I’ve been seeing lot of videos, reading a lot and experimenting with knobs and dials of the camera.
Images feel soft, not sharp. Trying to understand is it because of foggy day or if the shutter speed was not fast enough.
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Looking at the sign in the background (cropped out in the image shown), I’d say there’s some camera movement. Given the reported focal lenght (500mm for FF equivalent), the 1/800 shutter could be a bit long (depending perhaps on your technique, and level of excitement).
Hello, soft indeed, but the coyote seems to be more or less in focus. A focus mask (in ART) confirms that. Could be some camera blur as well.
Are all of your images taken with this less are that soft? Then it might be the lens as well.
Try to use a tripod and take some test shots with the longer focal lengths.
Attached a crop of your image with lots of contrast added.
@rvietor There was a camera blur for this particular image, but I noticed same general pattern for all photos.
@paulmatth - No I don’t think lens is soft. I am inclined more towards operator error than camera as it has taken pretty sharp pictures many times.
I took the camera out again and experimented. I am inclined towards combination or extra exposure compensation, not paying attention to all the details camera is telling me and cold weather and fingers. i’d added few stops to exposure compensation and today I noticed when I increase exposure compensation, ISO keeps increasing. May be that is contributing fuzzy/soft pictures.
Well, if you want more light, you have to increase one or more of exposure time (say 1/400 instead of 1/800), ISO or diaphragm (say F5.6 instead of F8). Which of these options is chosen depends on how you set up the camera.
I mostly use aperture preference, meaning I set the aperture. As I also use auto-ISO, the camera adjusts the shutter speed and the ISO, trying to keep the shutter speed “fast enough” for the focal lenght and the ISO in the range I selected.
Increasing ISO in itself would NOT cause fuzzy or soft pictures (unless you get too much noise).
I suspect camera movement is often the cause of the softness you see. The “target” Sony uses for exposure time seems to be 1/. That is usually good enough, but I have noticed for me that it can still give visible camera shake (depending on conditions).
Also, low contrast images tend to “feel softer” than high contrast images.
So there are really too many variables in play to decide what’s going on based on one image (which shows camera movement…)
Hand holding a lens that long is tricky, and I’m inclined to say of you want to continue to hand hold, you will need a faster shutter speed. At that length, and slight movement, sometimes even the movement from pressing the shutter button, can create camera shake. I have a 100-400, and while I can hand hold at 200mm, I find it difficult to achieve a sharp photo while hand holding at 400mm.
If you don’t want to use a tripod, perhaps a monopod?
We were in a park in a car. Tripod was there in my car, but unfortunately we are not allowed to get off the car in this particular region.
Next time, I’ll use something to steady the camera. While I agree the advice of using tripod, so far i did not have problems on aperture priority mode .
Problems started when I watched all those videos, dug through various settings/menus and tinkered with things. Still learning, but having fun.
This community is my go to community as it has always guided me gently and really appreciate that.
Perhaps you over-tinkered things… Take some photos with your camera set to program mode, the “P” on the dial usually. Then the camera decides what’s best for that shot (aperture, shutter speed, iso…).
I think, the settings were okay in this case. maybe just some camera movement.
Cool animal!
