wrong.

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daztan

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Hi

I have a canon 40d and these photos were taken using a 100-400L lens. However I feel that my pictures lack sharpness and I am wondering if any of you have any help.

Photo 1, no editing (except cropping)


Photo 2, sharpened with Lightroom.

Any help please.
 
shutter speed 1/250 sec, focal length 400mm I think
you probably need a faster shutter speed in the first instance;check focus point too ?
 
It looks like the focus point is on the seed. So, the bird is everso slightly OOF.
 
Have you taken these hand-held?

Also you have cropped into the photo which unfortunately in many cases highlights minute camera shake :(
 
Certainly the first one appears to be focused on the seed. If this was hand held, as Mark pointed out, you could do with a shutter speed nearer the focal length.

Steve
 
Are you talking about the pixelation and ghosting or is this a case of bad web compression? I think it is hard to establish the actual issues with images containing such little detail. Perhaps an uncropped full size download would drum up more detailed responses.
 
Just exactly how much have these been cropped by?

I'd like to see the originals if you could.
 
Hi

Firstly thanks for the replies

It was 1/250 sec @ 400mm.

My method for taking them was to use the perch of the feeder as a focus point ( I think). The was on a tripod with a trigger. I then sat inside waited for the bird to land on the perch, and then just fire it off, I was inside the house.

Here is another I took, this time using a 60mm macro f2.8 focused on the green fat ball. I will get full uncropped images up, once I have worked out how to make them small enough to be allowed to upload.

Once again many thanks and here is the other pic, only cropped and taken straight from the raw file.

 
daztan said:
My method for taking them was to use the perch of the feeder as a focus point ( I think). The was on a tripod with a trigger. I then sat inside waited for the bird to land on the perch, and then just fire it off, I was inside the house.
Click to expand...

Are you shooting through window glass?
 
Dave Stone said:
It looks like the focus point is on the seed. So, the bird is everso slightly OOF.
Click to expand...

^^ this

The tip of bird's beak and a little of the foremost plumage are just barely in focus too.

The seeds seem to be reasonably sharp to my eye, so I don't think there's much movement.
 
No - I am inside but the camera is in the garden and I am using a remote trigger.
 
TBH, I think you just need to work on finding the right focus point and/or stop down a little.

e2a:

daztan said:
Here is another I took, this time using a 60mm macro f2.8 focused on the green fat ball.
Click to expand...

the ball is behind the bird, yes?
 
Hi
Here is one of them, taken from the raw only reduced in pixels as per TP instructions.
 
Personally, I'd forget trying to shoot remotely and get closer (10m), either by moving the feeders closer to an open window or by using some form of camouflage. I'd then add a perch above your feeders such as a small branch for the incoming birds to sit on and check for safety, this gives you a bit more time and looks better too. Then focus on the eye of the bird and shoot at f/6.7 or f/8 to bring the whole bird into focus. Alter the ISO to give you a shutter speed of 1/500 if hand holding or with practice and a support you can go slower.

This was my set up at my previous house:

feeders1.jpg


feeders2.jpg


This was the kind of result I was getting with a 400mm lens:

3690683582_3099a9b380_o.jpg
 
I couldnt work out whether the camera was not focusing properly, I had heard something about back/front focusing.

Even this landscape picture doesn't look sharp. Taken using a canon 10-22mm

 
The feeder will swing when a bird lands surely, so prefocussing on the perch will do you no good. Manually focus to where you think the bird will be and then fine tune with auto just before taking, maybe?
 
Great photos I had one in my back garden photo 1 and know nothing about birds what is it ??
 
Some adjustments from your last posted image. The histogram suggested a degree of underexposure. Image adjusted in photoshop elements-levels adjustment to increase exposure and some sharpening - I think it's an improvement in "sharpness" compared to the original post, assuming it's the same image.
Mark

 
daztan said:
Hi

I have a canon 40d and these photos were taken using a 100-400L lens. However I feel that my pictures lack sharpness and I am wondering if any of you have any help.

Any help please.
Click to expand...

That looks back lit, the side of the bird facing you is in shadow, get the sun behind you, ideally coming over your shoulder and watch the results improve.
 
Main problem there is focus. With small garden birds your depth of field will be one or two cms maximum. Check it here http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Get close 3-4m, fill the frame, don't crop, nail focus on the eyes, keep the shutter speed up. It's not easy!

If you've got a UV filter on there, take it off. Long lenses are more quality-sensitive to filters.
 
Thanks for all your comments.

Markneardarby - how much sharpening did you do, what settings did you use?

Hoppy - I was only about 1.5 metres away - although I didn't fill the frame - I thought - admittedly wrong, that if I was further back, I might get one in flight.
 
I used unsharp mask, roughly at
amount 75%
radius 1.1 pixels
threshold 0
MOst of the improvement was by increasing the brightness.
The levels (Ctrl-L in Elements) dialog shows that the histogram has no data to the right (i.e. underexposure). Drag the little white slider (far right) to the left to change the brightness.



like this:
 
Looking at this set of posts and in my limited experience, you must get the correct focus point and aperture to get that pin sharp focus. Your equipment should be more than capable of producing great images, keep practicing and experimenting.
 
When adjusting the levels don't forget that you can force change the output levels too. Changing it to 3 usually brings out more detail at the expense of tonal range and contrast. Generally speaking you want to force 3 levels anyway but on a darker image you can change this to any setting you want.
 
daztan said:
Hi

I have a canon 40d and these photos were taken using a 100-400L lens. However I feel that my pictures lack sharpness and I am wondering if any of you have any help.

Any help please.
Click to expand...

The thing you're doing wrong more than anything else is using that remote set up and pre-focusing on a particular spot. DOF is so shallow that any shots you got with the head and eye of the bird sharp would be pure fluke, if you got any at all. It just doesn't work, if it did we'd all be doing it. ;)

I bumped into a guy a couple of weeks ago who'd set up a 100-400L on a tripod with a long cable release to the back of his car where he was sitting with the camera tethered to a lap top. He'd pre-focused on a fork between 2 branches and baited under this spot with seed. He had two blurry images to show for a 2 hour session, despite the fact that there were birds landing all around his chosen spot and well within range.

I tried to tactfully tell him he was doing it all wrong, but the expression on his face was priceless. he didn't actually tell me to "**** off" but he might as well have done! :shrug: One day I'll learn to keep my gob shut. :D

Seriously - dump the cable release and take charge of the camera 'hands on' Use a tripod and gimbal head for best results although you can make do with a ball head slacked off enough to allow free movement of both the pan and tilt axis as long as you keep your hands on the camera and lens. Don't forget to tighten the head if you take your hands off!!

Use a single AF point, continuous servo focus, and concentrate on getting that AF point on the eye of the bird ideally, but at least on the head.

Have look at this guide to long lens technique. I use this technique with lenses even as short as 200mm

Long Lens Technique
 
Thanks again for all your comments, I will be out shooting birds in a couple of weeks. Right now, I am doing macro and landscape tomorrow.
 
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