Why it is so soft

rajdeep

Hi guys,
I'm new to wildlife photography. i used Canon 400D with 300 mm EFS lense her and took multiple shots.
all were similarly blur and soft. do I need software to enhance sharpness or am I doing something wrong here.:scratch

Thanks,
Rajdeep

kdog

Welcome to dgrin! It looks like a good composition. The image is posted too small to do a critical evaluation as it actually looks pretty good at that size. Fortunately your EXIF data is present, and a few things can be spotted right off the bat.

Your shutterspeed was 1/2000. That's a good shutter speed to freeze any sort of motion, so it's unlikely you had any motion blur.

Your ISO was 1600 and your aperture was F16. Those are less than optimal settings for birds. ISO 1600 is noisy and generally used for low light conditions. Also the lens is not the sharpest at F16. Next time, try this. Shoot in AV mode, if you're not doing so already. Use ISO400 and an aperture somewhere between F5.6 and F8 depending on how close you are (the former being better if you're further away). That will give you less noise, and a sharper image.

You may want to review a good guide on stops and exposure. Here's a very good one: http://www.photonhead.com/beginners/stops.php

Keep shooting and posting and we'll look forward to seeing more of your work.

-joel

roentarre

Stunning shot in deed though!

jwear

follow joel's advice to the letter and your shot will improve 100%