Raptor image

[Cheryl Flory]

I went to visit the raptor rehabilitation place this afternoon. The woman took out two birds, a turkey vulture and an immature bald eagle. I am not happy with any of the pictures I got. This one is typical of one of the better ones. What did I do wrong here? I have one image that is almost sharp. None of the rest are as sharp as I wanted, especially considering that the bird was just sitting there, waiting for me. I should have been able to get a better image than I did. Sky was heavily overcast.

Canon 40D
Canon 28-135 lens
135mm

1/320"
F5.6
ISO 640
EV +.33

[Jackie Schuknecht]

When you focus Cheryl the camera likes contrast, so say in this pic I might have tried for the edge of the eye where there is both light and dark and wait for the AF beep. Where was your focus point, does it show when you review your pictures?

[Cheryl Flory]

Jackie, I set my camera to show where the focus point was, but then I deleted all the images off the card after I downloaded to the computer. duhhhhh.

I tried to focus on the eye. Not enough contrast??? but I always got the "beep"

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Cheryl,
How close were you to the subject? You need to know what is the closest focusing distance of the lens that you are using; there is the possibility that you exceeded it..Perhaps thats why its a little soft...:cool:

[Alfred Forns]

In cases you have trouble focusing try manual Would set the beep ON to alert focus acquisition. Manually go beyond the point of focus the come back and press the shutter when you hear the beep. !!! Will work and its accurate !!!

I like the framing you were trying, might show a little more of the hand !!

[denise ippolito]

Cheryl, I think it's wonderfiul- good job-Cheryl I shoot w/ the same camera-I always put my noise reduction setting on in the camera when I shoot 640 ISO. I know everyone says it doesn't matter -your camera can handle it-but I find it does-if you were HH it did you have it on AI SERVO .I find it makes a diff. for me

[Gail Spitler]

Hi Cheryl - How frustrating and disappointing for you. I'm wondering about the dof. Here's the link to a dof calculator.
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
Also I might be tempted to decrease the aperture and maybe pull back a tad from the full zoom - at least to try that to see if there is any difference in sharpness.
Gail

[Bruce Gove]

It is possible that this zoom is sharper closer to the middle of it's range - say 70MM. And, as Al mentioned, you might want to include more of the bird. How about using the 40D's flash??

Cheers,

Bruce

[Cheryl Flory]

Bruce, I used the flash on other images, but didn't see an improvement. You're probably right that the lens is sharper in the middle of its range, and probably sharper at f8 than it is at f5.6 when zoomed out. I am trying to get another chance to photograph there, and hopefully to be able to spend more time there.