Woodsman Loc: North of Peterborough Ontario

Struggling to get a decent crisp shot of almost anything with the D7200 and the Nikkor 70-300 . Playing with in camera AF fine tune now. Today was a dull misty day. There should be no shake as the bird was not moving and although hand held these were shot at 1/1600. ISO was down around 500 to 600, Spot metering with +.3EV compensation shot with the sky in the background. Single point focus on the bird. A lot of noise on these so they had to be run through Noise Ninja as well which causes the softness in the feathers. Just a struggle with this lens I think.

I dont seem to have any issues with the Sigma 150-600 C though which is good news. I think I need to put it back on and go for a walk with it.

Osprey

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Osprey on Overwatch

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WayneT Loc: Paris, TN

Have you tried to calibrate this lens?

Woodsman Loc: North of Peterborough Ontario

Not yet, I keep thinking about building a quick calibration jig to see how far off it is I just have not gotten around to it yet.

Woodsman Loc: North of Peterborough Ontario

The pup wanted to go for another walk this afternoon so I put the camera on a monopod, turned off the AF-Fine Tune which I was playing to see how default does on this cloudy day

Mr O heading home with reno material

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Mrs O waiting for Mr O to return from work

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Lance Pearson Loc: Viriginia

Others do better than I do on animal photography but I'm mastering a canon 85-300 via adapter shooting it manually on a sony A7 body so have had a similar learning curve. I do have a nikon d4 as well but love the a7 as an art camera. One thing you can try is run the iso up a little and increase the shutter speed. It will minimize your variation in movement when the shutter is stroked. A faster shot allows for less time for your "hold" to move. A solid monopod can be good. I find I make a triangle between the eye viewfinder, my two hands and it is a sort of steady enough tripod and I don't breath when I shoot. The other thing which hurt my heart to do was to use a combination of manual settings and one of the white light scene type settings and sometimes the creative settings as well. The things together can make a difference. First: cloudy, sunny, etc. settings. Second: Standard, deep, vivid, landscape, etc. creative scene type. I used to think all manual was better but a combo of them can exceed anything that manual does by itself. the landscape if you are shooting way out is helpful as it sets up background better. Not sure how all this works but it does seem to. Also, I try not to punch the shutter release..easier said than done but distance means ANY vibration and it fuzzes the shot to some degree. You may know all this but the above is what I learned while getting a whole lot better at it.

Woodsman Loc: North of Peterborough Ontario

I agree, I have been shooting in Shutter priority mostly but that will typically give me down around f5.6 at 300mm and throws up the ISO quite often which gives me more noise than I would anticipate on the D7200, to the point I limit it to around ISO 1600 max. The bottom two were shot on a monopod although the in flight one was handheld and panning. They were also shot in manual mode so I could set the aperature around F8 to F10 and the speed at 1/1600 and cranked up the compensation to +0.7 because of the back light. I use back button focus which really helps me stabilize and the fast continuous shutter on the D7200 helps too. I usually run lens VR off when shooting over 1/1000. Much better so far and no need for noise ninja on the last two. Tomorrow I will put the 150-600 on. Just so heavy to handle and walk in the woods with while watching the dog.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Just so you know, these are under exposed by about 1 f-stop at least - for these kinds of shots I use JPEG with manual SS, aperture and auto ISO maxed out at 1600 on A77II. Exposure comp would be at +1 2/3 and then use judicious PP in Elements 9 - hoping this may help you.

Woodsman Loc: North of Peterborough Ontario

Yeah they were shot with the exposure compensation incorrect. Way to low for a dull day like yesterday. Just didn't catch it. The one today was +0.7 on a sunny day and was much better

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

On a sunny days with blue sky, I might use +1/3 to -0- in order to preserve the highlight details .......and open the shadows in post.

Woodsman Loc: North of Peterborough Ontario

sailorsmom Loc: Souderton, PA

Very good shots, Woodsman!

Woodsman Loc: North of Peterborough Ontario

Thanks