Dark-eyed Junco

[herderdog]

Caught this fellow today at home.
Would he have been a tad sharper around the head if I had stopped down one more?
http://www.pbase.com/herderdog/image/44560777.jpg

1/1250s f/5.6 at 400.0mm iso400

[EoSD30fReAk]

that's a very nice bird!

and as for your question, at f 8.0 or even f11 it's head would have probably been a tad sharper, and looking at your shutter speed it wouldn't have been a problem.

[Scottes]

Very nice shot. No complaints here. The eye is not quite as sharp as the back feathers, but it's perfectly acceptable.

Little birds are tricky. You should focus on the eye, recompose, and snap the pic. Easier said than done! But the DoF is *very* shallow when you're this close. One more stop would have helped a little, but not much. A DoF calculator shows that 400mm f/5.6 at 10 feet produces a DoF of 0.04" - barely a millimeter! You'd need to go to f/16 - 3 stops - to double the DoF to 2mm. And his eye *still* wouldn't have been that much sharper.

That 3 stops would have brought your shutter speed from 1/1250s to 1/150s. The 100-400 could have handled 1/150, but if the bird had even twitched he'd have blurred.

[Meerkat17]

Nice capture
David

[cfcRebel]

Nice capture Bonnie! Beautiful bird!
Thanks Scott, for the great tips.

[herderdog]

Thanks you all.

Scottes-
Thank you for such a detailed explaination.
I am starting to get the hang of it a little--and I can now understand a little better !:D
I tried to look at the focus point (obviously I am pretty sure I got him on the body), but this was a raw image converted to a tiff. I no longer have a program that will show me the AF point. Is there a program that will show it ?

Thanks again.

[herderdog]

Thanks cfcR!!
The sun came out this morning for ever so briefly. I was standing about 2 ft from the tree and this guy touched dowwn right in front of me.

[AJ Montgomery]

Bonnie, nice shot and excellent pose by the fella! As for the sharpness, how close were you? When I shoot with my 400/5.6, I typically stop down to F/8 to get added DOF.

Here are some hard numbers for you:
20D @400mm F/5.6 and a subject distance of 15 feet, your DOF is .96 inches!
20D @400mm F/8 and a subject distance of 15 feet, your DOF is 1.44 inches!

For a small bird, that is barely enough to get it all in focus if it were a profile shot. You may need to try F/11 if they are really close. Around here I shoot them at about 18-20 feet and typically at F/8.

If you are interested in seeing more about the DOF for future shots, see this:
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Simply choose your camera, set the variables and click calculate!

[herderdog]

AJ-
Thank you! And thanks for the calculator--very useful and interesting.

Well, now that I am looking at all this DoF --I wonder how I got the lens to focus at all! LOL!!
I really was close--maybe two-well maybe four feet max, but not very far. He landed in front of me--I was actually looking at another bird.:rolleyes:

[skade]

Beautiful shot... and thanks for the DOF info AJ.

[AJ Montgomery]

Beautiful shot... and thanks for the DOF info AJ.
For my part, you are welcome!

[tupe]

Nice shot, Bonnie. How do you get your birds to pose so flirtatiously? ;)

[BlueTit]

Great shot of a lovely bird. And that DoF info is very helpful

[herderdog]

How do you get your birds to pose so flirtatiously? ;)

LOL!:lol:
I dunno...he jumped right in between me and the other bird!!

[Raj]

Beautiful !

[LazyPhotographer]

Beautiful capture!!

[sparker1]

Why, Bonnie, that is a beautiful shot. No concern about sharpness from my point of view. Grat capture.