I shot these from my deck with my sigma 150-600C and Nikon D810. In my opinion I think they are sharp. Other comments are wanted and encouraged How'd i do?
Sharpness is such a relative thing. Sometimes I think I won't be happy with the sharpness of my image until I'm able to enlarge it to reveal the bacteria living on a surface. But these photographs are wonderfully crisp with enviable color vibrancy. I particularly liked the third one. The other seemed focused on something other than the subject, but are still nice.
I struggle with sharpness, especially with my Tamron lens. It seems that you have an extremely shallow depth of field in these images. For example, in the first one, most of the flower and the hummer are actually soft focus. The only thing(s) in sharp focus are a few of the "petals" on the left side of the flower. In the second, the butterfly appears to be in focus, but the flowers are not. In the third, both the butter and the flowers appear to be in focus. In the fourth, again only a few of the petals are in sharp focus.
Having said all that, most of these would appear fine at normal viewing distance when enlarged. However, you might want to limit the size of your enlargement.
Do you recall what your f-stop was on these? Perhaps decreasing it would help.
I just got the same lens. Very happy with it.
I also have the same lens. It appears that your lens/camera are front focusing just a little. Other than that they are very nice.
John
"A letter of reprimand is better than no mail at all!"
The blunt truth (which is your goal I hope). The hummers are soft and also motion blurred. The BFs are close and well composed - #3 is best. Try using a fill flash and a Better Beamer to get the shutter speed up. 600mm at 320 and 200 is tough to get good sharpness with.
The only thing that will help your eye get used to knowing "sharp" is to see photos of and better yet, shoot with, someone who has the capabilities and knowledge of how to obtain sharp photos. Then when you see your shot next to theirs and - knowing that all things were equal environmentally- you will work on your sharpness and focus. Join a local club and go on shoots with the people with an affinity for nature and birds. A goal to strive for is to realize you have to get the eye sharp. If you can't see the detail around the eye or in the eye it could have been sharper.
starlifter wrote:
I shot these from my deck with my sigma 150-600C and Nikon D810. In my opinion I think they are sharp. Other comments are wanted and encouraged How'd i do?
Being a sometimes shooter of hummers and butterflies, I think you did a great job! The main subjects are good and sharp which I consider to be the main objective. Lenses as long as yours tend to have a short focal length so watch the background closely and you can get good bokeh. I believe that your mentioning that the lens is a Sigma makes some believe that it is not the best for sharpness. Not so.
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