sorry, i\'m afraid i\'m not sure what statement you think that picture contradicts (edit: just to be clear i really am confused)? the fact that i said in two posts that kinglets are hard to photograph? or that i said i do better with manual focus for them than with autofocus on the 2 dslrs i have used regularly?
Oops. I didn\'t copy/paste the critical part of your statement which was i only claimed to be better than a crappy autofocus system Thanks for the chance to clarify.
the focus on that shot is actually perfect on the bird\'s left eye (where i aimed). the minimal dof puts the other eye slightly out of focus.
Not really. Both eyes are equally out of focus. Probably because from that angle they are very close to the same focal plane. Beyond that, the composition is not suited to highlight an isolated eye shot. It looks like an accident. The only thing remotely in focus is a small patch of breast feathers, but even that\'s a stretch. The link isn\'t working.
incidentally, what makes you think it was still?
Both feet on the ground. Wings tucked in. No motion blur, which would have been obvious at the 1/100th second SS that you used to take the shot.
Marty
sorry about the link here is the largest crop i can get out of flickr (the original is at home and i am not)
the image is somewhat soft due to the lenses poor performance at mfd and there might be some motion blur from me or the bird. the shot is handheld at 1/100 f/4.8 as i sat on my butt and shot between my feet. it certainly looks to me as though the bird\'s left eye is sharper than anything else in the picture not in the same plane. i certainly never claimed that this photo was particularly well composed. i just like the pose with her glaring at me. i did not compose to highlight an isolated eye shot, that was only shot i could get. i certainly never expected the bird to come that close.
as far as claiming to be better than my cameras autofocus, that is something no single shot could ever prove. cogitech did a good job of demonstrating he was better than autofocus by showing all the shots he took in both modes. i\'m afraid i can\'t do something similar in this situation because i didn\'t have an autofocus lens with me. i can say i\'ve fired over 1000 shots at kinglets using autofocus and less than 1% of them were in focus. this bird is the specific reason i decided to try a manual focus telephoto (it was a lot cheaper than a d300 and 300mm f4). my success rate with these birds is much higher now with manual focus, so yes i am better at focusing than my particular cameras are. this doesn\'t mean i am exceptionally good at manual focus - it is a combination of me being decent at manual focus and my cameras having slow and/or inaccurate autofocus.
Feb 12, 2010 at 09:32 PM
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