Does this need AF tuning?
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Bourbon Neat
Senior Member
What was your distance from the target. At close range with that lens set to 300mm, the depth of focus will be mighty slim. Being a zoom lens, you will have to choose where you would like to fine tune at.
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I have never had to much luck shooting bugs with my 300. Just never was satisfied with the final results. Mine like yours look good but generally good for us in not good enough.
This shot has nothing to do with being soft at 300mm. The wings are clearly not soft. Just the head and its out of focus. And no. I don't shoot dragonflies with a tripod.
I don't know. These guys are pretty fast but it was about as close I could get. I know what you're getting at, and this is why I noted in my original post, that the top of the wings which are a lot further away from the focus point, are clearly in focus, while the head which is much closer to the focus point is out of focus.
I'm going to DOT tune at 300mm which is what I use this lens the most at.
Yes I know. The worst part is, that I had a shot with the focus point right on the head, and that one looked even more out of focus then this one. I guess I answered my own question. This lens needs an AF tune which I'm dreading. I don't like PIA things!
Thanks everyone for your time.
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I guess I am just to old school when it comes to VR. I rarely ever use it. I just go old school with the reciprocity rule of lens length to shutter speed. Since I shoot DX I generally shoot at 1.5 times the aperture just to be safe. I an handhold slower but When I do I try to be extra careful and if possible I use my tripod
Who said I used VR?
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I don't understand what you're saying. If I'm in single focus mode it should focus where I put the focus point. At f/11 it should be able to cover the head unless it's back focusing which I do suspect. Where is this VR thing coming from anyway?. Why are you assuming that I used VR at 1/1600th shutter speed. Does anyone actually read the original posts around here? I notice this in other threads as well. People assuming all kinds of things because they're not reading the thing through.
Forget it!! I'll just go figure it out myself...
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I am not sure that fine tuning will help this issue. Unless you normally only use this lens for shooting bugs then I would not bother with it. I ran into this problem the last time I went through all my lenses. I had not tuned my 40mm macro so it went onto the camera and I used the same distance I used on all my other lenses. 50*the lens length. About 6.5 feet. It tuned just fine but a bit on the high side so I went through the setup again and got the same results. I went outside and shot it. Great. Sharp and focused on the trees in the back yard just fine. Then I went inside and focused on a lens cap on the table. I was so out of focus. Was not even usable. I then went through the setup again but this time with that target as close as it could be and still get the entire target in the view. The numbers changed by 10 points or more. Now the lens will focus close up but probably not very sharp if used for normal shooting.
I would bet the same thing would happen it you tuned the 70-300 at the distance you shot the dragonfly. It would work great for bugs but if you shot a BiF then the near wingtip would be in focus but nothing else. I think the only thing We can do when we want to use our lenses for something out of the norm is to manual focus.
One thing you must take into consideration. These wings are long and, when shooting from above like in your shot, the top of the wings are way closer to the lens than the head of the bug. I've been shooting with the sigma 105 macro and when shooting bees of insects with wings, I often got the result you got. Remember that when you get close, even at F11, the dof is very shallow.
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