johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

Reading this gave me a lot of insight as well. When I first looked at the image, I immediately said motion blur as nothing is really sharp. Then I saw the focus point comment and focusing on the sky, yes, agree this would cause an issue if you are too close to the subject. The other thing not mentioned directly is for a 300 mm lens, the minimum shutter speed should be at least 2x the focal length, so 1/600 th. Since it is an outside shot, even things like tree movement which was not mentioned, would similarly cause the motion blur. Others have mentioned 1/2000th. Definitely would do this. The sky is clear, so you probably have enough light. I would start by selecting shutter speed priority to 1/2000th, increase the number of focus points, and also take as many pictures as you can before the bird flies away. I would also set a max on the ISO to 6400 and let the aperture open or close, otherwise you will get noise which is another thing you will have to correct in post processing.

This is why field photographers bring a lot of memory cards and batteries. In an afternoon of shooting wildlife, you can shoot 500 or more pictures without much problem and maybe 10% are exactly what you want.

Rick from NY Loc: Sarasota FL

Are you kidding?

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

When you use a long lens you need a faster shutter speed. The reason for this is that a long lens has a very narrow angle of view, therefore any camera motion at all will be magnified. Even one millimeter of camera motion at 300 mm will produce an unsharp image even at 1/400 of a second. A rule of thumb would be to use a shutter speed of at least twice the inverse of the lens length. In this case at least 1/1000. And with a long lens on a crop camera 300 becomes 450, so the faster the better. You may have to use a higher ISO, but with modern sensors this is not a big problem.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Absolutely correct!

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Nice try but the advice given has been excellent. IS does make a big difference. But as pointed out the focus was on the sky.
Keep trying and yes as you describe a tripod would be of no value. Shoot a newspaper hand held and see how low you can hold steady and practice.

StanRP Loc: Ontario Canada

Hi
I am an 80 year old senior who recently became a widower. My doc told me that I should get out and do some walking, and as I am now alone, I bought a Nikon D500 to take with me. It is light, weather resistant and easy to carry.

Re: "Don't use a telephoto lens if a tripod is not used for support. ". While In general I agree with you, in my case, taking a tripod as well, is 'right out'.

Having said that, one can take acceptable photo's without a tripod.

This is a photo taken down by the Oshawa lakeshore Park - and a crop from the end of the path from the RAW file not the JPG to get the true performance. It was taken using the Nikon 16-80mm zoom lens at the 16mm setting. With the magnification given by the clip from the end of the path - it would be close to one taken by a 300mm lens.
I think that this shows that a reasonable picture can be taken with a zoom lens 'hand-held'.

Nikon - D500 16mm 1/1600 Sec f/6.3 ISO 400

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

There is no way anyone can prove that the camera's focus point was on the sky. However it is virtually impossible to handhold an effective 450 mm lens and have a sharp image at 1/400 sec. Human hands just cannot be that stationary. The angle of view of the lens is only 4.6 degrees (300mm crop lens), so even one mm of motion of the camera during the 1/400 of a second will produce a blur.

banster Loc: PA, Ontario, N.C.,Key West

Bird is sharper than tree, but not "sharp." I, at one time, used a tripod for wildlife. I have since changed to a monopod. Much easier than a tripod for unexpected movement and setup. If I am moving around, I leave the cameras attached to the mono and set at the correct height for my eye. When I bought a 7D, I got kit lenses. Could not satisfy myself with their clarity. Sold them and went to all "L" series lens. Big improvement, still not all pictures are that perfect one. I since have bought a 7DMk II. Two items with this camera that get you closer to "perfection." One is within the menu, there are "cases" that give you different parameters for different situations, one of which would apply to birding. These cases are adjusrable to suit yourself. The other is the 7DMkII can take 10fps on high speed continuous. I use this for almost all wildlife, animals, pets, children, and anything with movement beyond your control. Yes, there is a lot of deletion of pictures, but for every 10 to 15 taken, 1 or 2 are prime.

SonyBug

If you put a gimbal head on the tripod, it is easier to swing the camera around for the shot. There is definately an out of focus situation. Download and then highlight a spot and click to expand. There is no spot that is not blurred.

StanRP Loc: Ontario Canada

[quote=CatMarley]There is no way anyone can prove that the camera's focus point was on the sky.

The focus point or points is recorded in the picture EXIF into.
Programs, such as the Apple Aperture photo program can display them.

This is screen clip of the bird photo showing the focus points.

StanRP

Jim Bob

Poor focus and camera movement.

ShutterJournalsMedia Loc: trump tower

Personally, I never shoot an image with so many foreground distractions. I would have originally focused on the birds eye, cropped out 95% of the branches with the lens.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Took the download view, saved it, and imported into Lightroom, then used the show focus points plugin to read the focus point location used from the EXIF of the image.

Show Focus Points for me is a handy tool to make sure that my focusing technique keeps working for me ;)

http://www.lightroomfocuspointsplugin.com/

Meives Loc: FORT LAUDERDALE

The aperture needs to be smaller opening (larger number). Move from f 5.6 to F 11 or more. ISO is not the same as film speed. You can move ISO from 100 to 800 or more and not get noise. Good luck. David Shutter speed of 1/400 seems a bit faster than needed.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Actually, it was shown to be the case in two separate posts above. The selected focus point was the center focus point. UNLESS of course the center focus point was used, locked on the birds eye, then while holding focus lock the shot was recomposed, but the OP did not describe doing that in the original post.