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I am also new to BIF and photography really. I have similar shots that pro’s wouldn’t even call keepers but to me they tell my story. This is not a great quality photo but a rainbow bee eater eyeing of dinner made it great to me. I’m sure you will keep at it like me.
That can be a challenge
I do not use back button (used it for over a year but did not like my thumbs tied up) so that situation does not apply but I have goofed up and used single-point AF when group-area AF would have been more effective. I set my cameras to single-point AF for default and then press my prv button to change to group-area AF when the situation requires it. Others prefer the exact opposite but for me it is muscle memory when I see a bird in flight etc to hit the group. Wish I could say it has always worked perfectly but I still goof up one way or another from time to time An optimal quality image is going to depend a lot on your post processing skills. Ideally you would work with the raw file and do any post processing on it. Regarding file size and file format, the gold standard for printing is 300ppi. You can get a decent image with less than 300ppi, but things do start to fall apart when you drop below around 175ppi. Some images can be up sampled and look okay, but that generally requires good post processing skills if you want the best outcome. sRGB is the Lingua France file format for most labs. Those that take Adobe RGB will usually say so. So if they do not mention it, assume sRGB.
Thanks.The pros get a lot of practice and you probably have other things you need to do rather than sit in a hide for several days waiting for the perfect shot! Don’t beat yourself up. They are really good shots! Not just good shots “for an amateur!”
Nice! that photo tells a nice story.
Topaz labs is default at 300dpi for editing DeNoise and sharpness, I have been changing it to 600dpi is this overkill?
I try and work with the native resolution of the raw file as much as possible. The D500's maximum resolution is 5568 x 3712. At 300ppi, this would give you an uncropped print of 18.56 x 12.37. At 600ppi, the print would be 9.28 x 6.18. As I mentioned above, you can use a lower ppi depending on the desired print size, but at some point you may need to upsample the file. I do not know what advantage you would gain by printing at 600ppi unless your lab instructed you to do so. In general, I find it best to do all of my processing and cropping and then see what I have to work with. With some images, upsampling is not noticeable. With others, things may not look good. The same goes with printing at less than 300ppi. I have some images that were printed at around 200ppi and they looked fine. A lot will depend on your expectations and the file you are working with. This was why I recommended working with paper prints initially. It is a hard lesson to make a large metal print and find out that something was not up to the task.
I use BBAF but the shutter also autofocuses. I track with BBAF but just in case I release the BBAF button when shooting the camera still autofocuses. All this means is that I can't focus then recompose, I must use the joystick to move the focus point. I needed two thumbs to do both.That can be a challenge