First Bird Shot

[Carter13]

Hello,
I am a newbie and this is my first photo I have asked for information on. I currently have a 50d with a 28-135 IS lens. I will have a 24-105 f4 L in a few days but decided to try some more shots out.

The weather outside is rainy and grey. I shot this out my kitchen window with the screen out. I tried several different modes but used the AV one the most.

This shot was taken at 5.6 ISO was 500 and shutter was 1/80. I am having a hard time having the bird turn out sharp. I rested my elbows on the counter but did not have a tripod.

Any suggestions?

[Carter13]

Here is one more.

[kanonshooter]

They are pretty good. They are a bit grainy, and the white links offer some distraction to be honest, but sometimes you don't have much time to put a whole lot of thought into the composition and you just take what you can get, and that's saying something. No #1 is the real winner here.

[chrisu002]

kin dof soft and grainy

[Bill Boehme]

It appears to me that the focus was on the chain to the right of the bird. If you haven't done so, it is important for these type of shots to set your camera's AF to use only the center focus point. Otherwise, you are at the mercy of the camera's focusing system choosing the highest contrast that it detects in the field of view -- which usually turns out to be anything other than what you want. That is a nice shot, nevertheless. The bird would have been a bit sharper if the AF system had locked onto the bird and not the chain, but in this shot, you have just about reached the limit of what that lens is able to achieve. The foregoing comments are based on my assumption that the image is a 100% crop (pixel peeper jargon meaning that the viewing scale has been set to 100% so that one screen pixel equals one image pixel).

I have been using a 70-200 mm f/2.8 lens with a 1.4X teleconverter for bird photography, but it was marginal at best. I just recently purchased a 400 mm f/5.6 prime telephoto that is considered an excellent bird and wildlife lens and after using it for a few days, I will confirm that it is scary sharp. The shooting distance for the 400 mm lens when doing bird photography is typically 15 to 30 feet. With a 105 mm lens, you would need to be able to get quite close in order to capture the really fine details.

Here is a shot at a distance of about 25 feet using my 70-200mm f/2.8 at maximum zoom and also using a 1.4X teleconverter.


353139

[Carter13]

Your photo is awesome Bill. That is what I hope for in the future. Thanks for the advice on the center point focus, I will try that next time.

[Bill Boehme]

Your photo is awesome Bill. That is what I hope for in the future. Thanks for the advice on the center point focus, I will try that next time.

I am still at the beginner stage in bird photography -- if you take a look at the images on the POTN Bird Forum (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=91), you will see many that are absolutely amazing.