What am I doing wrong

[billy320]

I can seem to get the focus right
What am I doing wrong ?


Camera Model: E-510

Flash Used: No

2x Teleconverter

Focal Length: 600.0mm

Exposure Time: 0.0063 s (1/160)

Aperture: f/11.2

ISO Equiv.: 100

Whitebalance: Auto

Metering Mode: matrix

Exposure: Manual

Exposure Mode: Manual

Exposure Mode: Auto bracketing

[Eric D]

Personally I would use manual focus with so many branches to shoot through. I would guess you camera is hunting to focus on the bird.

Hand held or tri-pod? With such a low shutter speed at 600mm I would definitely use a tri or mono pod! My 2 cents!

[billy320]

Hand held ........ The tree is in my front yard, I have to run upstairs to a bedroom and open a window without scaring them away so there really is no time to set up a tripod, next time I will try a monopod.The tele converter kills me on the appeture I usually shoot at 5.6 but I can't with the TC. I guess it will take patience and some practice.

[mjs1973]

The tele converter kills me on the appeture I usually shoot at 5.6 but I can't with the TC. I guess it will take patience and some practice.

I'm guessing the TC is also killing you on sharpness. 2X TC's are best used on high quality prime lenses. Put a TC on an inexpensive consumer lens, and they really degrade the quality of the image. I have an inexpensive TC that I almost never use. The loss of image quality just isn't worth it. You may be better off shooting at 300mm, and then cropping your image in post.

[billy320]

Thanks, I have to get out of the I have to get the ultimate close up,

[Sushigaijin]

That teleconverter will work better on your 50-200...

The shot looks like it suffers from a bit of shake and a bit of lens softness. Try stopping down to f/7.1 with the 70-300. The 50-200 should be pretty sharp even wide open. Some kind of bracing - maybe just proning yourself on the windowsill - will help stabilize it!

[Canon_Bob]

I think the comments you've gotten so far are right on. Using a TC on a consumer lens typically degrades the IQ by quite a bit. The suggestion of using manual focus through the branches is also excellent. One alternative may be to choose a single focusing point, and place that directly on the bird's eye.

One other point that I didn't see mentioned here is light angle. Your bird is clearly side/back lit here, creating a burned out area on the bird, and poor metering from the camera. Whenerver possible, you want the light behind you so that your shadow points toward the subject. This, of course, is a "general" guideline, as there are always some circumstances in which you may be intentionally going for a sidelit or backlit effect. I spend most of my time working my way "uplight" from my subjects.

[billy320]

thanks so much.

[scott-devon]

Great answers here and I'll add my vote to the TC being the major cause of softness. I have a cheap one and quit using it after seeing all the images I took with it were very soft.

[AgingEyes]

TC and slow shutter speed. 600mm 1/160sec? Should have used tripod, I would say.