shooting help needed

[mudman]

went down to check out the wagtails nest yesterday afternoon/evening.
reasonably happy with the nice warm light which i was after
the problem/sis focus, and noise
i manually focused on the edge of the nest, using the reason that this is where the heads of the chicks will be, and the depth of field
would be enough to get chicks and adults heads sharp when feeding
this was shot at 1/125 800 ISO at f8. at 500mm with a wireless remote. camera on a tripod and mostly spot metered. others were center metered
i know that at 500mm the lens is outside its sweet spot and that the k7 does not handle noise very well
the only things i can think of that are causing the oof issue are the wind moving the branch and mirror slap
i can't do anything about the wind, but i can lock the mirror up.

all help and suggestions wanted as the chicks are starting to really develop
cheers

help-needed.jpg

[ameerat42]

Muddy. To me you've just missed the focus on the chick heads in the nest, landing mainly on the bird and the branch behind.
I would doubt any mirror-slap effect because everything else looks sharp. I'd go with slight OOF because of subject movement
caused by wind moving the branch (but in case anyone thinks motion blur, that's not what I mean).

In any attempt of mine like this, where the wind is moving the subject, I fond myself catching focus a good few times before
getting the shot (not always successfully).

So that's your answer: the subject is blowing in the wind.
(Bet a Bob on it)

Am(not Bob).

[pixy]

Mudman not being an expert but using the same camera and sigma lens,150-500 your settings should give you good results,the first thing that I noticed was purple fringing in the lower branches,it is not motion blur,this is from high contrast scenes.

The settings I use are spot metering,natural,AV,this gives me different shutter speeds but quite often 120+aperture 6.5, all of my photos are at iso 100-400 the lower the better,and all hand held.

Would you be able to shoot the same scene at a different time of the day as there is a lot of shadows and direct sun in the tree.

Jack.

[ameerat42]

PS: Should have said earlier...
At f/8 and f=500mm your aperture is ~40mm. That's wide, so not much DOF, depending on subject distance.
Am.

[mudman]

thanks for your replies AM, and Pixy.
i think i will have to adopt a compromise position and reduce the focal length and increase the f stop, as well as adjust the focus
if i have a slightly greater dof it will give a bit of a margin. i know that it will mean a smaller image size. at this point i want to get
a sharp image with the parent feeding the chicks
cheers

[Mark L]

What PPing did you do?
Can you show us the SOOC photo?

[mudman]

thanks for your interest Mark L.
the problem is definitely focus, i must have moved the focus ring somehow.
see attached image of how close i was to getting it right.
will go and have another crack this afternoon

help-needed4.jpg

[pixy]

Mudman have you thought of using a flash,at this time of the day the shadow and light will be very hard to capture.

Jack.

[mudman]

thanks for your interest pixy.
i only have the built in flash, and i don't think it would have much effect at the distance between camera and nest, although the thought had occurred to me. might have to give it a try and see what happens
cheers

[Mark L]

the problem is definitely focus,

The repost highlights that more.
Good luck with your future focus.