I tried changing my settings for Ospreys....

[coastalconn]

I decide to shoot in shutter priority today, with center weighted average and AF-C focus priority. I think I got a little more sharpness even though these are shot wide open.. What do you think?

1

Osprey in flight close up by krisinct, on Flickr

2

Osprey landing by krisinct, on Flickr

3

Osprey landing 2 by krisinct, on Flickr

4

Osprey in the wind by krisinct, on Flickr

5

Osprey banking by krisinct, on Flickr

 

[sm4him]

I think I didn't know until this very moment that I could possibly be even MORE jealous of you than I already was. :lmao:

That first one--WOW! They are all incredible, but the sharpness of that first one is just outstanding!

 

[PixelRabbit]

Wow Kris, great set as per usual
I went and compared these to the ones in your Flickr and I would have to say there is a "little something" in these. I don't know if I would call it sharpness, perhaps a finer contrast/definition and depth (especially in the shadows)?

 

[nmoody]

Oh yes, I think these are sharper than your previous. Really nice and crisp.

 

[HL45]

great set! can't get much better for sure!

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Super sharp!

 

[bc_steve]

They look really good and quite sharp. In the first one and the last one the depth of field isn't quite as wide as the osprey's wingspan but the most important details are very sharp. The others are perfect. What mode do you usually shoot in?

 

[WesternGuy]

CC, I think you just raised the bar - great shots.

WesternGuy

 

[JacaRanda]

They are insane-ly sharp to my eyes...which are horrible. You make me not want to post my measly osprey photos :hail:

 

[matthewo]

very nice. I like 1 and 4 mostly because light seems really nice on the face.

I have been having trouble getting them in the right light flying high

 

[Chad]

Great shots, I love photographing Ospreys! These are very good! BTW - what lens did you use?

 

[Rgollar]

Just awesome shots

 

[Derrel]

These do seem pretty sharp...motion seems stopped, focus seems good. I do not have other days' worth of photos to go through and compare against, but these look good for shots made in "good light".

 

[coastalconn]

Thanks everyone. I have always shot in aperture priority so I could have a little more DOF and some added sharpness. I also have used auto ISO and have set it to 1/2000th min. Since I shoot with a D300 I really like to keep it under ISO 400, because if you need to crop at all the noise gets out of control. So with F8, ISO 400 I normally was at or below 1/1000th sec. I also used matrix or spot metering all the time. I had my af-c set to release and focus priority.

So today I decided to shoot in shutter priority mode at 1/1250th ( I accidentally turned it down to 1/1000th). This means I was shooting wide open at F6.3. I set my AF-c to focus priority which is a little frustrating because the shutter only fires when the camera thinks it locked on. A few times the Osprey flying towards me actually flew past the focus plane before the camera fired. I left auto-iso on and let the camera pick the ISO. When I looked at my menu for center weighted metering I noticed that besides the physical sizes of 8mm,10mm etc, the last option was average so I decided to give that a try. All shots are using just the center point focus.

I also dropped down a little from 500mm on some of them. Ironically, as bc-steve pointed out the 1st and 5th were at 500mm and gave the least amount DOF the middle three were at 460mm...

I think tomorrow morning I might shoot in manual at F7.1, 1/1250th, auto ISO and try 9 pt dynamic area..

 

[dxqcanada2 2]

That lens is pretty good wide open, which is usually the poorest.

Were these hand held ?