It may not be necessary but I'd like to suggest that you change only one factor at a time in trying to isolate the problem, like removing the filter, and try to duplicate your experience as in the pictures you first posted as nearly as possible to see what action you take changes the quality of your images recognizing that in the end it may indeed be a combination of factors. Often, when we make several changes at once, like removing the filter, changing the IS, going from "AI focus" to "AI servo," and speeding up the shutter speed at the same time, if our problem gets solved, we haven't isolated the problem to one single cause, and it may cause us to stop doing something that may be beneficial in other instances just because it adversely affected one type of shot. I can see a filter causing problems, and certainly, we need to keep our shutter speed up to avoid shake, but there may not be anything wrong with the IS setting and what you're using may not be contributing to the problems with your shots but you won't know that if you change to another IS setting without knowing if the one you're using is contributing to the problem or not and may actually introduce another problem you didn't have before.

I am also thinking that adding a bit of flash might bring out some more color when shooting so many earth tones. Then you get into the issue of using high speed sync, which will reduce the effective range of the Speedlite. Or you can shoot at sync speed, 1/200 or 1/250 and then have to think about camera motion or subject motion. Unless you are going to pretty much kill the ambient light and depend on the Speedlite to light the scene. The speed of the flash will freeze the motion but does it them become a problem of not looking natural but like a flash shot. That might be able to be addressed some with gels on the flash to kill some of the flash look. Or try one or two Speedlites with radio to allow remote placement in the area you are trying to shoot. I am not a wildlife shooter...but there are interesting challenges it seems for those who do it.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I am also thinking that adding a bit of flash might bring out some more color when shooting so many earth tones. Then you get into the issue of using high speed sync, which will reduce the effective range of the Speedlite. Or you can shoot at sync speed, 1/200 or 1/250 and then have to think about camera motion or subject motion. Unless you are going to pretty much kill the ambient light and depend on the Speedlite to light the scene. The speed of the flash will freeze the motion but does it them become a problem of not looking natural but like a flash shot. That might be able to be addressed some with gels on the flash to kill some of the flash look. Or try one or two Speedlites with radio to allow remote placement in the area you are trying to shoot. I am not a wildlife shooter...but there are interesting challenges it seems for those who do it.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I have found that when you "almost" have enough light to not need flash the flash will light the main subject but the natural light will allow the sensor to get a bit of a ghost/blur which gives it the "motion" look. I found that out on hummers, they said use flash-it will freeze all the motion. Well it didn't, the wings were still a total blur, so I went to high speed sync and I got wings with the feathers showing etc and just a hint of blur for the motion look. This was in daylight at about 10'.

Interesting as I have tested my Canon 600EX II - RT Speedlight and at full power the t0.5 flash duration is about 1/1000 to 1/1100 second. That is fast compared to the sync speed of 1/250 on my camera. But it may not be fast enough to stop the motion of a hummingbirds wings. It would also depend on the balance of flash light to ambient light, the less ambient the better most likely when trying to stop motion. If the Speedlite was closer and the power lowered the t0.5 time will get much faster. at minimum power it is about 1/45,000 second I believe. That should stop the motion I am pretty sure. High speed sync with theSpeedlite would be another thing to look at but it would be distance limiting too... That is where off camera with radio control of the Speedlite is good.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I enjoy taking pictures of birds so not long ago I splurged and bought the Canon 100-400 L II lens for my Canon T3. I've taken several hundred shots with the new lens and about 5 of them have been crisp and sharp. Normally when birding I hand-hold so I understand that there will be some camera shake for a lens that heavy. Today I used a tripod and got similar results - not sharp. My camera was set up with AI Focus and 800 ISO. I turned off the Stabilizer on the lens and set the focal length to Full. Below are some of the results (no PP). Note that I typically crop bird pics at least 50% but I swear that doing so with my 55-250mm lens got better results. When cropping (and to a lesser extent on these uncropped) I notice vertical branches in the background appear ghosted - that is two parallel unfocused lines instead of one unfocused line. Please let me know what I can do to get crisper pics. Thanks

I can not get over the fact that your post of the 6 shots you have taken then ask what am I doing wrong , I still think your pulling
Our leg , I don't think you did anything wrong , you got what you seen in your camera , that is what you got in your view finder
Then took the photo , were you expecting something different , if you give a clue what you wanted if different from what you got ??? , if it was not what you wanted , i dont have a clue what your after , how long have you been using a camera , post some that you think were right rather than , what did i do wrong ,

See the pictures I posted on Page 5. Those pictures are sharp and clear, taken at about the same distance but with a different lens.