Sparrow

[jonjdoe]

All comments welcome. This feels rigid to me. How can I get it more "relaxed"?

[Donald]

Not sure I'd agree that it's 'rigid'. But the bird is too soft. It needs sharpened.

[jonjdoe]

Thanks Donald. This seems to be a true problem for me. Maybe cropped too much? I used USM. Go more with this? Other ways to get it sharper. This is shot with 50D, 70-200mm f2.8L @ f/14, ISO 400, 1/320th second. Maybe my eyes are failing I'm using manual.

[Donald]

John

As well as the tutorials on CiC on the subject, this thread gives some practical advice and guidance. See if they help at all.

[jonjdoe]

Yes. Much help. Also, manual focus, for me, was asking too much at this distance and with this heavy (hand-held) lens. I've tried again with ISO 200, f/8, aperature priority, and got this....

[elfbob]

It almost appears that you focused on the front of the feeder cage wires; it's difficult to manually focus on a smaller bird as it lacks any sharp contrast point to achieve sharp focus at with the exception of the birds eye & the demarking line where its upper & lower beak meet; you are using f/14 so that should render enough foreground clarity to have the feeder still in focus while actually focusing on the bird; if you used AF you might try selecting the center AF point so that you would be centered on the bird; from the exif data you provided i can't readily discern if the 50D was set on M , Av, Tv or P; i shoot with a EOS 50D also, with birds i have to weigh if i want dof(emphasis on the bird) or stop action; if the former is important i set the camera to Av , then select an appropriate f/ while the latter requires Tv & selecting the shutter speed needed to arrest motion; the bird appears to be in sufficient illumination to use either center weighted average or spot metering, this might help "liven up" the birds somewhat bland coloration; you didn't state what focal length the lens was set on or how far the bird feeder was from you, but it appears like less than 35ft ; i agree with the others that the cropping is a bit extreme,but you might have been biasing the birds position in the frame to conveying impending flight.

[jonjdoe]

Thanks, Robert. In that shot, I used manual focus. In the next shot (squirrel and bird), I used Av, f/8, ISO 200, autofocus and IS. The lens is fully out for both shots (200mm). I think the focusing has improved in the second shot(pay no attention to the composition). I'm thinking of getting a 2X extender to avoid heavy cropping. Any thoughts?

[Donald]

Yes. Much help. Also, manual focus, for me, was asking too much at this distance and with this heavy (hand-held) lens. I've tried again with ISO 200, f/8, aperature priority, and got this....

Now, that's it.

Certainly, when you're shooting with a lens that you know gives you good autofocus and particularly if you've got subjects that aren't going to stay still, then using that autofocus is choice #1 - every time.

That is a good image. Perfect example of getting yourself in the right place at the right time and seizing the opportunity that presented itself.

[elfbob]

A 2x extender will make a 200mm lens the equivalent of a 640mm on a 35mm sensor due to the 1.6 crop factor, but it will also cause a 2f/ loss of light hitting the image sensor & will double the effective set lens aperature, e.g. f/2.8 becomes f/5.6; usually folks buy a 2x extender for more distant "birding" image captures; at 1 time i was considering a 2x extender but i would lose AF with my Canon 70-200mm F4L USM, this is not the case with the 70-200mm F2.8L; composition & RAW or JPEG capture @ 15 Mp has a lot to do with how much cropping you can do to improve the subject size; AF (auto focus) & IS are phenomenal for better images, but remember the 1.6X image sensor crop factor if you are hand holding w/o IS because @ 200mm you would have to set a minimum shutter speed of 1/320 or greater to theoretically have the reciprocal of the effective lens length of 320mm. Personally, i would learn to use the 70-200mm lens with the many camera settings to achieve a "second nature" level of expertise before i added another variable to the equation. I have extended the utility of my sharp 70-200mm F4L to macro use by coupling 2 extension tubes to the camera body instead of buying a dedicated & gulp expensive canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. Enjoy your camera & wonderful lens, cheers bob

[jonjdoe]

Thanks, Donald. This makes me think I CAN get there someday!

[jonjdoe]

Thanks, Robert, for the advice. My intention is to get good with this lens, then expand!