Suggested Settings for this shot...

I took this shot today at the zoo..it was shot with D100 with 70-300mm and 2x teleconverter. I've only had my camera for a week so I'm still learning. I've had no experience with SLR...have used Oly C2100.



Question...what changes in the settings could I have made so that the cat was as sharp as the grass? The head and body seem very soft while the hind quarters seem much sharper...

Did do slight adjustment in Curves...slight crop..and slight sharpening overall.

These are the settings...
focal ln: 300mm
Exposure: program
Metering: center weighted
1/50sec f5.6
ISO: 200
White balance: auto
AFMode: AF-s

Any suggestions are welcome...thanks...YP

--
YP
C2100/B300
http://www.pbase.com/yp

yp79260 said:

1/50sec f5.6

Click to expand...

Try bumping up your ISO to 400 or 640. At 300mm (actually about 450mm with the D100), you want as fast a shutter speed as possible. 1/50th was definately way too slow. :0)

--
Braaak
Ravenworks
http://www.ravenworks.net

You might try switching to manual focus. I know it sounds old fashioned, but it works in situations like these where the brain in the camera makes a good decision about the wrong target.

John Cote said:

You might try switching to manual focus. I know it sounds old
fashioned...

Click to expand...

Not old fashoned at all. Manual focus would make all the difference here. The biggest difference between my old Olympus 3030 and my D100 was not regaining use of my Nikkor lenses, but remembering that the focus ring was as great a tool in composition as the zoom.

Or put the af mark on the cat and hold the shutter release 1/2 way down so the focus will stay locked, recompose and shoot. It's much faster to me to do it this way but either will work.

John Cote said:

You might try switching to manual focus. I know it sounds old
fashioned, but it works in situations like these where the brain in
the camera makes a good decision about the wrong target.

Click to expand...

--
Tommy

Try this;
Shutter Priority 1/500
ISO 400 to 600
Spot focus. put focus pt on head.

Birger

It looks to me like the central AF sensor picked out the grass instead of the cat to focus on. At 300mm, f/5.6 yields really shallow depth of field... especially if you had that 2x teleconverter on the camera, which would have made this a 600mm f/11 shot (actually a 900mm with the 1.5x FOV crop). In any case, there is also probably some serious camera shake going on... unless that's the VR lens, your shutter speed should be at least the reciprocal of the focal length for sharp pictures. For example, if your shot was at 300mm, then you should shoot at least 1/250s (actually I've found that you should use the equivalent focal length after the 1.5x factor for this rule). So, really, you should have been at 1/500 second without a tripod, since that 300mm is actually more like 450mm. If you are going to use super long lenses like that, a tripod is recommended, otherwise you need lots of light.

You could also up the ISO setting... the D100 is relatively fantastic at high ISOs. I'm assuming that f/5.6 was the maximum lens aperature... so to get a higher shutter speed, you basically have to up the ISO setting. You were are 200 ISO, 1/50... you could go 1/400 at ISO 1600, and get a sharp picture... granted there would be visible noise, but that's better than a soft pic. Or you could bring a monopod, which would buy you a stop or two of shutter speed...

As far as focusing, you can either put the central focusing point on the cat, let it focus, then recompose, or use manual focusing. In practice, I find that the focus and recompose trick is pretty easy, and much faster than manual focusing. Just make sure that if you are in C mode (continuous servo) that you hold down the FEL/EL button after it's focused where you want.

yp said:

I took this shot today at the zoo..it was shot with D100 with
70-300mm and 2x teleconverter. I've only had my camera for a week
so I'm still learning. I've had no experience with SLR...have used
Oly C2100.



Question...what changes in the settings could I have made so that
the cat was as sharp as the grass? The head and body seem very soft
while the hind quarters seem much sharper...

Did do slight adjustment in Curves...slight crop..and slight
sharpening overall.

These are the settings...
focal ln: 300mm
Exposure: program
Metering: center weighted
1/50sec f5.6
ISO: 200
White balance: auto
AFMode: AF-s

Any suggestions are welcome...thanks...YP

--
YP
C2100/B300
http://www.pbase.com/yp

Click to expand...

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http://www.pbase.com/dougboutwell/d100_images