CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

Ten frames a second? To shoot a deer glancing at you? This seems a bit extreme by about eight frames. Slow down. Focus on the face and gently fire off a few shots in that two or three seconds. Know your subject.

MJPerini

My first suggestion comes from what you wrote. If you practice squeezing without jerking , whether single shot or a short burst, it will probably solve your problem without additional cost.
You are not alone, lots of people move the camera when they are in a hurry, but it really is a habit to squeeze rather than punch the shutter.
Good luck

Alphabravo2020

I've seen enough Nat Geo photography to know that the secret is getting close to your subject. This alone is worth thousands of dollars of camera equipment and fixes all the problems you are having.

In low or natural light, it is harder to photograph a group of animals than a single subject. A single subject allows you to minimize depth of field, maximize aperture, minimize ISO, minimize noise etc.

The D7100 is a great camera for this. It has one of the best sensors ever made. A full frame camera won't fix any of the issues you are having.

Post an example image for us. I'm curious about your shutter speed and subject distance and if you are using a smaller aperture than necessary.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Indeed, this is a very good option.

srg

will your trash can be big enough?

ELNikkor

You have excellent enough equipment to get the photos you need. With an equivalent mm of 750 zoomed in, any jiggle can be amplified, (so, no "jerking" the shutter button). I would bet that at 1/125 of a second, you can get sharp photos with your set-up. Just lock in that shutter speed and let the camera choose the ISO it needs to meet that speed at wide open (f5.6 on that lens). Next, set your D7100 to shoot at a ahigh-speed burst. If you gently press down the shutter button when you see the head of those turkeys start to rise, you'll get the whole sequence of "head-up/head-down" and you'll get a few keepers each time. Give it a go with all this great advice, post some photos so we can see how you are doing!

countrycameraman.com Loc: South Georgia

Truly appreciate all the great suggestions and advice you fellas are sharing. Per your request Larry, I'm attaching a couple of shots here to illustrate my opinion of good vs poor results. Plus more info on the procedure I use. Shoot 100% in manual. JPEG only. Shoot from fixed position, no way to move shooting angle around (shoot thru opening of glass pane removed from window. I think the turkey image is good. Taken in sunlight at about 85 yards. Mother/daughter deer shot was taken at maybe 35 yards during late evening, and I consider it marginal at best unless you like soft images.

(Download)

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Thanks for the examples. Without them, we all fill-in our own expectations. The deer seems fine, but we'd have to have access to the pixel-level details, as that file wasn't stored. The thumbnail seems like maybe some different processing would improve, but this treatment is nice as-is.

The turkey in broad daylight presents little problem, where you have virtually unlimited exposure options between shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

To your earlier question about software, as long as you shoot JPEG, you really have all the software in LR5 needed to expertly process JPEGs. You could had more capability for complex edits with PS-Elements, but not necessary. It seems more thought / practice on shooting technique (free approaches) represent that largest upside, followed by continued research and practice with LR. Both examples look fine, but if you have more challenging images, here you might pursue separate posts, requesting ideas using specifically LR.

toxdoc42

I hate to sound as if i am denigrating your ability, but, why would you ever "yank the shutter?" I am 81 years old and shoot wildlife, sports, etc., and never find it necessary to "yank" the shutter. If you simply want to shoot an animal eating, then shoot multiple images and be sure you hold the camera very steady, perhaps using some form of support, tripod or monopod. If your camera is capably of burst images, turn that on.

Personally, I think shooting an animal standing still isn't very interesting. I prefer seeing an animal in action, if a bird, i like bird in flight, and, even there i prefer to pan the flight and blur the background or even allow for some blurring of the wings, to show life as it really is, and not frozen, but that is my personal opinion and approach.

The deer image is not downloadable, but, from what I see, it is a lovely image! BTW, great bokeh. To me istis frameable quality.

Alphabravo2020

You can get 2 more stops of light out of the turkey photo by dropping from f/8 to f5.6. Your depth of field will drop from 22 feet to 8 feet but your ISO will drop to 200.

You might also squeeze some light out of your shutter speed. Birds can be jittery but you might get another stop of light by dropping below 1/640s.

At these ranges you should be able to shoot that lens locked wide open. Then choose a shutter speed that doesn't result in motion blur and let the ISO float.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

I would agree with Paul in this. There is some noise in the deer shot but even Lightroom 5 can work with that. Maybe Paul will post his link to using Lightroom for noise reduction. As for further processing, I think some of the softness comes from the flat light. Now I shoot raw because of the latitude it gives me in processing, but the edits that would help this should be easily achievable with the JPEG. I’d set the white and black points and maybe add a little contrast and maybe just a touch of saturation or luminance.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Buck, consider the ideas of these three posts. Also, the turkey, when I looked at the EXIF, is not using sRGB as the colorspace. Consider a User Preset for your exports to assure sRGB is used in the output JPEGs used for sharing.

Basics of noise processing

Basics of Lightroom Sharpening

What happens when you set your camera to Adobe RGB?

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I agree with the comments that you have received. Also...please note how much better the turkey looks in the download than in the thumbnail. Make sure that you are making your evaluations using an image that isn't "crippled" by being forced to a lower resolution than you have available. The deer could be said to be less than perfectly sharp, but so could the turkey's marginal feathers--but only in the thumbnail. In the download, they look fine. The same might be true of the deer.

I also shoot a lot of JPEGs, and I use my Picture Control choices all the time to make sure I am capturing the best image possible. I would probably experiment with one notch more of saturation and one notch more of sharpness. Might be better, might not, but I'd try it. Nikon factory default PC settings are pretty notorious for producing bland images..

Several have suggested using Auto ISO. I do not think that is a good idea if you are worried about noise. I don't have a D7100, but I do have a D500. Image quality changes noticeably when moving from ISO 1250 to ISO 2000. Your camera can easily get into this range in the evening without your even realizing what has happened. You can, of course, put a lower limit on the allowed range, but when you do that, the value of using the function decreases pretty quickly. My preference would be to set ISO at 1000 or 1250 and work with other parameters to get exposure correct. I'd also experiment with not using Auto White Balance. I set mine to about 8,000K when the sun is fully set, working up to 10,000K as dusk progresses. You could probebly do almost as well by setting it to Open Shade and just leaving it alone once the sun is gone.

Finally, as has already been suggested, even though it feels like it is working against everything else you are doing, avoid underexposure.

Whatever you decide, don't be so hard on yourself. These are nice images.

swimweb1 Loc: Webster, NY

I take lots of action photos of sports in low light, and getting great focus is always a challenge. The best way may depend on the camera and what works best for it. In my case I have a Fujifilm X-T3. In low light, it has difficulty obtaining focus and if on continuos focus it spends time trying to get focus and the shot is not always in focus. In my case I get better focus shots with single focus and just keep taking many. Also the concept mentioned by others to take a burst assumes that if the first is not in focus, the camera may obtain focus on subsequent shots. In my case this is not true, especially in continuous focus. If you don't get focus, all the subsequent photos will also be out of focus. That is why single shot actually works better, even if you take lots of single shots per second. The other thing I have done, e.g. for humingbirds is to prefocus in manual mode and then shoot away when the hummingbird shows up. Good luck.

LeRoy V. Loc: Oro Valley, Az

If you haven't tried it use back button focus you will have more control of your camera 📸