Needs to be sharper.. how?

[KristenMcRaney]

Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure: 1/1000
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

I think I should bring the ISO down because that caused the picture to be too light. I am wondering how to get the pictures sharper and cleaner. I always see pictures that have amazing color and very sharp looking. I'm just not sure on how to get them that way. Thanks for everyones help.

[amymnc]

This is a good shot, especially for ISO 1600! I try not to turn up the ISO unless absolutely necessary. The higher it is, the more grain you'll get, depending on your camera.
Were you shooting in low light?
Maybe you could adjust the vibrance or saturation of the greens? Might help. Somebody else who knows what they're doing will come by and help

[KristenMcRaney]

Thanks for your help. Good idea for the greens.

[RLucas]

You may want to try stopping it down. At 300mm f5.6 is still pretty wide for good DOF. Assuming you wanted the two shooters to be in focus, you could focus between the two. The foreground looks pretty sharp to me, especially if it was hand held.
Just my .02. I'm a newb too!

[MOmilkman]

You may want to try stopping it down. At 300mm f5.6 is still pretty wide for good DOF. Assuming you wanted the two shooters to be in focus, you could focus between the two. The foreground looks pretty sharp to me, especially if it was hand held.
Just my .02. I'm a newb too!

I'm betting if hes shooting at 300mm he is using a 70-300 lens and 5.6 is the maximum aperture setting when you are zoomed all the way out. At 70mm f4 is the max aperture. So I doubt he can get any less DOF.

I say work on your focus. At 5.6 you do have a fairly narrow DOF so if you have the time and not a lot of fast action movement switch over to Manual Focus. Try a few shots with the MF and see if that makes a difference. You are shooting at 1/1000 so it should be a crisp clean shot at that speed if you have good focus.

Just my .02 cents

[photog1107]

Plus if you are shooting hand held with the 300 all the way extended, camera shake is hard to deal with, too.

[nathanbarlow]

camera shake shouldnt be a problem at 1/1000 sec . . . 1/300 is supposedly the minimum you can use (varies with diff ppl)