Rainbow Lorikeets

[cookey]

At lake Monger just 2 minutes from the centre of Perth.
C&C welcome

[John Deakin]

very colourful and nice comp, looks a little soft? great effort though, john

[ajosteve]

Love the shot...beautiful birds...nice composition...and it does look soft..but what the H...It's still nice....Wish we had birds like this here in AZ. steve

[cookey]

What do you mean by soft? What could i have done to prevent the image from being soft please?

[John Deakin]

Hi cookey, sorry, 'soft' is a term generally used here in South Africa for slightly out of focus (don't know if it is a term used elsewear too? I'm new to the POTN site so please forgive me if it isn't). Softness can also occur when resizing for the web, I always slightly re-sharpen images after resizing to get the image quality back to the original file size quality, maybe this is what happened here if your original is sharp. Without seeing your camera settings/exif info it is very difficult to suggest the other reasons, it could also be due to camera shake, slow shutter speed/focal length ratio, please accept my appologies if I offended you, it was not my intention, john

[cookey]

I am not offended.I am unhappy with that lens as all seem to be slightly out of focus.It is the 70-300IS & I have just taken it back to canon to get checked out.

I was focusing on the front bird but it never seems to be spot on.I have tried to quicken the shutter speed,have the image stabilizer on but they never seem to be sharp.

[John Deakin]

Cookey, sorry to say, but that lens is known not to be the fastest/sharpest, I have the 75-300 IS version too and although it can give very good results it can also be hit and miss. Unfortunatley the best (and of course more expensive) L glass is the way to go for better IQ, the 100-400 IS L is a good all rounder, but even better are the prime f2,8 L lenses or the 70-200 IS L with converters, although for birds the longer primes are far superior. john

[scnapper]

Hi Cookey

How far from the parrots were you, getting closer will help a lot (sounds easy I know) and it seems like you had low light levels when taking the shot.

[cookey]

I was only 25 feet from the birds & the light was not really bad.

I took several shots with the all the focal points on & also with the central focus point on aiming at the front bird.

I am seriously looking at getting rid of this lens & upgrading to L series lens.

Shooting Date/Time
5/10/2007 08:11:46
Tv(Shutter Speed)
1/400Sec.
Av(Aperture Value)
F7.1
Metering Modes
Partial metering
Exposure Compensation
0
ISO Speed
125
Lens
EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
Focal Length
270.0 mm
Image size
3504 x 2336
Image Quality
RAW
Flash
Off
White Balance
Auto
AF mode
One-Shot AF
Picture Style
User Setting1(Standard)
Parameters
Tone Curve : Standard
Sharpness level : -
Pattern Sharpness : -
Contrast : 0
Sharpness : 3
Color saturation : 2
Color tone : 0
Color matrix

[dpastern]

Not a bad shot Cookey, but as others have said, it's soft. I don't have that particular lens, so I can't comment, but why not consider a 300mm f4 IS and a 1.4x TC, providing funds allow of course.

Dave

[cookey]

I am interested in the very lens you mentioned actually.Just waiting for the tax return to come back & if I am lucky I will purchase the 300mmf4 IS.