Grrr said the frustrated said the supposed photographer

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ARLINGTONPHOTO

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I took this in HI a few month back and its just bugging me.
I took several shots of this bird all have lousy focus
Save your the time to look up info
Z9, 70-200 2.8 w/TC 2x. 400mm f/16 , shot in NEF, focus was wide area large, focus tracking 3, AF-C AF subject detection -animal ISO 800 ,

This was the best and its just NOT sharp!
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Think about how much unstable air there is between you and the bird. Windy day? Over a hot or colder surface (like water).

How fast was the bird flying across your screen? Unless you have stellar panning skills motion blur is going to be terrible, especially at 1/800 sec.

If this was some bird that I really wanted just to prove I saw it, I would have probably shot 1/1000 sec. minimum, the lowest f/stop you could (you sure don't need any depth of field on a bird that far away.) and I would have used the small focus point I could and shot images as fast as the shutter goes...and then HOPE for a good one. I would have been thrilled to get 2 keepers out of 100 images (yes...really)

The distance is really working against you no matter how you shoot it. But it is "free" to try!
 
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Again Charles why? The bird is too far away to show much detail in the bird but what that has to do with using an extender at f16 and 1/800 I'm not sure. If the bird is in glide 1/800 should be ok. Could be a whole list of reasons why the image is not sharp.
 
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No matter your settings - you need a much longer lens - or get the bird MUCH closer

I can see what you tried to do - shooting at f16 trying to get more sharpness - in the future - increase your shutter speed to 1/2000 and drop your aperture. (eg f5.6 to f8 depending on the light and the lens). If your light allows - increase your shutter speed even more. Remember you can shoot higher ISO on the Z9 than you might think

A good rule of thumb for starting off - settings for birds is 1/2000, f5.6, and auto ISO.
 
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Winston Churchill (Sir) said:
No matter your settings - you need a much longer lens - or get the bird MUCH closer

I can see what you tried to do - shooting at f16 trying to get more sharpness - in the future - increase your shutter speed to 1/2000 and drop your aperture. (eg f5.6 to f8 depending on the light and the lens). If your light allows - increase your shutter speed even more. Remember you can shoot higher ISO on the Z9 than you might think

A good rule of thumb for starting off - settings for birds is 1/2000, f5.6, and auto ISO.
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I have an Nikon 600 but the boat captain dissuade me from taking it on board🏴‍☠️
 
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ARLINGTONPHOTO said:
DOF
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An image like that with a single wildlife subject is basically a portrait and you need very little DoF. Add two or more subjects or important foreground elements you want to keep in focus it can change but for single wildlife subjects it's typical to shoot a lens wide open or perhaps stopped down maybe one stop for a bit of focus error insurance. So with a 70-20mm lens plus 2x TC it would be normal to shoot that at f/5.6 or perhaps f/8 buying you an awful lot of shutter speed without bumping up ISO.

FWIW, one way to get a handle on how folks are shooting flying birds is to visit a thread with many photos like this one and look at the EXIF data posted below the photos to get an idea of shutter speeds, apertures and ISO ranges typically used to capture these kinds of images: https://bcgforums.com/index.php?threads/birds-in-flight-share-your-bif-images.682/
 
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Ibrahim said:
1/800 should be ok. Could be a whole list of reasons why the image is not sharp.
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Sorry Sir, I can't agree with ya, shutter speed too low for how I do it. A tiny movement shooting at that distance will be a blur of the subject shutter speed 800. And I will not use a 2X on anything other than a 105 macro (seldom, but have).
 
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Yep…pixels on target is the issue I' guessing plus perhaps a bit of heat shimmer or not enough shutter speed…but it's gliding so although I would use a higher speed 1/800 ought to be enough for a gliding bird with good panning skills.

And I have to disagree just a bit with Charles…sometimes a 2X is ok…depends on where the output is going and whether the lost sharpness due to the TC is going to be seen…and the Z TCs are much better than the F mount ones were as well.
 
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Sometimes people think because they have a super telephoto that it should take any subject in the distance, no matter how far away, and it should be sharp. Experience over time teaches us that is not so but each case is different. Every lens has a maximum distance away where the subject will not be sharp, especially if the shutter speed is too low. In general, with wildlife, given that you are not shooting in the middle of the day in bright sunshine, a wide open aperture is used, often f/5.6, as that is the most open aperture for many lenses: this allows the background to blur out but it keeps the animal mostly sharp as the animal is generally far away. If the animal were fairly close it would keep the eye and head sharp and the rest of the animal sharpness would fall off. If you are shooting, for example, a mom duck and her duckies gathered around her at various distances, then shooting at an aperture of f/8 would be better to attempt to get sharpness through the group ( I learned this the hard way and lost a sale to a magazine because the duck babies were not sharp). A lot of how to shoot wildlife photography, in my experience, is learned through time as we shoot, fail, and succeed. But learning the basics of the gear is essential to getting the shot you want.
 
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Charles Loy said:
Sorry Sir, I can't agree with ya, shutter speed too low for how I do it. A tiny movement shooting at that distance will be a blur of the subject shutter speed 800. And I will not use a 2X on anything other than a 105 macro (seldom, but have).
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No problem. BTW one of my mid life crises was a Ducati ST2, shared it with nos.1 son [23 years ago ]. He just got a Yamaha R1. He has not offered me a chance to try it out. BTW I am not a Knight of the Realm.
 
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ARLINGTONPHOTO said:
Not cropped …on a boat so there may haze may have been a factor f16 because DOF
THANKS
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Something that far away will have adequate depth of field at f5.6. DOF at that distance wouldn’t be an issue. The fact that you’re on a boat just compounds the problem of motion blur. I think haze and shutter speed were you primary issues.
 
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