need some help here...

[barracuda]

i need some expert advice here. i took a shot of a mongoose, when i view it at the size as #1 below, the eyes are sharp, but when i view it at 100% (as shown in #2), the eyes are blur.

when i took the shot, i mounted my cam on a tripod, Av mode, 1/125 sec, f9, ISO800, cam is canon 20d, lens is tokina 100-300mm at 300mm. can someone tell me what has gone wrong here? is it a focus problem? shutter speed not fast enough? or...

i consistently cannot get sharp pics, and i can't figure out what the problem is.

many thanks in advance...


#1


#2

[fWord]

Even though your camera was tripod-mounted, there is still a chance that camera shake had a part to play in the blur in this picture. If your tripod isn't solid or stable enough, triggering the shutter with the finger or the mirror slap might have caused the whole setup to shake.

What I noticed is that with longer lenses, the vibration from the mirror slap is perpetuated by the lens itself. When I tried taking photos using the self-timer mode (using my very filmsy tripod), I still got images that were slightly blurred by camera shake.

Are you using a tripod that is built to handle the weight of your setup? If there is a hook down the center of your tripod, try hanging a camera bag or other heavy object on it to give it more stability.

Some lenses also don't cope well if you stop them down too much and image quality is degraded because of diffraction. Try taking a photo wide open, or stop down to just f/5.6, focus on the eyes with the central focus point and see how it goes.

[barracuda]

fWord: thanks for your suggestion. will try it out next time.