XS10+XC50-230 bird photos and...( The Fuji duck issues)

Carried the XS10+50-230 combo on my city bicycle and went round the local canal.

All good except it looks like my Fuji XS10 has personal issues with the ducks- they are blurry and can't see eye to eye with them

The lens is reasonably sharp unto 230mm( 345mm equiv) in low ISO.Most of these photographs were at 230mm and ISO 800-1600.

ProNeg Hi( I love this) and exposure correction in LR. No sharpening or noise reduction.

First we had worms, no we have ducks!   Fuji seems to have all sorts of animal problems.  Just ask Deeds about Fuji and dogs.   Seriously though,  I notice that the shots of the ducks are moving objects where as the others are stationary, so I would look at your technique factors to adjust for moving objects,  (higher shutter speeds, depth of field, panning, etc. )  Can't really say more without EXIF data, but I do love my 50-230 lens.

texasfz8 wrote:

First we had worms, no we have ducks! Fuji seems to have all sorts of animal problems. Just ask Deeds about Fuji and dogs. Seriously though, I notice that the shots of the ducks are moving objects where as the others are stationary, so I would look at your technique factors to adjust for moving objects, (higher shutter speeds, depth of field, panning, etc. ) Can't really say more without EXIF data, but I do love my 50-230 lens.

Both the camera and lens have image stabilisation . Shutter 1/250 focal length 230mm

AF-S with focus priority.

The exif included.

Phil1 wrote:

I'd imagine 1/250s should be fast enough to freeze the ducks, especially if you were panning the shots.

I wonder if the focussing point moved slightly off the ducks when you pressed the shutter. I’ve found it is all too easy to do this!

However, if you have RAW files you can see where the actual focussing point was using:

https://github.com/musselwhizzle/Focus-Points

Also, what sharpening techniques did you use? It might be worth trying Topaz Sharpen AI if they still have a free trial offer and you have a few spare moments.

Good luck!

Phil

Thanks for the new LR plug-in ( the older one at

https://lightroomfocuspointsplugin.com -doesn't work)

I used no sharpening but the plugin explains why the reflection is sharper

Fuji thinks the duck is INSIDE the water 😂

This one is a bit hard to explain.The one at the back looks sharper- the focus lock is on the front bird.

Phil1 wrote:

Thank you for letting me see the results of the focus point plugin. They probably explain the out of focus shots. In fact, suspect that a lot of the out of focus shots I've seen over the years in this forum have been due to a missed focussing point due to inadvertent camera movement. It's quite difficult holding the camera sufficiently still when pressing the shutter button so that the focus point doesn’t drift off the target and then if the subject is also moving.....

However I should add a note of caution. The square shown by the plugin, as far as I know, doesn't indicate the size of the focussing area but it shows just the central point so there is no knowing exactly what area of the image was actually used for focussing, only the point of the centre of that area.

You probably know all of this already but in case not, from what I've seen over the years, one needs to get all of, or at least the large majority of, the actual (camera) focussing square on the subject. If there is a high contrast and/or bright area behind the subject and the camera's focussing square is partly on the background then there is always the risk of the camera focusing on the back ground, giving an out of focus shot,

With a small target like a distant duck, based on the above, I'd suggest using a small or very small focussing square and firing a burst of 3-5 shots. The logic behind this is that any minute camera movement caused by pressing the shutter button will mainly affect the first shot or two, so that hopefully the later shots in the burst will have a greater chance of being in focus. It’s also worth reading up on shooting techniques and then practising a lot!

Happy hunting & please let us know how you get on.

Phil

Thanks, good suggestions , my bird photographs had been mainly with A6400 and 200-600mm Sony combo .Little experience with the Fuji system and to be honest, a bit over-ambitious with the XC 50--230( one-fifth of the price of Sony 200-600).

I was aiming for the head which is not a very big target in a duck.

Movement could be an issue .In a stationary duck , even at 1600 ISO there were still details but with almost similar positioning of focus point the moving ducks were not sharp.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65794628?image=4

I probably will have to target the body of a moving duck and the head of a sitting duck .😊