Sharper Focus

[Robin W]

I am pretty new to photography. I have a Nikon D7200. I got a Tamron 150-600mm G2 for Christmas. I am having trouble getting focused on birds. If they are close there doesn't seem to be to much of a problem but far away they are pretty grainy. The samples below were taken within a 15 minutes of each other, one is clear and one is not. It is about 5 to 5:15 pm. The geese are about 60 yards away and the eagles are on the opposite side of the lake about a quarter of a mile. Also realize guessing distance is not something I am very good at, so approximately.
The geese picture ISO = 4525, F6.3, 1/2500, Eagle picture number 1 ISO = 2263, F6.3, 1/2000, Eagle picture number 2 ISO= 898, F6.3, 1/800. I use Manual mode with ISO set to auto, I have set the auto focus to my backbutton.

 

[Needa]

Are you using single point focus? On the second eagle picture note the trees and telephone pole in the background they are sharper. Looks like the camera didn't focus on the eagles.

More light would lower you ISO and make it easier for your camera to focus. Lower iSO looks sharper.
Long distance and low light use a tripod.

Just my 2 cents. I'm sure others who shoot long lenses will have better input.

 

[mikew_RIP]

Dont want to throw a spanner in the works but the distances you are talking about need shortening, good bird images are taken most of the time over short distances There is a lot of crap in the atmosphere and the more air between you and your subject means more condensed air pollutants to soften your image.

For me to take an image at 60 yards it would need to be a very rare subject, can you spend any time somewhere that the birds are used to people,then you can get closer and refine your technique.
So i would say
Get closer
Shoot in decent light
Keep the ISO under 1600-2000, lower when you can.

Both images can be brought up a bit in PP, I just lifted the shadows
.

 

[nickt]

You could do some focus tests on trees or signs, but it will probably be good. Use single point as was suggested. I agree with the bad air. Here in NY the air is heavy. Unless its like 10F degrees there is so much gunk and humidity in the air, long shots are tough. More light/lower iso helps.
I have the Sigma 150-600 on my d7100. I can make many shots similar to yours. On a good day, my subject will be closer and in direct sunlight and I'll get much better shots under those conditions. My camera is set manually for 1/1250 and f7.1 or f8 with auto iso. I can get pretty consistent non-shaky shots 1/1250 handheld and I like to be slightly stopped down from wide open. For backyard bird feeder shots, I'll use flash, 1/320, f8 and iso 100-400. Really nice shots with the flash.
Are you familiar with the exposure triangle? Keeping that shutter speed as low as you can steadily hold will help with the camera choosing a lower iso. Did you cap auto iso for those shots? I ask because they look dark. Some people cap auto iso, I don't. It is what it is and I'll take an excessively high iso shot if that's all I can get since my shutter and aperture are at my minimum. Higher iso will give you more grain and less detail.

 

[Robin W]

I did use single point focus and I forgot my tripod. Thanks for the tips.

 

[Robin W]

Wow those look a lot better. I am still not up on all the photography terms, what does PP mean? There are not a lot of places around me where I can get much closer. Thank you for the tips.

 

[nickt]

PP=post processing
You can do some pp with jpg files, but many of us shoot in raw format which definitely requires post processing, but gives us way more ability to bring up the shadows and bring down the highlights as well as other improvements if needed.

 

[Moab Man]

Low light, soft light, cropping, things that are not contrasty will all lead to soft images.

 

[Marcel]

It seems to me like your images were under-exposed (not enough light hitting the sensor). When shooting dark subjects against light background, one has to push the exposure in order to get proper details in the shadows. You can get some detail back in post processing, but you usually loose sharpness. Getting your images properly exposed will give you sharper images.

 

[aroy]

It seems to me like your images were under-exposed (not enough light hitting the sensor). When shooting dark subjects against light background, one has to push the exposure in order to get proper details in the shadows. You can get some detail back in post processing, but you usually loose sharpness. Getting your images properly exposed will give you sharper images.

I agree.

For shots where the subject is relatively dark and the background bright ( the other way round), use "Spot Metering". With Single point focus, you will get both metering and focus right. I use these settings with central focusing point and rarely get the metering off. Taking shots in RAW eases life a lot as there is quite a large latitude for recovering shadows.

 

[spb_stan]

More light lowers the need for detail robbing hi-ISO settings. Those birds are not moving very fast so why give up so much light gathering that is prevented by 1/2500. The further you are away the slower a maximum shutter speed needed to reduce displacement of the detail do to movement.A bird 5 feet from you moving quickly has more arc of displacement than the bird making the same movements 100 feet away.
Proper Exposure is the key to sharp looking images assuming camera shake and subject movement are reasonably under control.
By setting your metering to Spot mode, and using only the centermost focal point, you will blow out the brighter sky but the subject will be better exposed. Try it in Program mode or Shutter priority Auto Exposure mode and set the shutter speed to one appropriate for the speed of movement and distance. 1/800 would have been more than fast enough for those birds, maybe 1/500. Turn off VR for any speeds 1/500 or faster. Set the ISO to a value that has acceptable noise, 1000 or so, and lower if you are going to crop at all.
Get closer so the subjects fill the frame. All these steps will result in sharper more detailed images

 

[Danno_RIP]

I have taken some similar shots near Taylorsville Lake in central Kentucky and it is tough to get the Eagles to come close. But I started always using the tripod with my D7200 and 200-500 Nikon lens. That helps some but this time of year and that time of day it is hard to have enough light to get a good shot.

I set D7200 up similar to yours I do use auto ISO with the max set to 2000. I run the rest in manual. If the birds are sitting still I try to run the shutter down low, since I am on a tripod, and that helps.

I do need to get over to Taylorsville Lake. My friend that used to take me can no longer do so. This is a good time to catch the Eagles.

 

[Andy W]

Robin is out of town with limited internet access until next week. I'll pass these tips on to her.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Woodyg3]

Don't be discouraged. There is a learning curve, and wildlife photography is difficult.

When you are shooting at great distances, it is very hard to get the focus spot exactly on your subject. This also stretches your camera's autofocusing capabilities to the limit. The hard truth is that the only way to get really good wildlife shots is to get close. MUCH more easily said than done.

Keep at it, and have fun!

 

[SkvLTD]

DX as a whole and 7200 were never ISO-queens, so I'd definitely keep it as low as possible.

 

[hark]

It seems to me like your images were under-exposed (not enough light hitting the sensor). When shooting dark subjects against light background, one has to push the exposure in order to get proper details in the shadows.

Yes, Marcel nailed it. The way I learned it is this...when a scene is overly bright (such as this with reflected water or snow), you need to override the camera's settings and go BRIGHTER aka overexpose. When a scene is overly dark (or darker than medium grey), you need to override the settings and do DARKER aka underexpose.

So the axiom I learned is: When it's bright, go brighter. When it's dark, go darker.

When you post process images that are dark, and you want to make them lighter, noise gets added. It's something that happens when shadows are raised. There are types of software that aid in noise reduction so you can overcome a lot of that. However, if you shoot at really high ISO's. you also lose some detail. Keep your ISO as low as possible and compensate either by adjusting your shutter speed or aperture.

If you are not familiar with the concept of exposure triangle, all 3 things (ISO, shutter speed, and aperture) work in tandem with one another.

Sounds like you have an area with more wildlife where you can continue to experiment. Have fun with it!

 

[Stoshowicz]

Auto Iso- is usually used in conjunction with exposure compensation , otherwise white snow looks gray , add +2 or +3 exposure compensation , and then add some contrast in post. But the distances look to be pretty long and the lighting not so wonderful , so you gotta take what you can get.

 

[spb_stan]

Once you understand how the meter sees the world, it becomes pretty clear what is happening. A scene often has more light intensity range than what can be recorded by the camera, from the very darkest to the very brightest part of the scene is 12-14 stops, or doubling in intensity 12-14 times. So the meter is calibrated to a midpoint between the blackest black and the brightest the camera can capture and is scaled by our perception of light and dark. The midpoint between the brightest and the darkest in our perfection is middle grey and in light intensity that is about 18% along the scale of deep black at 0% and the brightest being 100%. Think of mixing white paint and black paint. One might assume that equal parts of white and black would be middle grey, but we are much more sensitive to small changes in the low energy end of the luminosity scale than the high end because all our senses are logarithmic in scale instead on linear. If you started adding a small amount of black to the white paint, you would notice a darkening much quicker than is if adding a little white paint requires a lot more white to reach what you see as about mid why between white and black middle grey. Meters are doing the same thing, assuming the midpoint in exposure will be 18% black and 82% white. Shooting a scene that is very bright like snow on a sunny day or a white wedding dress will almost always come out dull, grey and not white. We know the scene is supposed to be very bright but the camera doesn't so we trick it into setting exposure TRIAD settings to overexpose by the meter's calibration but we see it is snow and it is supposed to be bright.
Same with taking a portrait of someone with a deep tan or black skin will almost always be overexposed and look unrealistically bright. So we purposely underexpose skin that is supposed to look darker by dialing in a stop or two of negative compensation. Most of us probably use full manual all the time so we simply set the meter point a couple stops underexposed for dark subjects and a couple stops over the meter center line for snow or bright white scenes. It is easier to go full manual in these cases than using auto-exposure modes because it is too easy to forget compensation is still one when changing senses because the meter does not function in auto modes.

 

[Robin W]

Thank all of you for the wonderful tips. I have a lot to try. I will let you know how it goes. I am going out Sunday to try again to get a decent picture of some eagles. What PP software do most of you use?

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

Thank all of you for the wonderful tips. I have a lot to try. I will let you know how it goes. I am going out Sunday to try again to get a decent picture of some eagles. What PP software do most of you use?

Lightroom and Photoshop