with distant subjects. At first, I wrote it off to poor long lens/panning technique, but now, after getting exactly 0 keeper flight shots out of 100 at the zoo pond, in bright light, and 0 keepers out of about 40 at my own pond today, now I'm beginning to worry something's not right here. It's not like I've never done this before either. I'm using my standard full, Wimberley head on my Gitzo CF tripod, like always too. All of these badly focused flight shots were anywhere from 300-500 ft away. Anything much closer seems to be fine, it's those distant subjects that are giving me fits. This all happened while I had the 200-400VR + TC 1.7 mounted, and in AF-C mode. I did go to Focus +FPS rate or whatever that's called right before these shots, and have also recently started shooting with my new TC 1.7, where I used to shot with my TC 1.4 attached. Where do I go from here? (besides get a lot closer) :shock: Do I need to do some (damn) testing? I've tried several different focus reticule, all with the same disastrous results on the long stuff.
This is one of the VERY few shots that is even reasonably sharp, and it ain't that great. It's a static shot from about 400 ft away in fading light @ISO800. It's been about 1/6th cropped for artistic reasons. (It is kinda cool, since I got all 4 animals in the shot at once).
Model NIKON D2X
Flash Used No
Focal Length 650 mm
Exposure Time 1/125 sec
Aperture f/10
ISO Equivalent 800
Exposure Bias +.50 (in Capture)
White Balance (-1)
Metering Mode matrix (5)
Exposure Program aperture priority
This is one of the VERY few shots that is even reasonably sharp, and it ain't that great. It's a static shot from about 400 ft away in fading light @ISO800. It's been about 1/6th cropped for artistic reasons. (It is kinda cool, since I got all 4 animals in the shot at once).
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Model NIKON D2X
Flash Used No
Focal Length 650 mm
Exposure Time 1/125 sec
Aperture f/10
ISO Equivalent 800
Exposure Bias +.50 (in Capture)
White Balance (-1)
Metering Mode matrix (5)
Exposure Program aperture priority