technical help on a rhino shot

[OSUranger]

I was about 20 yards away from these two with my d40x and a 70-200mm shooting, more than likely, in auto mode. the calf is sharp but the female is out of focus even though she's just a few feet back. Now that i'm starting to work in manual, how would i adjust my settings to get more in focus?

[Frog]

What aperture were you using?
A smaller one would give you more dof.

[Singletracklovr]

I found this DOF calculator very helpful. Not in the field of course, haha
But if you play with the setting it will help you think thru different shots.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Nice pict by the way. It is bummer mom is a little soft.
hth

[SARtech]

I would say for something like that where you want more depth of field, shoot in Av mode and select around f/8 or f/11 if you can. Since these subjects are obviously standing still, that should not be a problem.

Kristine

[Loupey]

Stopping down is the most obvious answer. But the resulting longer shutter speed may have been unusable and the rain streaks probably wouldn't even show up. Lastly, the look of the out-of-focus background would have been completely different.

So there is more to it than just the settings:

1) Were you mobile? If so, retreat a little and shoot a little looser - then tighten the crop in post processing.

2) If not mobile, shoot with less telephoto and crop later.

3) wait for the baby to move back a few feet.

4) move to your right so that you can get the momma and baby in the same plane.

5) go extremely tight on the baby and let the momma go even more OOF and become part of the background.


Sometimes it's best not to fight a situation but to look for a different way. Often, the "shot" hasn't developed yet.