blurry picture - just can't get it sharp!

[yeocsa]

Need more practice run. None of my flight pics come out sharp.
How do I get it right?

regards,

Arthur

[kipper]

Faster shutter?

[PlatinumWeaver]

Yeah.. 1/15 is just way too slow..
I've found that I get blur from the subject on anything less than 1/100 and that's not even taking into consideration that this is a fast moving bird..

Bump up the shutter speed, and if you're close ( 78mm seems quite close unless this is a major crop ) use zee flash if you need more light..

[Neeper]

Don't be afraid to bump the ISO up a bit to get a faster shutter speed.

[redline]

i agree, use flash on rear curtain to get that effect on 1/15

[lukeo]

To shoot birds 1/15th of a second is way to slow, heck to shoot anything is way to slow.

General rule for stationary targets is 1/Focal length = Shutter Speed.

ie 50mm lense then minimum shutter for sharp images is 1/50th (hence 1/60th being standard for allot of indoor stuff).

for a tele you can see you are going to want say 200mm focal length 1/200th of a second say 1/250th to be safe.

Try shutter priority mode or manual mode.

Some settings I would suggest to capture a bird in flight,

F8 (F5.6) aperature, 1/500th or 1/1000th of second shutter, ISO200 or ISO400. Should get you a nice sharp image, providing AF locks fast enough (auto focus).

[yeocsa]

Hi

Thanks for all the inputs. I did tried with flash and faster shutter speed but it not quite work. The main difficulty lies in that the parrots were too fast for me. I could not get them into the picture. At first I was using 300mm, then I switch to 18-70 kit lens. Need more reach, I added a TC 1.4X. It was those computer game where a disc is thrown into the air and you just raise the rifle and shoot. I was thinking about all these today and my conclusion is that I would need to "ambush" the bird to get the desired outcome. Of course, using all the tips provided - higher ISO, shutter speed, rear syn flash etc..

regards,
Arthur

[marcus]

Yeah faster shutter for sure, don't give up, birds are bloody hard. I've got this shot of a cockatoo in flight with a small branch in it's beak but it took me 2 hours to get it. And by then it was too dark, therefore was'nt in focus and its the only shot of about 20 that had a bloody building in the background! Alas I'll try again.

[yeocsa]

Hi Marcus,

Thanks. We really need lots of light to have fast shutter speed (at least 1/1000; preferably 1/2000) to freeze the motion. Up at Sherbrooke forest, all trees have blocked out alot of the light. Flash is a must.

I hope to try again soon.

regards,

Arthur

[sirhc55]

Marcus - what a nice bird - he flew backwards and forwards for 2 hours with the branch in his beak until you got your shot

[Manta]

I really sympathise with you on this Arthur. I have flocks of Rainbow Lorikeets teasing the hell out of me every afternoon by zooming around at Mach 4 in front of my camera. The kit lens doesn't give me enough reach and the 70-300G is a bit slow and obviously gives a soft result. I find the Galahs and Sulphur-Cresteds are easier to capture as they fly a lot slower than those little rainbow fighter-jets!

I'll be taking on-board some of the tips given here and hope to get better results in the future.



Thanks all.