I took this in a rice field today in South Carolina. The flooded field was full of Coots, Marsh hens, Snowy and Great Egrets, some Ruddy ducks and Blue Wing Teal. This guy was hovering up above looking for a meal.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
I took over 50 shots of this Osprey, and several were soft. None are what I would call super sharp. This is one of the best. I took other shots earlier of a Bald Eagle and those mentioned above, and they are all nice and sharp.
This Nikon D7200 is new to me, and I was using it today with a Tamron 150-600mm G1 lens.
I’m wondering if the reason for the softness isn’t a focus issue due to a lack of contrast. I’m beginning to think the sensor doesn’t like brown, as I have noticed this on other images where the focal point is brown.
Taken at 1/1600 sec, f/6.3, iso 140. My other thought is with iso at 140 I could have easily bumped up the shutter speed some more.
I don’t think the softness has anything to do with a lack of contrast. There’s a ton of contrast edges for the AF system to lock on. Sure a higher ISO would have provided a faster shutter, but 1/1600 is more than fast enough for this kind of subject.
How large a crop is this image? That could be part of the issue. Another possibility is if you were at the full 600mm zoom on the lens, I don’t think the G1 is known to critically sharp at the full zoom.
This looks like a huge crop or you raised the exposure a ton.
At iso140?, you should have no noise with almost any reasonable crop.
1/1600 is not terribly slow but you could have shot at 1/3200 easy with a low iso (like iso400).
Don’t know about the camera but it could not be this bad unless it was really underexposed.
It was underexposed Dan, you are right that could be the problem.
I just checked my camera and the metering was set to matrix. The osprey was a pretty small spot in the sky so the sensor was gathering a lot of information from blue sky and underexposing the bird. I should have thought of that before, thanks.
Hi Larry. I’m glad I read all the other back and forth. A couple of points to consider.
Camera motion blur is directly related to distance from the subject-it takes almost no motion to lose feather detail on a large bird that’s far enough away to look small in the frame. All the shutter speed you can get is probably helpful as is a tripod with a good head. The best solution is to figure out how to get closer.
You mentioned using matrix metering. For birds in flight especially, manual exposure is a good way to go. then it doesn’t matter what the color of the bird is or what the background is. If you expose properly for the lighting conditions, the exposure will be right for the bird. I’ll usually set my exposure on something that looks neutral colored, then check it against something white to make sure the whites aren’t blown. As long as you don’t have the sun playing tag with clouds, you only need to adjust as the sun gets higher and it gets brighter-you can always squeeze it in when the action slows down.
If one shoots Ospreys from a significant distance, you are at a disadvantage. It is very difficult to get good detail even at low iso. Unless I have one third of the frame filled by the osprey, I am not going to get a decent shot on either of my crop sensor cameras.
Far away birds are tempting targets, but we often try to get more out of a scene than what is available. This would be an impressive shot if the bird was closer to you. Go manual and meter on a midtone before shooting as Dennis mentioned and you should be close to the ideal exposure. Wait for a better opportunity when the bird is in range for the ideal shot. …Jim
Thanks for the comments and advice. The metering points are valuable and are something I will put to use. Advice like this is why I’m here.
I’m all about getting closer; I know that a long lens is no substitute for being close. I was a hunter for many years but gave up my guns for a camera. Those skills do come in handy.
In this case, he wasn’t going to get any closer for this kind of shot. I was on a trail bordering the swamp and he was hovering over some marsh hens and coots several hundred yards out into the swamp. So it was this or nothing.
I do think with proper exposure and a higher shutter speed a decent (maybe not great) shot would be possible. It was my first time at this particular location and you can bet I will be going back. It is on private land and the opportunities there are many.
The only thing I would add is that shooting at 1/1600 is risky for birds in flight. My basement shutter speed is usually 1/2000. I’ve even had motion blur when shooting barred owls in flight at 1/1600.
All of the above suggestions are great. I would add that the Tamron G1 lens was known to have focus issues, mostly related to birds in flight. This one was hovering so that may not apply. It’s been a while since I was reading up on the G1 and my memory isn’t the best. But if you are going to use that lens for birds, you may want to read up on or contact Tamron about an update that is or was available for that lens that improved the focus issues. I had it done on mine and bird in flight focusing was improved but I ultimately replaced it with the G2 lens which was vastly better. The only way to really know is to do controlled tests. But before the update on that lens, I had a terrible keep rate compared to my Canon 100-400.
Thanks for the feedback, Terri. I looked into updates but the Tamron dock supposedly doesn’t work with the Gi, only the G2. Do you recall how you did the update?
I sent it to Tamron. Mine was still under warranty at the time so no charge except to ship it to them. Not all serial numbers were affected. Tamron would have to tell you if yours was.
According to Tamron’s website, it only applies if you are leaving VC on while panning. The update automatically senses panning movement and switches VC to off.
I have a tendency to leave VC on all the time, but at those shutter speeds there is no need for it. I will be more careful about turning it off in the future.
