Congrats, much more pp skill than I have. But not sure why you expended so much effort on a bad photo. My point in posting was to learn why distant subjects look so crappy, not how to chase the impossible task of making a bad photo good or much better. I learned a lot about my question from the simple narrative responses.

Much bigger than a speck, but can't really estimate the distance.

Wasn't me who said no software. I use LrC, so there is plenty I can do to develop images. I only meant that I could have cropped more and ended up with an eagle the same size as yours. But I like to leave room for birds to fly, walk, or look into.

I don't suppose it's possible in the R10 custom settings to set a Not To Exceed ISO value? It's either auto and no user control, or a set value. Right?

Better? Perhaps. After all that tweaking, you end up with a bigger bird (I could have done that too) and a weird impressionist painting look to the eagle. I'd say your photo is bad and mine is worse. Clearly neither of us had much to work with.

Thanks. Yeah, you'd be miffed too if some strange creature was staring at you in your bedroom, lol.

Thanks, everyone. Very educational. In situations like these, which actually aren't that common for me, getting closer is not an option. I could try to lower the ISO, but I'm not sure the corresponding lower shutter speed would be worth the trade-off. And I'm not convinced ISO is an issue here. It's not that high. I looked at some recent photos of hawks in flight (MUCH closer to than my eagle example), and they have ISO in the 500-1000 range but are sharp. It seems that great distances and resulting POD, heavy cropping and atmospheric degradation all combine to make these shots beyond my current gear and PP capabilities.

Thanks for looking and commenting, folks.

NMGal, Smith Rock SP is a deep canyon, where the Crooked River wends its way through a rugged landscape of sheer cliffs formed by volcanic eruptions and steep hillsides dotted with western juniper trees. The starting point for any visit is the rim, overlooking the canyon. This nest site is a known site in the tallest Juniper in one section of the steep slopes. From the canyon rim, one gets great eye level views of the nest. One doesn’t even have to walk very far to get this amazing perspective!

Taken recently at Smith Rock State Park. I don't think there were any eggs yet, but there must be by now.

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Greetings,

This is my first ever post in the Photo Analysis section. I’m mostly a bird photographer. I’ve noticed that when a bird is very far away, my photos aren’t sharp. I’m wondering if this is inherent to shooting at such great distances? Or is it an inevitable result of heavy cropping? Something else?

I shoot a Canon R10 mirrorless. In this example, I photographed this distant Golden Eagle using my C1 setting:
1/2500, AI Servo, auto ISO, and animal eye tracking. The result was:

1/2500 at f/5.6, ISO 800, 400 mm

I ran Denoise on the photo in Lightroom Classic, and added a mask and made some adjustments to the eagle.

As you can see, the eagle is not at all sharp. It doesn’t seem noisy to me. Just kind of a jagged mess.
Are there steps I could take to improve shots like this? Or am I just brushing up against technological limits and/or my own PP limits?

Thanks for any thoughts.

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I'm a birder and this post piqued my interest. Indeed a Yellow-billed Loon has been seen on the Strip. You can see nice photos of it here:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S163497820

Thanks for looking and commenting, folks!

Birded in Sunriver today, in the shadow of Mt Bachelor. Sharing a few of my faves.

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Perched next to the Deschutes River. I love falcons!

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Neat!