Sunshine at last

[Daisy M]

Pleased with these , but seem unable to get the sharpness others achieve with the 150-600C , Any tips & comments appreciated.

Blue Tit by David Miller, on Flickr

Blue Tit 2 by David Miller, on Flickr

4S7A8875Blue Tit3 by David Miller, on Flickr

Robin by David Miller, on Flickr

Chaffinch by David Miller, on Flickr

[colin C]

I have checked out the first image on flickr, but it isn't giving me your settings, just an ISO of 125.

If you look at the brighter coloured moss below the Blue Tit's legs, that seems sharp enough, which points me to a settings issue, rather than a problem with the lens. These little fellas are constantly moving and even their breathing is around 300 a minute, so you need a fairly high shutter speed to stop that. Ideally for a small bird, I would be looking for a shutter speed of 1/2,000sec and compromise to 1/1,600sec if I had to. That means compromising your other settings but I would always try to stop down the lens one stop from wide open and that inevitably means winding up the ISO.

Even with quite fast lenses, my standard ISO seems to be 800, but more often than not much higher. I count myself very lucky if I can get the ISO down to 400.

Hope that helps.

[Daisy M]

Thanks Colin, very helpful, if we get anymore sun I will give it a go.

[antoeknee]

Little info on the images. However some thing that Colin noticed the POF seems to be behind/in front of the bird. If the bird is close then DOF is an issue and you need to focus on the eye and maybe stop down a bit.

How many focus pints are you using? Smallish subjects (in the frame) mean you should be using centre only or centre plus 8 expansion.

[Trev B]

Nice shots, I use a 150/600S, Agree with Colin's comments

[Bill53]

Nice shots David, I also use the Sigma 150-600C and agree with the comments above.

Bill.

[antoeknee]

I'm an old git with none too steady hands but have used the Sigma successfully as low as 1/60. Regularly use 1/250 though 1/1000 will give better success rate and freeze movement of fast moving subjects.

[Daisy M]

Thanks all, desperate to get out in the hide now, just got to do some chores for the misses, window cleaning.

[leeperry]

I also have the sigma 150-600mm C lens.
When photographing static small birds, generally I will shot minimum 1/1000sec with this lens (hand held).

[Daisy M]

Thanks Gary

[enneo]

Nice set.

[Brian Sugden]

Agree with Colin. My standard ISO setting is 800. Just one further thought, have you checked the micro-adjustment?