R.G. Loc: Scotland

You don't need 1/focal length for shutter speed if you're using a tripod. However, it does look as though 1/125 sec wasn't quite fast enough to freeze movement in some of the twigs and berries. And I think you were lucky to freeze the birds at that shutter speed.

I'd also recommend a higher f-stop to give more DOF. The focus point would then be less critical, and in this case there's more than one bird and they're at different distances from the camera, so more DOF is required to catch them both. I'm not familiar with your lens, but I'd be experimenting with f/11 and higher, at least until you get a better feel for the lens's requirements.

Increasing the shutter speed and raising the f-stop both necessitate using a higher ISO, but by all accounts the A77 is good at high ISOs, so something higher than 200 would have been fine. Low ISOs are desirable as a general rule, but they're not worth it if you risk spoiling the shot. To avoid aggravating any graininess, use edge-based sharpening if you have it.

catchlight.. Loc: Wisconsin USA- Halden Norway

Its a good example of what can go bad, what to discard and what cant be fixed in post.

The training wheels haven't been removed yet so how can you find fault in the results. It takes time and patients.

For other than focus, to criticize is silly... The DOF, composition, back lighting and branches made this shot difficult at best. Being critical even from a personal perspective can be a let down because it is way too early in the game.

Micro adjust the lens, experiment and shoot for a month and then look at a longer term assessment. So many things were stacked against you on this one. patience will be your best friend.

Good camera+ good lens+ good eye will eventually bring a smile.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Camera Maker: SONY
Camera Model: ILCA-77M2
Lens: 150-600mm F5-6.3 SSM
Image Date: 2016-12-26 11:39:48 -08:00
Focal Length: 600.0mm (35mm equivalent: 900mm)
Aperture: ƒ/6.7
Exposure Time: 0.0080 s (1/125)
ISO equiv: 200
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Spot
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Manual
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: sRGB
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Caption:
Software: PaintShop Pro 19.00

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

Steve,

I haven't used that long a lens, but I have a couple of questions based on my experiences with my 70 - 300 lens at near the maximum range. What focus mode are you using--Auto (set for Spot or Average), Manual, Continuous? For birds and other things at a distance and or may move, I've found that Spot Auto Focus and the continuous (Canon calls it A1-Servo) mode works best; typically AF will lock on to the nearest or largest thing in view if it isn't controlled to exactly where you want to focus. Can you open up the lens (lower f stop) any more so the background will be less sharp?

I have the "not quite as steady as they used to be" hands problem too, but because the foreground bird is in focus, I don't think movement is your problem. Are you using some sort of a remote shutter release, cable or wireless? They help.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

All this is what every "birder" has to deal with all the time. Work on your stalking skills, set up a blind, use attractants to get the birds to come closer and to land in a more favorable location for a photograph... all these might help. This can take hours or even days or weeks working with the critters. PATIENCE will be your most valuable tool.

With wildlife, and particularly birds, I'll often take 50, 100, 200 or more shots to get one or two good ones.

That's a very difficult situation to focus, through branches like that. It also usually doesn't make for very good photos. Sometimes the best you can do is wait and watch, until there's a better opportunity.

Stopping the lens down a bit might have helped. You're settings are close to wide open. At 600mm that lens is f/6.3, if memory serves. EXIF says f/6.7, which is only 1/3 stop down from wide open. Most lenses are not at their best at their largest aperture.

If you'd stopped down more, you would have needed a higher ISO. People think they need to use the lowest ISO possible, but the truth is that doing so when it forces too large an aperture or too slow a shutter speed will ruin the image anyway. Underexposure was probably caused by relying upon auto exposure and the bright sky behind the birds fooling the camera into shooting too dark an image. But you are already using nearly a wide open aperture and relatively slow shutter speed. The lens might have stabilization, but that won't do anything to stop subject movement. 1/125 was really marginal. You used ISO 200... might have been better off at ISO 1600! (I don't know your camera or it's high ISO performance... these are things you need to test yourself.)

Any time you have to brighten an image in post-processing, that will greatly increase the appearance of noise in the image.

A lot of the time flash is needed, especially in backlit situations like this (however, it wouldn't have worked in this case because of the branches between you and the birds). To use flash with powerful telephotos means using a rather powerful flash, putting it on a bracket of some sort to raise it off the camera further and attaching it with an off-camera shoe cord and using a "flash extender" with focal lengths longer than 300mm.

Welcome to the world of long lens shooting and birding!

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

Right. Here is the statement I asked billnikon for an explanation of:
At 600 mm you should also be shooting at a minimum of 1/600 of a second shutter speed. If you are not, you may also get out of focus shots.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Both, plus color fringing. Some of the image is in focus, but the depth of field is very shallow with long teles, so unless you can use a small aperture, most of your 3 dimensional subject will be out of focus.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I do see a bit of shake which I tried to address using Photoshop Shake Reduction, but there are not enough pixels in the downloaded image to do it justice. I tried to clean up the noise also, but again, the attached image is too small to work with. But you should be able to get better results than this.

Here is a shot taken with a Tamron 150-600 at f8 and ISO 800 using a Sony A77ii and shooting RAW. I have processed in Lightroom and Piccure+ to get this result. This is about 50-60 feet, so it is similar to what you were trying. I was on a tripod and image stabilization was turned off.

The 2nd shot is at 600mm on the same Tamron 150-600, again at f8.

500mm shot

(Download)

600mm shot

(Download)

Steve2014 Loc: Washington state

Thank you all for your comments. I have a lot to work with from all your suggestions. I must say that putting oneself out like this and asking for comments is truly a learning experience.

Steve2014 Loc: Washington state

JimH123, there are obviously some vast differences in how you took your pictures and mine. Everything in yours, even at 600 mm is sharp where little in mine is. Yours doesn't show any color fringing which mine does even after trying to perform corrections in post. I shot in RAW and saved the processed image in jpeg for this post. An earlier post suggested I check focus and maybe do a micro focus adjustment in the camera. i will do that today. I am not a big bird fan but they are something to practice on that I can do in my back yard.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

When using a tripod, the vibration reduction (or image stabilization) should be turned off. The function is trying to stabilize a stable image, and adds its own (small) vibration.

I would have used a higher ISO. The A77 was rated low noise to ISO 400, but acceptable to 1600. I now think you have the A77 II.

I agree that 1/125 is rather fast for such a long lens, but the 1/focal length rule is for hand hold, on a tripod you can go faster.

At 600mm and almost wide open, you are probably at the worst part of the lens ability.

For the other writer, shutter speed doesn't exactly affect focus, but any blur due to movement is reduced the faster the speed used.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I have done a MFA on this lens with this camera, but I may have manually focused for these shots. I don't remember for this particular time since I use manual focusing a lot, and I don't hesitate to to switch to manual focus with magnifier on. And by the way, focus magnifier is far more accurate than focus peaking. I do try to stay away from wide open, and I find f8 is particularly good to use. I don't like to use real high f-stop values since it can run into diffraction. But I find that ISO 800 on the A77ii is not something to be afraid of.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Here are a few pointers.

Your birds were high in a tree and had open sky behind them. This is a situation that tends to generate CA. The solution is to stop down far enough to stop the CA, but not so far as to hit diffraction limiting.

Also, the birds were overexposed. Cutting back would help a lot. You can use the exposure setting to dial it back. And also, it would help the CA too. On my 2nd image, I can see that I should have exposed slightly less to make the white feathers show more detail. I did that on the 1st one and it makes a difference.

I also only shoot wildlife in dense locations using spot focus. And I am ready in an instance to switch to manual focus if I think that the situation demands it. If I'm tracking a flying bird, I do not used spot focus because I want the camera to focus no matter where in the frame the bird is.

These, in addition to the other things mentioned, would help a lot.

allanh Loc: Central Indiana

Glad this topic came up. I'm having the same issues with a 70-200 2.8. Reading about folks handholding and was feeling confident. HA! Thanks for all the input. Really enjoy this group.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

If you are having problems with PP, IMO, you should NOT be shooting in raw - especially since you are using a Sony with EVF !