Golfinch in flight

[snake]

I came across a pair of Goldfinches feeding on a stand of burdock this afternoon.
I managed to get a few pics including this one which looked really good on the back of the camera.
When I got home and put it on the computer I was a bit disappointed, it was not as sharp as it looked on the camera.
I had the shutter speed at 1/2500, f5.6, iso 400 and the camera on continuous focus.
What I am wondering, If I had the shutter speed a bit lower and set the lens at f8 or f10, would the slower shutter speed still have been enough to freeze the bird and would the extra depth of field been made the shot sharper?

A big learning curve on on the new camera.

[momji1971]

Great shot! It's sharp on the front of the birds head and wings. You'd still need a shutter speed of 1/1000+ maybe more to stop the wings on a small bird like this, so F8 might be worth a try.

It all depends on the focal length you were shooting at and the distance of the bird from you. The longer the focal length and the closer to the subject you are the shorter the depth of field will be for a given f stop.

Great shot though.

regards.
Stu.

[Geoff F]

Choosing camera settings is always a bit of a quandry and there will usually be some trade off to be made somewhere.

Dropping to say 1/1500 and reducing aperture size to say F8 would certainly help with the depth of field. Alternatively, keeping a higher shutter speed plus a reduced aperture and a higher ISO would also have been an answer; although you could run the risk of creating some background noise.

But that image, if it hasn't been too heavily edited, doesn't look too bad to me and I think that a little bit of careful sharpening would work wonders on it.

Have a read of this article Tutorials - Sharpness then move on to their Using Unsharp Mask page.

Depending on whether this bird has been sharpened already; I may well create a duplicate layer, add a hide all mask then gradually reveal the unsharp portions with a soft brush, and finally give the layer (with only the bird visible and with variable amounts of opacity as required) a good Unsharp Mask sharpening.

A simple cheat which I frequently use in situations like this is: Draw a freehand selection around the bird (you don't have to be exact so long as you are slightly outside the bird edges) then feather the selection, about 5 pixels should do. Use an unsharp mask of say 80% with 1 pixel radius and 1 level of threshold. That should sharpen the bird without creating background noise.

My usual settings are for zero in camera 'enhancement' of sharpness and saturation. After importing the image I give it a little bit of Unsharp Mask before doing any editing; 250-300% at 0.3 pixels is a good starting point which firms up the image and increases saturation without causing any problems. That's what the professionals do - or so I am told.

[vole-woman]

I know nowt about cameras, but that is some shot!!!

[big bill]

Snake there is not much more I can say most has been said above ,the pic is great the only critic I have and its a composition point is the bird is to close to the top edge of the frame could have done with being closer to the seed heads a lot of empty space between the Goldie and the seeds,otherrwise a great shot well done

[Stinky Bob]

I think its a fanstatic shot, and the OH would have been printing it out and framing it if it were mine (if only)

[snowdrop]

Great pic snake. I like the gap between bird and plant, it allows you to see goldie's consentrated inspection for the best seed head.

Thanks for sharing.

[ron1863]

A difficult shot well executed Snake.

[Geoff F]

I have had a close look at this photo and think that the shutter speed was probably so fast that some of the finer details were lost. Depth of field doesn't appear to be the problem.

But it all depends on a number of things. Which camera and lens? What settings for continuous focus? I usually prefer to just use the centre focusing point to avoid my camera switching from a soft edged bird to a hard edged part of the background. Which can be a problem if the subject is quite close to the frame edge.

Continuous focus can work well in good light but sometimes, particularly if the subject is low in contrast it focuses rather roughly and fails to achieve a sharp focus, particularly with a fast moving subject. But it almost always out performs my attempts at fast manual focusing.

I have had a go at sharpening the bird but there isn't really enough detail in this low resolution image. I think that a crop to 3 x 2 ratio does emphasise the subject and actually tends to make it appear visually sharper.

[snake]

Geoff F,
Such a lot of information, a lot of it sounds like a foreign language to me, what I currently do with all my pictures is just a bit of cropping and sharpening in Picasa.
I have such a lot to learn.
My daughter has just bought me paint shop pro 2 so I hope I can learn a little of what you are saying to me from this program.

Thank you so much for your informative reply.

Everyone on this site seems so friendly and helpful, so thank you all for your very kind remarks.