How to improve focusing?

[cinco312]

Any tips on getting my images more in focus? This photo for example the birds eyes and head aren't in focus. He was surprisingly very still and I got about five shots of him. I used auto focus using the center point over his eyes. I shot it at f5.6 at 300mm. Should I try using a smaller aperture? f8-11? This happens a lot when I take shots of my dogs and cats, regardless of the lens I use.

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[robbins.photo]

I find my best results on my Nikon are by using AF-C (Auto focus continuous) in combination with single point focus, especially with smaller birds and animals. Increased depth of field is also good to get when possible.

 

[cinco312]

That's what I usually have it on, continuous and switch back and forth to manually selecting a single point.

 

[W.Fovall]

what shutter speed?

 

[cinco312]

1/800

 

[W.Fovall]

you try 1/400? lets more light it for lower iso = sharper

 

[cinco312]

No, I was shooting in AV mode. I do have one that was 1/250 with the same result. ISO was 100 on all images

 

[W.Fovall]

you shooting jpeg and cropping?
do you wait a while between focus lock and actual snap?

 

[robbins.photo]

No, I was shooting in AV mode. I do have one that was 1/250 with the same result. ISO was 100 on all images

What camera body/lens combination? Also, is there any cropping involved or are these fairly close to straight off the camera?

 

[cinco312]

I use back button focusing and shoot right away when locked on. No, I shoot in Raw and yeah it's heavily cropped.

Canon 1100D Sigma 70-300 APO

 

[W.Fovall]

12MP CMOS sensor

your not going to be able to crop that much...
take a shot at something that fills the frame without cropping

 

[cinco312]

This is the original Raw file.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cx9uvo3wd4q01jm/_MG_4094.CR2

 

[robbins.photo]

This is the original Raw file.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cx9uvo3wd4q01jm/_MG_4094.CR2

Just from looking at the original I'd say that's probably the biggest part of the issue here, your dealing with a 12 MP sensor so you don't really have a tremendous amount of detail here to begin with as it applies to cropping and it looks like your trying to crop pretty heavily which is why the resultant image seems a bit soft.

 

[SCraig]

A Canon 1100D with a 300mm lens at f/5.6 and a focus distance of 10' (I guessed at that but given the size of the bird it can't be much more) has a depth of field of 0.07' (just under an inch) or 0.03' (about 3/8") in front of and behind the point of focus. You can verify that Here if desired.

With a depth of field that narrow, yes, parts of the bird are going to be out of focus.

 

[nzmacro]

Downloaded and had a good look. Its not the focus, if you look at the pebbles on the tiles on the angle, left hand side, the sharpest pebbles are in line with the bird. So the selective focal point is correct. 1/800th, try a faster shutter speed and with OIS turned off. Just saying its worth a try is all.

I went from a 12mp sensor to a 24mp APS-C. There is a large difference in cropping ability, massive in fact, but and its a big but, your lenses need to be able to resolve well in conjunction with the sensor. That can get expensive. The other option you have, is to use a longer focal length, so instead of 300mm, 400-500 mm would be a good option. The lens that is looking really good at the moment for birding and AF is the new Tamron 150-600mm. A large lens that looks pretty darn sharp at a reasonable cost (subjective of course).

All the best.

Danny.