"Im coming my little darlings..!"

[lhosphotography]

Suprisingly diffucult project this was trying to freeze the action of blue tits coming in and out of the nesting box.

This was the best shot I think, But not perfect! the blue tit is still a bit blurry.I have tried sharpening her/him a bit in photoshop.

I realy want to produce this tack sharp!

this was shot using a tripod
Using settings 1/1000 sec
F/6.3
ISO 400
180 mm focal length.

what am I doing wrong? is my camera not good enough for this type of shot?
Canon EOS 450 d.



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[Fortytwo]

Considering the settings, it should be sharp. Especially the bird house. It isn't, so I'm guessing the camera moved during the shot. So, let's do the following:

- Check the tripod. Can it handle the weight of the camera and lens. Large lenses required heavier tripods. If you're not sure, find as much weigh as you can (camerabag, stones etc) and hang it on your tripod. The heavier, the better. This will help balancing things out. Buying a better tripod is offcourse also a solution, but more expensive...

- Did you press the button on the camera while taking the shot? That doesn't work. You'll need a remote to operate the camera. Or at least use the self timer.

I recon this should solve it a bit at least.


As far as the bird goes, he's still faster than the camera. You'll need to increase the speed above 1/1000st I recon...

[Bambi]

you could also try using a remote release so there is not jiggling of the camera and/or setting it to 'burst' so you will get multiple shots quickly. one might be in focus. I use that when I shoot action shots of animals and I can usually get one or two clear.

[mbrager]

Interesting photo and an interesting question. My first instinct is that this is a depth of field problem. If you use a depth of field calculator (see Online Depth of Field Calculator), with your camera settings, if you were 20 feet away from the bird house, you only have about 1 foot of DOF in focus. If you were 30 feet away, you have 2 feet of DOF. The face of the birdhouse looks like it is sharply in focus for the most part, more so at the bottom. You were shooting upwards I guess so the upper part of the birdhouse is slightly farther away. The bird is not inside the in-focus area, flying in front of the birdhouse. To me 1/1000 should be plenty fast enough, and your exposure otherwise looks good. Try using a smaller aperture, f/16, which increases the DOF remarkably.
Hope this helps.
Mike

[Marko]

Nice attempt lhosphotography - but it's no surprise at all to me that this is difficult. 1/1000 should have gotten you better sharpness on the bird IF you correctly focused on the (eye of) bird. If I had to bet, you simply missed - this happens OFTEN in bird photography so don't feel bad.

Personally, I find shooting birds to be extremely difficult as I'm always after razor sharpness... The problem is that birds drink too much coffee and eat too many sugary snacks which makes them seriously jittery.
They should switch to Sanka and use Equal instead.

[Mad Aussie]

Your camera is way good enough so you should be able to get this shot.

As 42 pointed out ... at that shutter speed your bird house should be sharp-ish at least.

The first thing I'd try is to manually focus on the birdhouse. Use auto focus if you wish and when it focuses switch to manual.

When trying to get the bird, try to anticipate it's arrival and have the button half pressed to focus well before it gets there.

I don't think a remote is necessary here. You can look at all my birds shots ... not a single shot with either a tripod or a remote. So if you don't have a remote, don't worry too much.

The point about a cheap tripod is very valid. If you have a long lens on and the tripod moves just the tiniest bit as you press the button, it's obviously increased at the end of the lens.