Focus problem

Smcooper461

Senior Member
Hoping I can get a little advice on here from experts in wildlife/bird photography. Over the past few weeks I've been trying to photography the eagles at Cowans gap State park. I've included a "junk shot" I took. As you can see out of focus. I'm shooting with a D750, with a 200-500. I thought 500 would for sute be enough, but no?? Single point AF. I try to put the focus point as close to the white head as possible just don't understand what I'm doing wrong?
 

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Bengan

Senior Member
I can't see any EXIF with this shot. What were your settings? Is this a heavy crop? Another question is, have you fine tuned the AF? You should be able to get great shots with this combo.
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
I'm certainly no expert, but I have taken pics of eagles with long telephoto zooms.
+1 for fine tuning the AF.
Birds in flight should be shot at over a thousandth of a second, even 1/2000+ in some situations- which drives the ISO up, but noisy is better than blurry. Also, try using continuous autofocus for BIF. Autofucus should be set to single for stationary subjects, continuous for moving. Do you back button focus or use the shutter release button for focus? Try BBF if you havnt already, lots of vids on youtube explaining it.
 
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BackdoorArts

Senior Member
For someone who has a D750 and a D500, for sure 500mm is never going to be "enough" for a lot of wildlife photography, and birds in particular. Along with that the focus system on the D750, while good, is not nearly as good as on other cameras.

Advice already stated is good. I shoot a ton of birds and find that 1/1600s is about as slow as I can shoot and get more sharp than not. Additionally I always use AF-C Dynamic Area AF (usually 153pt for birds in flight with the D500 - you should use 51). This gives you a single point which you can use to focus lock after which the object focused on can move through the frame and remain in focus. Single point AF is useless for a moving subject and almost certainly contributed to your issue.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
I downloaded your image but still don't see any EXIF. What is your shutter speed and aperture? And did you use AF-C with release?

I use a D7200 with a 300mm lens and a 1.4x teleconverter. The FX equivalent focal length is 630mm. It simply isn't long enough, but I try to crop when I can.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
As funny as it may seem, I had great success using C-AF facial recognition on wildlife with my previous system, nailed most of my shots of eagles and owls in flight. As soon as I get a long lens, I cant wait to try it with the Z7. I'd find some common targets like seagulls to practice on with the suggestions everyone has made.
 

Smcooper461

Senior Member
Thanks everybody for the advice. I guess I will give back-buttton a try, I just anyways thought half pressing the shutter was simpler. I apologize for the no EXIF, that wasn't intentional. 1/4000,F5.6, 800. 500mm AF-C single point. If I remember correctly? Lol. I just can't believe how out of focus this shot is and some others I've taken. I mean it's very possible that I truly just suck at this lol. I mean that shot I posted, he's not even that far away. Probably 60 or 70 feet directly above just soaring, not flying real fast. Seems to me should be pretty simple shot.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I'd also add that you're shooting wide open at the long end of a zoom and if there's anywhere it's going to be soft it's there. Stop down to f8 or f9 and it might just sharpen up for you.
 
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