Tufted Titmouse

[Bill Dix]

Yesterday, near my feeders. Perch was in shade, but there was spot of sunlight hitting the ground nearby, so I put a piece of reflective fabric on the ground to bounce some light up to the perch. Moderate crop, NR, levels, removed a distracting branch, and USM. An issue: According to Nikon's ViewNX, the focus point is just below the eye, but that seems the least sharp part of the bird. I have suspected that the camera is focusing behind where it should be, but to the best of my knowledge the D90 has no way of fine-tuning the AF. Is there a recommended fix?

D90
80-400 VR @ 370mm, with 25mm ext. tube
ISO 1250
1/125s @ f/8
-1.0 EV.
Tripod

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Don't know much about Nikons Bill. Don't think that model has a microadjustment function though. Back to the dealer maybe. Looks like you we shooting down? Like the demure pose, it all looks pretty sharp to me, even maybe a bit too much. But all in all a very nice shot and complimentary BG.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bill - need to test it - do you have a lens align?? Easy way to test - maybe the lens not the camera quite possibly.
Like the BG and the pose - do agree with Jackie though - a little over sharpened. Like how you have left space on the LHS in the direction the bird is looking.
Good show :)

[arash_hazeghi]

Looks sharp and nice at this size, nice BG too. Before concluding the camera/lens have focus issue it's best to stack a dollar bill up on the wall and test with static subject on a good tripod, there are too many variables in the field, makes it tough to figure if there is a problem or not!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Bill, good comments above.Other than what has been said about the focus pt I can't add much.
The bird looks sharp,good HA and I like how you handled the lighting. I like that you left room in the direction the bird is facing but I feel it's more neg space than needed...

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all. I can't seem to get the sharpness consistently right. I prepared an image for posting, thought it looked oversharpened, so I backed off a bit on the USM and posted it. When I looked at it as posted it looked too soft so I hit 'edit' and reposted with a tad more sharpening -- that's the one you see, and I guess I should have left well enough alone. (Not the first time I've said that.:o

As to the focus point: Arash, I'm sure you're right that there are a lot of issues at play in the field. I did a test using the fine print from today's stock market quotation page, mounted on a board tilted at 45 degrees. Using AF, it was sharpest right where I wanted it to be, so I guess I'm ok, although I'm sure my methodology is not as good as with a proper lens alignment tool. Curiously, when I tried manual focus with the same methodology it seemed consistently sharper beyond and to the left of my focus spot. And I also got sharper results using a burst of shots in AF (manually triggered and pressing the camera/lens down to steady it against tripod and cheek) than I did with single, remote-triggered shots (without mirror lockup), where the mirror jiggled the camera (my tripod is not state-of-the-art). Anyway, helpful information to guide me in the future. I appreciate the comments.