Geese Take Off Help

[Jim Stafford]

What did I do wrong?
Canon Xti, EF-S 55-250 F4-5.6 lens, shot in Sports Mode, camera gave me 1/500 shutter, F5.6, ISO 400, zoom was at 250mm.

 

[Photog]

It's not in focus because at f/5.6 (a relatively large aperture) and 250mm you have a very small depth of field (distance from the lens that is in focus), and you simply haven't focussed on the right place - either in front of or behind the geese.

I recommend you learn more about the relationship between aperture/shutter speed/ISO. A quick search on these forums should help.

 

[Jim Stafford]

I was thinking it was a depth problem, should I do aperture priority and say F8, watch my focus point more carefully?

 

[RockDawg]

It's not in focus because at f/5.6 (a relatively large aperture) and 250mm you have a very small depth of field (distance from the lens that is in focus), and you simply haven't focussed on the right place - either in front of or behind the geese.

I disagree because if that were the case, some part of the photo would be in focus and none of it looks in focus to me. I don't have a lens longer than 70mm right now, so I'm no expert on long focal lengths, but I would assume that your problem is motion blur. I assume you were panning when you shot this? While 1/500 shutter seems pretty fast, it isn't really when you're shooting at 250mm and panning at the same time. That would explain why none of the photo is in focus.

There are many here way more knowledgeable than me and hopefully they'll chime in and correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I would say the problem is.

 

[Photog]

Hmm, at f5.6 and 250mm, the DOF would be very small, and I think this is the problem. Perhaps it is a combination of this and motion blur, but I think more likely is that none of it is in focus just because the foucs is so far off.

 

[LaFoto]

The fact that the wing feathers are not blurred "sideways", as it were, but simply just ... well ... blurred ... in so far as they are not sharp, and the fact that the same applies to the splashes of the water tells me that motion blur is not the factor.

But somehow the lens was fooled into simply not focussing at all. I believe the area that would be called DOF, was nearer to the photographer than this entire scene was. Don't know what fooled the autofocus, but something did, probably in the very last instance before the photo was taken.

 

[Overread]

f5.6 should have been fine to get some depth in this shot. I think what happened was that you fired the shutter before the shot was locked on in AF ergo you ended up with a shot which has the correct shutter speed, but which is just not focused on the scene.
With the sight before you even if you were on camera auto select AF points the AF should have locked onto the geese if given enough time - you were just too quick with the shutter .

 

[goodoneian]

It's not in focus because at f/5.6 (a relatively large aperture) and 250mm you have a very small depth of field (distance from the lens that is in focus), and you simply haven't focussed on the right place - either in front of or behind the geese.

I recommend you learn more about the relationship between aperture/shutter speed/ISO. A quick search on these forums should help.

i used to have a 200mm lens and the widest it could be open was 5.6 and the depth of field wasn't THAT small. i've played around with a 70-300 and at 5.6 @ 300mm a shot like this could easily be possible. i think the problem with this is that the camera didn't focus correctly

 

[Jim Stafford]

I had the focus in servo and shutter on burst, panning and let it fire.

 

[Photog]

I know that a shot like this would be possible - what I was saying was that if he had a much larger DOF, the shot would not be so out of focus. Of course, there was not enough light for this, but it is OOF due to the lack of depth of field and focussing in the wrong place (whether it was a problem/error with the AF or whatever).

 

[Overread]

chances are then that you beat the AF.
When shooting you have to make sure your camera gets a lock onto the subject before you fire the first shot - otherwise it will never catchup and all you will get is OOF shots. Even with topend cameras you have to get the focus right first.
Photogo what aperture would you recomend? I am having trouble with your claim that there would not be enough depth in the shot - at that range with that lens it should be enough to at least get a decent depth over the body (if not hte wings) of the bird.

 

[Photog]

I haven't got a lot of experience in nature photography, but I reckon f/5.6 should be perfect - any wider than this and the DOF would be too narrow to capture the whole bird.

 

[Jim Stafford]

Please check my Mallard post also, that was done with differen settings, same newbie!

 

[RockDawg]

I didn't even consider a total lack of focus lock. That makes sense too.

 

[Dao]

I haven't got a lot of experience in nature photography, but I reckon f/5.6 should be perfect - any wider than this and the DOF would be too narrow to capture the whole bird.

One additional criteria to consider is how far away the object is away from the camera. The total DoF could be deeper if the object is further away.

i.e. 250mm f/5.6 on a 1.6x if the object is 50 feet away, the total DoF is 2.58 feet vs if the object is only 10 feet away, then it will be 0.1 feet only.