Well, in a rare-for-me occurrence of great timing, my new 55-300 lens arrived last night and this morning a bald eagle visited my local park again! He was in a big cottonwood looking over the playground and lake. I love when I can justify my purchases with my wife so quickly! I look forward to more outings with this lens for sure. This image is cropped a little to get rid of some empty sky and magnify the bird. I also lowered the exposure about 2/3rds. I am hoping that the lack of sharpness/soft focus is due to my shaky hands and not the lens. Thanks for looking!



DW

[joip]

Great job. I was there the other day but alas the eagle was not...

[dwalker19]

Great job. I was there the other day but alas the eagle was not...

Thanks! Ive seen him about every three days at the park. Got lucky today for sure.

[nomadkng]

Well, in a rare-for-me occurrence of great timing, my new 55-300 lens arrived last night and this morning a bald eagle visited my local park again! He was in a big cottonwood looking over the playground and lake. I love when I can justify my purchases with my wife so quickly! I look forward to more outings with this lens for sure. This image is cropped a little to get rid of some empty sky and magnify the bird. I also lowered the exposure about 2/3rds. I am hoping that the lack of sharpness/soft focus is due to my shaky hands and not the lens. Thanks for looking!
DW

you'd probably want your shutter speed closer to 1/500 for this shot to start. also, possibly the lower branches along the border seem a little more in focus, which might mean your lens is currently front-focused and will require a bit of AF adjustment.

With long tele lenses, it's almost imperative you calibrate the lens to your body because of the narrow DoF at long focal lengths. for example, at 75 feet from you at f5.8, your DoF at 300mm is only 4 feet. at 50 feet its only 2 feet, not even enough to get the entire eagle in focus.

also, you might consider center point AF to limit the AF points the body can choose from. The k5 is not the most reliable when it comes to AF accuracy, so "helping" it focus on what you want it to focus may get better results. I would even say, if you have the time, switch to manual when dealing with many branches in the frame because the PDAF likes branches with lots of texture much better than the rounded edges of critters.

So between calibrating your lens, selective AF or MF and a faster shutter speed, hopefully you'll get better results next time

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Last edited by nomadkng; 01-15-2015 at 11:58 AM.

[dwalker19]

you'd probably want your shutter speed closer to 1/500 for this shot to start. also, possibly the lower branches along the border seem a little more in focus, which might mean your lens is currently front-focused and will require a bit of AF adjustment.

With long tele lenses, it's almost imperative you calibrate the lens to your body because of the narrow DoF at long focal lengths. for example, at 75 feet from you at f5.8, your DoF at 300mm is only 4 feet. at 50 feet its only 2 feet, not even enough to get the entire eagle in focus.

also, you might consider center point AF to limit the AF points the body can choose from. The k5 is not the most reliable when it comes to AF accuracy, so "helping" it focus on what you want it to focus may get better results. I would even say, if you have the time, switch to manual when dealing with many branches in the frame because the PDAF likes branches with lots of texture much better than the rounded edges of critters.

So between calibrating your lens, selective AF or MF and a faster shutter speed, hopefully you'll get better results next time

thanks for the input. I look forward to getting to know my new lens and getting the best out of it.