Editing consisted of Photoshop Elements 12's Brightness/Contrast autofix effect and a small crop in Ribbet. Unfortunately, a male house sparrow flew into the picture which caused the bit of blur at the bottom of the tail.
Shot on Aperture Priority Mode. 55-200 Lens
I agree about the blur being hardly noticeable and it is a fine capture.
I took a look at your EXIF data. Was there any particular reason you shot at ISO 400? The higher ISO's contribute to grain and although not noticeable in this image I think it could have been achieved using ISO 100. I also noticed that focal length was 200. Sometimes we have to go to 200 to get as close as we need to, but I find most kit lenses get softer when they hit the extent of their zoom. Try zooming out to 200 and then just bringing it back a tad. It may help and is generally what I try to do.
@obmcreations
Thanks! I was shooting other things indoors that needed a higher ISO and just forgot to change it before shooting the birds. I'll work on that. I'll try working on not zooming out as much with this lens also. Question, in your experience with this lens, does it take a little while to auto focus?
@mej2011 I haven't noticed any particular lag with it although it does sometimes choose to focus on the background rather than foreground, particularly when the object you want to focus on is small and/or moving. The focus points do require a contrast in order to focus so perhaps there was not enough under the focal point or some stray light was interfering with the sensor.
@obmcreations
Ah. I was trying to shoot moving birds, so maybe that was the issue. I'll try again tomorrow when there is more sun light and birds around.
Thanks Rosie!
I took a look at your EXIF data. Was there any particular reason you shot at ISO 400? The higher ISO's contribute to grain and although not noticeable in this image I think it could have been achieved using ISO 100. I also noticed that focal length was 200. Sometimes we have to go to 200 to get as close as we need to, but I find most kit lenses get softer when they hit the extent of their zoom. Try zooming out to 200 and then just bringing it back a tad. It may help and is generally what I try to do.
Thanks! I was shooting other things indoors that needed a higher ISO and just forgot to change it before shooting the birds. I'll work on that. I'll try working on not zooming out as much with this lens also. Question, in your experience with this lens, does it take a little while to auto focus?
Ah. I was trying to shoot moving birds, so maybe that was the issue. I'll try again tomorrow when there is more sun light and birds around.