Help for a blurry image?

[rosie777]

Would you attribute the blurriness in this picture to camera shake? I'm not sure how you ascertain that??
Here's my exif info:

Exposure Time = 1/640"
F Number = F9
Exposure Program = Manual
ISO Speed Ratings = 320
Metering Mode = Pattern
Flash = Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
Focal Length = 300mm

I was using my new 40D on A1 Servo mode with a center focus and my tripod wasn't available, so it's handheld. The lens is a 75-300mm Canon.

Thanks in advance for your input!

[JuiceBox]

It's hard to tell at this size. Do you have a larger resolution one that you can upload?

[rosie777]

The original is a large jpeg 2.43mb...too large to upload, I believe?

[JuiceBox]

Upload to somewhere like Flickr or photobucket, the post it.

[SwingBopper]

I agree, hard to say; but I have a 40D and I've missed focus a lot of times with autofocus. With AI servo and only center focus spot if the subject moves off center you'll lose it, which is what I think may have happened here. You are shooting at 1/640 of a second at 300 mm so unless you really jerked the camera that should not be the cause of blurr. The other thing is that many 40Ds have back or front focus errors. Yours could be one. You should test your focus. Shoot a flat newspaper at a 45 degree angle (fill the frame) with a wide open fstop setting (2.8 or 3.5 whichever is lower for your lens) and focus on one line. Then enlarge the photo and check to see if that line is the best focus. If not, you've got the problem.

[rosie777]

Ok, can you access this?
http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2451379250103693697uKbrXm

[rosie777]

You should test your focus.Shoot a flat newspaper at a 45 degree angle (fill the frame) with a wide open fstop setting (2.8 or 3.5 whichever is lower for your lens) and focus on one line. Then enlarge the photo and check to see if that line is the best focus. If not, you've got the problem.

I'll try that in the morning. Thanks for your advice!

[SwingBopper]

I'll try that in the morning. Thanks for your advice!

Forgot to mention .... use a tripod and the timer to take the shot to minimize any camera movement. Even lock the mirror up if you can figure out how to do that.

[acchildress]

It's really hard to tell if the blur is from camera shake or bad a/f when there is nothing in really good focus, so on this shot there may be no way to tell for sure, only opinion.

[rosie777]

I've shot the text with One Shot, A1 Focus and A1 Servo with my 28-50mm at 50mm and F5.6. I'm using center spot focusing and I focused on the "ro" in the word browser in the center.
They all pretty much look the same to me (and unfortunately, none of them look really sharp) :confused:
One Shot
http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2311845430103693697AHhuuA?vhost=good-times
Servo:
http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2176367220103693697AFbkka?vhost=good-times
A1Focus
http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2974801050103693697PZOZnJ?vhost=good-times

[Jim M]

It's a little hard to tell, but it looks to me like the focus is reasonable on the bird's left wingtip. However, another possibility is that the bird or the camera was moving such that the left wingtip was moving in sync with the camera and the rest of the bird was blurred by motion. It is pretty hard to tell on an image that small. I shoot a lot of moving objects and I can tell you that if the camera loses its lock on the subject and starts searching, the point of focus can be about anywhere. It depends a lot on whether or not there is decent contrast at the focus point. I think very white birds could produce focus searching.

[SwingBopper]

Kelly, you need to shoot the newspaper at a 45 degree angle and focus on a line in the middle. Tilt the paper 45 degrees (put it on some cardboard or something firm tilted) so you are not shooting it dead on. Have it 10 feet or more away, zoom in to fill the frame with a large piece of newsprint. Be sure your fstop is at the smallest number. You don't want to do a macro shot, you want to see a lot of newsprint in the frame.
Your shots don't seem tilted to me. When tilting I mean the bottom of the newspaper is closer to you than the top and the angle should be about 45 degrees. The sides should be the same distance from camera. Shooting in landscape mode of course.

[rosie777]

I had the text flat on a table and had the camera tilted at 45 degrees. The original had much more text, I cropped it down to the size you see. I will try it again from farther away and tilt the text instead of the camera. Thanks for your help...I appreciate it!

[winkles]

I dont think its camera shake, if you look closely at the primary on the bird's left wing they look pretty sharp - maybe the focus point is just off?

[joedlh]

I had this lens. I posted a photo very much like this one -- an egret too -- to a nature site. The reaction was: it's the lens. I took offense until I read this review: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-75-300mm-f-4-5.6-III-USM-Lens-Review.aspx. Be prepared to be upset. Before I read it, I was living under the illusion that every piece of glass with Canon's name on it had to be superior.

I bought a 70-200 f/2.8L and a 1.4 extender and never looked back.

[Playonpics.com]

I would suggest getting a higher Shutter speed. One photographer told me always go around 1/800 and that makes a photo sharper... i found my shots of sports at 1/800 to be sharp as a tack.

[Bill Boehme]

I had this lens. I posted a photo very much like this one -- an egret too -- to a nature site. The reaction was: it's the lens. I took offense until I read this review: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-75-300mm-f-4-5.6-III-USM-Lens-Review.aspx. Be prepared to be upset. Before I read it, I was living under the illusion that every piece of glass with Canon's name on it had to be superior.

I bought a 70-200 f/2.8L and a 1.4 extender and never looked back.

That is what I was going to say. That lens is not the sharpest tack in the box. In addition it is highly subject to a problem known as "purple haze" along high contrast edges in addition to poor contrast and significant chromatic aberration.

Additionally, at its maximum zoom position, it is still difficult to get an image that is free of camera shake even at 1/640 second unless the photographer has very good techniques for smooth and steady control -- and this would apply to subjects that are not moving. For BIF (bird in flight) shots which is one of the more difficult aspects of nature photography, there is also the problem of subject motion which necessitates an even higher shutter speed.

The fact that you were using AI Servo focusing is a positive because tracking a BIF means that focal distance is continuously changing and one shot focusing just would not be satisfactory.

I have been seriously interested in bird photography for a while, but still have a very long way to go to get as good as the folks on the Bird Forum. Along the way, I have learned the sad truth about lenses -- high quality long lenses (meaning $$$$) are a staple of bird photographers and also there is no substitute for getting really close. Using a sturdy tripod with a gimbal head mount for fast low friction tracking is also very important (can you say even more $$$$). Some of these long lenses are unbelievably expensive, but one of the most popular ones, the EF 400 mm f/5.6L is extremely good and marginally affordable. I am hoping that Santa brings me one.

[Bill Boehme]

I took a peek at the large jpg image and, as mentioned by Winkles, the left wingtip seems fairly sharp, but that is relative to the other parts of the bird and there is still a good deal of fuzziness. The fuzziness in the area that is closest to focus could be caused by any number of things, but I would put the lens high on the list of probable causes. Since the shot was hand held there is probably a tiny bit of camera shake, but it is not obvious. Of course, the fact that the bird is moving and flapping its wings contributed to some of the blur and it is most noticeable in the tips of the wings.

One thing that I did not mention in my previous post is the difficulty of photographing white birds. I noticed that in your large image that the leading edges of the wing and some areas on the head, neck, and back were blown out. This is a common problem and takes some experience to guesstimate how to compensate for it. If the bird had completely filled the viewfinder, you probably would have needed to apply some positive exposure compensation, but in a shot such as this where the blue sky comprises most of the exposure area, a negative exposure compensation of roughly 1 stop would have been needed. The trick is to expose the bird so that no areas are blown out and yet the bird doesn't look dingy gray rather than white. Well, sometimes as a compromise it is better to settle for a bit of dingy gray rather than blown out highlights.

While pixel peeping, I did see that purple haze was evident mainly along the leading edge of the wings and also surrounding the legs. There was also some other chromatic fringing of reds and blues. There is a Photoshop trick using the Hue/Saturation control that does a fairly nice job of getting rid of purple haze, but it still leaves a few artifacts behind.

I suspect that a smaller aperture would have been needed to get the whole bird in focus due to the large wingspan, but stopping down would just complicate getting a sharp exposure even further because of the need to use a slower shutter speed. This might be one of those shots where you just use a higher ISO and hope to clean up the noise adequately in post processing.

In the attached edit of the large image, I used ACR to attempt to recover some of the highlights, but there still is very little detail in the areas that were blown. I tweaked the tone curve to try to enhance the contrast in the wing feathers. Next, in Photoshop, I cleaned up the purple haze and some of the other color fringing. I used the NeatImage plug-in to clean up the noise a bit, but it is still a bit noisy. Finally, after resizing the image, I applied a small amount of USM to sharpen the details a bit.

324531

EDIT: Just checked and see that you used f/9 so I do not believe that DOF was much of an issue here -- maybe the focus was just off a tad.

[rosie777]

It's really hard to tell if the blur is from camera shake or bad a/f when there is nothing in really good focus That makes sense. I'll try for more in the frame next time.
if you look closely at the primary on the bird's left wing they look pretty sharp - maybe the focus point is just off? I thought I was using the center spot focus, but it turns out it was evaluative.
I took offense until I read this review.Wow, that is scathing! I know it's not top of the line, but I think I've taken some pretty good shots with it.I bought a 70-200 f/2.8L and a 1.4 extender and never looked back.
I do envy you that 70-200L. I've got a request in with Santa for 100-400. We'll see :)
i found my shots of sports at 1/800 to be sharp as a tack I'm going to try that. Thanks!
the EF 400 mm f/5.6L is extremely good and marginally affordable. I am hoping that Santa brings me one. Good luck! I do have my own little wish list for Santa :) I applied a small amount of USM to sharpen the details a bit.
A bit? That's a whole lot sharper and much more detail. I appreciate the edit! Yes, the proper exposure on these white birds is going to take some practice for me...And, I have seen that purple haze on several of my photos, including some I took recently of a Great Horned Owl in my yard. I didn't realize that's from the lens.
Wow, Bill the photos on your site are stunning! Beautiful work.

[Nathan]

A bit? That's a whole lot sharper and much more detail.

Just as a word of caution, I think the edit was a good one, but Bill may have oversharpened just a tad. All around the bird, you can see a clear halo effect - i.e. white fringing around the head, tail and legs especially.

[SwingBopper]

I had the text flat on a table and had the camera tilted at 45 degrees. The original had much more text, I cropped it down to the size you see. I will try it again from farther away and tilt the text instead of the camera. Thanks for your help...I appreciate it!

No need to reshoot if you had a 45 degree angle that's fine. But when I do this test i can see clearly out of focus lines and in focus lines. What I saw on your images were all in focus (albeit soft). If you were shooting wide open at 3.5 then this test then look for how many lines from the center are OOF in one direction and see if the same number are OOF in the other direction. Then your AF is OK.

[Bill Boehme]

Just as a word of caution, I think the edit was a good one, but Bill may have oversharpened just a tad. All around the bird, you can see a clear halo effect - i.e. white fringing around the head, tail and legs especially.

I got busted. :oops:

Yep, everything was fine and then I decided to apply some USM sharpening to the blue channel -- you know, it's the old, "if a little bit is good, then a whole lot has gotta be great" trap. I flopped right into that one. Unfortunately, I had gone past the undo point when I closed the file. I thought to myself, "as long as Reign doesn't see this one, maybe ...". :)

Also, the noise reduction reduced some of the detail so there are some things that could be done better. I will look for one of the threads on purple haze in which I posted an example of using the Hue/Saturation control to reduce the problem.

[Bill Boehme]

I thought I was using the center spot focus, but it turns out it was evaluative.

............

Wow, Bill the photos on your site are stunning! Beautiful work.

I think that you might have gotten focus and exposure mixed up. You actually might have been using the center point for focusing and using evaluative metering for exposure. As fa as shooting a white bird in flight against a bright blue sky, I am not sure than any exposure program has much advantage over another and you might do better by experimenting and bracketing the shots.

Thanks for the nice comments about my site. :D Now, my head is so swollen, I can't even squeeze through the door. :oops:

[rosie777]

All around the bird, you can see a clear halo effect - i.e. white fringing around the head, tail and legs especially I guess I need to develop my "eye". I don't really notice that!
I think that you might have gotten focus and exposure mixed up. You actually might have been using the center point for focusing and using evaluative metering for exposure.That's exactly what I was doing! Is evaluative the best metering setting to use for a situation like that, probably spot metering on the bird would've given me a better result. Someday, I hope to be able to put it all together in one great shot :)
Thanks for all of your help.

[Bill Boehme]

I guess I need to develop my "eye". I don't really notice that!
That's exactly what I was doing! Is evaluative the best metering setting to use for a situation like that, probably spot metering on the bird would've given me a better result. Someday, I hope to be able to put it all together in one great shot :)
Thanks for all of your help.

Look for a very thin white outline around the bird. That is what happens when sharpening. If printing an image, heavy sharpening is what would be called for, but for displaying on a computer monitor, it is best to hold sharpening to the point where outlines are not very evident.

Spot metering might possibly have worked better than evaluative, but in either case I think that you would need to use some exposure compensation. As an example, suppose that the white bird were close enough that the spot metering only metered off the bird's feathers and nothing else. The metering will adjust the exposure so that the spot that is metered will be middle gray -- midways between black and white based on how humans see shades of gray. Well, just like in the laundry detergent commercials, you would not want a dingy gray bird if sparkling white is the real color. In such a case as that, you might need to add about 1 stop of exposure compensation (either open the aperture by one stop, slow the shutter speed by one stop, or raise the ISO setting to double the current setting). The ultimate goal would be to get a bird that seems to be white, but is actually mostly various shades of light gray.