Incoming

[Kenn Christensen]

I have no illusions as to the quality of this shot.. its low... but what I was doing since the wind chill outside is over -30 right now is just shooting out my office window in the airspace around a feeder I have hanging outside about 10 feet away. It like abusy airport out there today.. constant coming and going as cold hungry birds pack in for food.. as I look outside right now.. I see 6 pairs of cardinals. about 20 juncos. hmmm Il guestimate around 30 chickadees.. a red belly woodpecker, a pair of bluejays, a hairy woodpecker, oh yeah.. a pair of nuthatches.. and I probably missed a couple.. cuz *sheese* what a mess!...
anyhoo I thought maybe I should try some flight shots at the feeder.. these little birds move fast and eratic I am pretty certain that I can hold the lens on them AND keep any focus going.. solid forest BG here. So I picked a spot.. focused... shots LOTS and LOTS and hoped for the best... well.... this shot was about as good as they got.... so I need a tip or two.. and maybe the tip is "give up its impossible".. I dont know... I tried with a flash but at 1/300 the blurs were terrible... this was shot.. tripod, no flash,
f6.3
iso 1600
1/2000
fl 191mm on a sigma 50-500
canon 1d MkIII shooting 10 frames a sec
I probably shot over 500 frames just trying different FLs and other settings.. a FL around 200mm seemed to be easiest to get a bird in the frame.. but DOF sucked...
btw.. I did nothing to this shot but crop.. didnt see that working with it much would help enough.. I figure a better shot is needed

[Gautam Biswas]

This should have been a nice image except that it is totally messed up with regard to focus. I am sure you checked that the lens was not left on manual or the the birds were outside the minimum focus range of the lens. Basic issues, but I have know they happen sometimes.

[Kenn Christensen]

thanks.. I do have enough room for crisp focus.. this bird was slightly deeper than my DOF unless I miss my guess.... the focus was on manual.. there is no way I can get a focus on a small bird flying perpendicular.. or even incoming.. I always get a tree.. or sometimes the feeder... but the bird? never.. so I feel I must choose a location and shoot as they move through it.... maybe I need a deeper focus... Im sure more dof wouldnt hurt.. but it seems I need a minimum of 1/1200.. and really even 1/2000 shows a bit of motion blur.. these guys are quick!

[Richard Kowalski]

Kenn
Since you say it is so cold, I am assuming that you were shooting through the glass of the window. Obviously this is a major issue to the image quality (IQ). The poor optical qualities of the window pane, the film of dirt and other pollutants on both the inner and outer surface, especially when shooting into the Sun, make this a no-win situation.

I tried doing the exact same thing you did, but from inside my car, using it as a blind., Pre-setting my focus and firing away anytime it looked like a bird was coming into the frame as it approached my feeder, can work, but as you mention, you get huge numbers of rejects. A few things to try, if you can, is set the camera up outside and use a cable release. Stop down as much as you dare to increae the DoF. Go to 3200 ISO. Noise is much better than out of focus. Blurred wingtips wouldn't look bad either so you might consider a slower shutter speed, say 1/1250th. One last thing I'd suggest is not trying to fill the frame with the bird. Focus a little further a way. There will be a deeper DoF and less apparent motion across the sensor, so even with a slower shutter speed, you'll still get acceptably sharp images.


The bird's pose is beautiful. Pity the technicals aren't there yet. Keep trying. It'll come once you figure out the best technique for your site.

[Kenn Christensen]

Thanks Richard...
you are correct.. it was shot through glass.. and there was sun on it... and yeah.. thats pretty much worst case.. outside would be better.. maybe I need to do that id have to set a feeder up somewhere new. this one is set high to be level with my window..... so when outside Id be too low for this one... though I suppose I might get some interesint shots shooting straight up... still... if they are the same as my eagle and hawks that are straight up I guess they really wouldnt be very interesting... ok... more DOF... higher ISO... maybe that is my fate.... just do the best I can.... I suppose I should check a DOF table... if I could get 2 foot that would be awesome... but at 10 feet I suppose that would also be difficult....

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Kenn,

I played a little bit with it. It will not be a great image, but I saw it could improve a bit wit post processing, specially if you do it to the original file versus the small jpg. It was obviously lacking density,so I duplicated the layer, use multiply as the blending mode and adjusted the opacity.
Then added canvas (how to in Digital Workflow). Noise reduction was really needed.

I borrowed the eye of a Palm Warbler to illustrate the change since the original eye couldn't be recouped. Added saturation and a slight curves contrast boost. Sharpened and voila.
Hope you like it.

[Anita Rakestraw]

Well, Kenn, it's kinda reassuring to know that someone as skilled as you occasionally gets results like this....(-: I'm betting that alot of the issue is the way the sun was hitting your window glass....

[Gary "Jake" Jacobson]

Talk about a pane in the glass Kenn! I commend you for your valiant attempts to catch one of the most difficult subject to catch...small birds flying erratically and fast! Maybe someday I'll breakdown and buy a 500mm f4 and a Mark III, but until then, my kid needs to eat and have a roof over his head!