bird on a fence

[jaziey]

Please provide some feedback on this pic. It seems a little softer than some other similar images that I have seen. I used dynamic area focus on my D90.




D90
shutter 1/100
F/5.6
ISO 250
Focal L 300 mm
Cropping with Photoshop CS4

[photog1107]

It does seem a tad soft especially near the wing feathers. Have you tried applying sharpening?

[Sterling]

I suspect a couple things. Your focus appears to be slightly off with the fence just in front of the bird sharper than the bird itself. Also, 1/100 is quite a slow shutter speed to use handheld at 300mm.

[Aleix]

I agree regarding softness. But I like the background

[jaziey]

Thanks for the feedback. The lens has VR. But I will try increasing shutter next time. Since I had dynamic area focus, I think Nikon uses center focusing instead of spot. I do agree the fence is more in focus than the bird. Should I be using spot instead of center focus for a dynamic subject, like a bird?

[Sterling]

Using the standard rule of thumb of "1/35mm equivalent focal length" means that without VR, 1/450 would be the slowest recommended shutter speed using your 300mm DX focal length. Going down to 1/100 is still relying on VR for more than 2 stops slower. That is closer to "it may be in focus" than it is to "it's guaranteed to be sharp." Of course, this assumes you have hands of neither stone nor jelly.

There is no such thing as center or spot focusing. You may be confusing those terms with center and spot exposure metering.

Dynamic Area auto focus is meant to be used for moving subjects. Once you hace selected the focus point to start focus on, the camera will choose other focus points if the subject moves, in order to keep it in focus .

Single Point auto focus focuses at the focus point you select and focus stays on this point. This mode is suited to stationary subjects.

Were you using AF-S (single shot) or AF-C (continuous shooting)? If you use AF-S, the camera will not take the picture unless the area under the chosen focus point is in focus (which means you may have just focused on the wrong spot). If you use AF-C, a picture will be taken whenever the shutter button is pressed, whether or not focus has been achieved (which means the camera may not have acheived focus on the bird when the shutter was tripped)..