Little help on focusing

[flam79]

Hi, I just got the Quantaray 70-300mm lense and I was testing it out.
From a distance I took a shot of the top of my fence but for some reason, it never comes out clear. I tried both manual and auto focus.

The setting was with ISO 400 because it was a little cloudy and I think the shutter speed was shooting at 1/100 so even jittery hands shouldn't affect it that much right?

Here are the pictures I'm talking about. I took a picture of a bird as well which also came out blurry.

http://www.hcktechnologies.com/yieyie/IMG_1806.jpg

http://www.hcktechnologies.com/yieyie/BirdRoof.jpg
Don't be fooled, it might look clear here because I shrunk the picture for the site.
But it is a little blurry.
Thanks in advance.

[GyRob]

1/100 ? way to slow and if your camera has a 1.6 crop far way to slow even at 70mm, you need to test it on a tripod and even use the selftimer to avoid moving the camera as you press the shutter.
Rob

[GyRob]

just checked it does have a 1.6 crop so at 75 mm its 120mm and at 300mm its acting like a 480mm lens you need at leased 1/500 sec at the long end and 1/150sec at short end thats if you can hold the camera still .faster shutter speed than the above would be better .
Rob.

[Dante King]

What gyrob said, and Also stopping down the lens 2-3 stops should work wonders.

[ron chappel]

The lens,while cheap,shouldn't be that bad.
I assume these are full size images (not crops)?

The bird picture is interesting! See how the lens front focussed in that one? The closer tiles are sharper than the ones directly under the bird.
This doesn't nessesarily mean the lens is faulty though because the roof is angled and who knows which part of it the focus point caught (focus points are bigger than shown in the viewfinder so can be missleading)

Find a good focus test online and test it properly or you'll allways be unsure.
I'll see if i can find one and give the link

[Hellashot]

The top image looks like it just needs sharpening. And the second one is dark probably because of the brighter sky behind the bird giving incorrect exposure on the bird.

[flam79]

Thanks guys for all the comments, I think I'll try to find a focus test and maybe I just need some more practice.