soft and flat pictures disheartening after outing.....any advice

got a d5200 which have been using every week with my tamron 600mm i get some good and bad pictures but alot are soft so i decided to put on my nikon 300mm on since it was faster at focusing. A nice sunny morning so my iso would be low fast shutter speed for wildlife. So i set my metering to matrix and focusing points at 9 and started snapping away looked at my pictures on the back of the camera they were poor so i changed certain things to make a difference like changing the metering to center weighted even changing from manual to aperture and shutter priority but had the same results. Through the view finder was clear and sharper with the green focus light on every time . What am i doing wrong is it my technique is it my camera or my lens, i have included some shots and if need be i got various pictures of the same object at different distances.
https://flic.kr/p/x69zfy
https://flic.kr/p/x6g14t
https://flic.kr/p/wqTFFa
i forgot to add that my main focus point was at the center of each bird and on the wasp
They look fine but when cropped in the quality is poor and would normally bin them.

gaddypaid said:

got a d5200 which have been using every week with my tamron 600mm i get some good and bad pictures but alot are soft so i decided to put on my nikon 300mm on since it was faster at focusing. A nice sunny morning so my iso would be low fast shutter speed for wildlife. So i set my metering to matrix and focusing points at 9 and started snapping away looked at my pictures on the back of the camera they were poor so i changed certain things to make a difference like changing the metering to center weighted even changing from manual to aperture and shutter priority but had the same results. Through the view finder was clear and sharper with the green focus light on every time . What am i doing wrong is it my technique is it my camera or my lens, i have included some shots and if need be i got various pictures of the same object at different distances.
https://flic.kr/p/x69zfy
https://flic.kr/p/x6g14t
https://flic.kr/p/wqTFFa
i forgot to add that my main focus point was at the center of each bird and on the wasp
They look fine but when cropped in the quality is poor and would normally bin them.

Click to expand...

First off, Welcome to Nikoknites
Second it would be better if you would upload the photo to here. (directions in the next post)
Third are you shooting in RAW or JPEG? If JPEG there there are things to do to sharpen the shots (Directions in the next post)
Better to separate these to keep them easier to read.

Guidelines to adding a photo to your post.

1. Resize photo to 1000px on the long side.
2. Resolution set to 72ppi (Pixels Per Inch)

These guidelines will be good for viewing on a computer but will not be good for printing. This will help safeguard your copyright.

For me at least, these are extreme shots -- shooting at 600mm or even down to 200mm requires great care in camera handling and settings.

What shutter speed did you use? Did you have the AF and VR switches in the on position on your lenses?

You have a fine camera (I have an earlier version, the D5100) and it should yield excellent pictures. Per Don's suggestion, we'll be able to perhaps offer some help when we're able to see your file data.

I looked at your pics and they are just way to far away to get any detail

Welcome to the forum,as Kevin said those samples are just too small an image for any one to make any thing of,looking through your images you have plenty where you have got close enough.

Just had another look at you other images,first thing i would suggest is forget the 70-300 for most of the shots concentrate on the 150-600,get as close as you can,you ask if its the lens well no not if your using the Tamron.