Hoosier in GA Loc: Milledgeville, GA

Thank You G for the idea..you are very encouraging. Btw...it did lend itself nicely to a 3 x 4 magnet picture!

donrosshill Loc: Delaware & Florida

You learn every day. Not every image needs to be Pin sharp. You took the photo, and I love it.
Thanks

winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

Shooting through glass presents a number of problems such as diffraction, dust and dirt, and any UV and anti-glare treatments all of which will degrade image quality however on evaluating your image, although those factors may or may not have contributed, it appears that there were two issues with your image's lack of clarity.

You mentioned that if you had more time you would have set f8 rather than f5.6. I assume that your reasoning when you stated "With spot metering, edges appear somewhat fuzzy", was that you were limited in available depth of field due to the large aperture setting. Your thinking would be valid if some of your subject was in focus, but in this case none of the subject is sharp. At risk of offending I suggest that taking into account that you considered this to be a "Once in a lifetime shot" there was a degree of excitement on your part which probably caused you to be a little less methodical in your approach.

And secondly, the histogram of your photo shows that the red channel has quite a degree of clipping (those areas shown in blue).
I have struck this problem with flowers as well, vibrant color with little variance in brightness makes things very difficult for your camera. In this case the shot was about one f stop over exposed but had you set your camera to that degree the overall image would have appeared to be too dark. The thing to do is to set exposure compensation to -1 or so or set the picture control, in the shooting menu I think, with a step or two less saturation then recover appropriately if necessary in post-processing. Cheers !

PRETENDER Loc: Micanopy,Florida

Thanks to everyone. I love it when I feel like I'm learning from someone not talking above my head. i'm fortunate enough to have a pair of these as regular visitors on the other side of a window so i guess I better put you info to good use. once again thanks all. Oh yes a shot well worth saving.

winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

Something I forgot is that 1/30" is rather slow hand held for what is actually a 450mm lens. Camera shake rather than focusing is most likely the reason for your fuzzy shot in this case.

picsbywayne Loc: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

We have a pair of cardinals that make our backyard their home every spring/summer. We have a fir tree in front of our kitchen window and I was lucky enough to have my camera with me when the male stopped there for a few seconds.

I shot this through our kitchen window. It would have been with my 40D (using a 7D now) with the 17-85mm lens.

You do need a great deal of luck to get these.

Cheers

Wayne

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

The old hand held ROT (Rule of Thumb) for shutter speed and telephoto lens was a "reciprocal".

If your telephoto was 300mm, the proper handheld shutter speed would be 1/300th of a second.

Now, I saw that you used a monopod. However a monopod only steadies the camera on one axis... vertical. So, I am likely to say that a monopod might mean handheld OK at 125th second.

Which is why IS, Tripods, and fast (large aperture) lenses exist.

I am totally amazed you got what you did with the values you used. You must have defied some Laws of Physice... OR... you just plain lucked out!!

By the way, shooting through a window effectively and simply adds one more glass element (A Crappy one at that) to all the money you spend on a good lens. Again, defying the imagination.

I'm going with Luck.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

The problem is the color red! How does one get a good replication of red. Be it a bird or a flower it is one of the most difficult colors to shoot.

Any advice?

ole sarg Loc: south florida

The problem is the color red! How does one get a good replication of red. Be it a bird or a flower it is one of the most difficult colors to shoot.

Any advice?

charles brown Loc: Tennesse

Think of it this way. If a train is going 30mph and changes to 60mph is it going faster or slower. Is it speed increasing or decreasing?

Lacey Girl Loc: Las Cruces, NM

:thumbup: :thumbup: love this explanation! Thanks!

chapjohn Loc: Tigard, Oregon

In addition, I would suggest using a circular polarizer as well. This will help to cut glare cause by the glass of the window.

rocar7 Loc: Alton, England

But the shutter curtains themselves don't move any faster, it's the lag between the first and second curtains that gets shorter, so you could say the timelapse (ie the period the shutter is open for) decreases.

Hoosier in GA Loc: Milledgeville, GA

Thank you so much for your comments. I did have VR activated that may have helped to some extent. To add to your theory of "luck", the feeder he was on was MOVING at the time!

Artangel Loc: U.K. South Coast

Hi,

Such a shame, been there, done that. Beautiful bird, is this a bit better. As others are saying you def need a quicker shutter speed when on long lens even if needing to up the ISO and introduce a bit of noise. The latter can be dealt with but blur is much more difficult to alleviate. Keep snapping and enjoy, wish we had thes in England.

By the way, this is my first post here, been lurking in the background for a while gleaning tit bits from the regulars, great site for tips. Hope this works.............. :-P

Red Bird a bit sharper