Small and or far away... How to?

I have a Nikon D90 and Tamron SP 150-600mm DI VC USD G2

Hardly a boast I know but all I can afford right now... Essentially it is what it is so please limit advise ti getting the best from the kit not getting more kit.

I seem to struggle with depth of field, which I assume is due to zoom.

To compensate I have been increasing ISO so that I can increase F stop.

However after looking at images from others, birds mostly, I wonder if I an simply going about it the wrong way...

Should I be shooting wider and then cropping down, seems sort of counter intuitive?

To be fair I should perhaps ask a more open question... How should I be setting this kit up in general.

If you look at the house martins in the 'Fealar & Pitlochry' album you will see the sort of thing I am looking for, all be it in focus and with enough depth of field to actually capture more than 1 in 100 attempts.

House Martin Drinking on the Wing 2 | Photo.net

They are pretty quick and will not drink from a chunk of water you are sitting too close to, though I guess a Hide might help.

I watched them for a while and then set the camera on manual focus, on that spot, or at least at that range above the surface, and used burst mode.

Unfortunately burst mode on the D90 is only circa 4 frames/second so plenty of time for stuff to get between shots.

More depth of field would defiantly help...

Suggestions, anyone?

Al-pics,

Birds in flight are difficult to photograph, even with much experience and the best equipment. And small birds even more so. With martins [swallows in the US] you've chosen a very challenging subject! How are you doing with stationary birds? What about swans or other larger birds that tend to fly predictably rather than flitting all over the place? Do you have any photos to post? 'Blurring" might be due to various factors including bird movement, camera movement, and incorrect focus.

Look for an on-line depth of field scale, or get a free/cheap app for your phone. You'll see that for your lens zoomed to 400mm, focused at 30 feet and at f8 you'll have a depth of field of just over 6"!

A hide and camo

A problem is simply hand holding the kit.

Even with VR in the lens, when tracking a moving bird, you could be exceeding the ability of the VR to compensate for your movement.

AF is the other issue. Being able to keep focus on the bird. A problem with flying birds is where on the bird will the AF choose to focus; head, body, wing, etc. As Roger said, with only 6 inches of DoF, subject +/- 3 inches, if the AF focused on the wing tip, the head may not be in focus.

Don't worry about 4 FPS, that is good enough.

BTW, what is your shutter speed? You should be at least 1/2000.

Practice.

As Roger said, start on the larger slower/predictable flying birds, then graduate to the smaller erratic flying birds as you get better with tracking the flying birds.

Some of this is simply teaching your muscles to move to be able to track the birds. IOW developing muscle memory.

Take notes.

When you go on a shoot, take notes, so when you get back and review the pix, you can seen what technique worked and what did not work.

Then use that knowledge the next time to refine your shooting.

I seem to struggle with depth of field, which I assume is due to zoom.

Not the issue here - and in general not when photographing wildlife unless one gets very close. The focus distance for the martin image in question is about 80 feet which at f/6.3 gives 1.34ft DOF - sufficient to cover way more than the length of the martin. The image apparently was shot a f/14 - which is pretty much a no-no right there as it get's one into resolution-robbing diffraction territory. 1/800s shutter speed is way too slow for fast martins - 1/2000s or faster is what I recommend.

You'll see that for your lens zoomed to 400mm, focused at 30 feet and at f8 you'll have a depth of field of just over 6"!

30 feet is already quite close - and 6" DOF is still sufficient to cover small birds completely. 30 feet to a seagull with a 500mm lens on a DX body is a head shot. I got within 15ft of some small birds just yesterday - at 500mm they are frame-filling and there's still sufficient DOF (even though it's only 1" and certainly doesn't cover the entire bird - but even if I were to stop down to f/22, I'd not have a DOF sufficient to accomplish that). (Image below is slightly cropped to 4:5 ratio)

Focus distance 60ft - the bird is pretty much frame filling at 500mm on a DX body (image is slightly cropped) - DOF is 1.4ft at f/8: (the full wingspan of a snowy egret is within 4.5 - 5.5 ft).

I wonder if I an simply going about it the wrong way...

IMHO, yes you are. Shutter speed needs to be fast enough to eliminate motion blur (and blur from camera shake) - this often leaves no choice to shoot wide open or close to it to keep ISO within a reasonable range. If there's sufficient light, then one can afford to stop down a stop, rarely more. DOF may not be sufficient to cover the entire bird - that's often not an issue at all - it is much more important to get the bird's eye(s) in focus.

With martins [swallows in the US] you've chosen a very challenging subject!

Indeed. I've never been happy with anything I could get shooting something that fast and erratic. None of the lenses I have focuses fast enough - though I haven't tried with the D500/200-500 combo yet but would likely have more success with the D500/AF-S 300/4E VR PF (provided I could get close enough). I would never attempt to photograph small birds at a distance of 80 feet - they are too small in the frame then.

Essentially it is what it is so please limit advise ti getting the best from the kit not getting more kit.

I understand but in order to be able to crop more and have better high ISO performance, a 24MP camera like the D7200 is a much better choice than the D90. The longest focal length I own is 500mm - FOV equivalent to a 750mm on a DX camera. Nonetheless, most of my images are still cropped - and most are taken in a range of 50-100 feet. Farther away, and I generally don't bother.

resolution-robbingdiffraction territory ....

You are going to have to explain that, didn't evening know the issue existed let alone that I was probably suffering from it.

Don't get me wrong I know what refraction is, it just never occurred to me that closing there lense had any detremantal effect other than reducing light, in fact unless I was looking for a short DOF I would, by default, always go as tight as possible.

Can't believe I was missing something fundamental like that. How tight is too tight, is not a fixed value or focal length dependent?

DOF...

Yes I appreciate it's not everything and with time to compose even a shallow DOF can work.

Shooting the House Martin's though, Swallows different here, I was focussed manually on a spot above a pool. when a bird approached I fired off a 6 frames, max buffer on D90 in raw, and then went back to see if any of them actually had a bird in it at approximately the right distance.

IS was on and I was tripod mounted using a remote shutter release.

Better sensor seems like a good plan, especially if high ISO performance is improved.

Will need you price a new body... Probably much cheaper than a lense.

If you look at the oyster catcher taking off you can see the problem, at least the problem I thought I had.

failing behind the bird is in focus, which is where it was purched. when it took off I took the frame but by the time it was captured the bird was closer, all be it still in the frame.

I will read through all the comments again, several times probably, thanks for the help, it is exactly there sort of stuff I was looking for.

All XIFF data is on all my pics I have only corrected exposure, dynamic range and a little couple in most cases, apart from the drop.

I know I could probably do better with Rawtherapee but I used ViewNX to make critique easier, from a technique point of view.

Feel free to tell me what I should have been doing as opposed to what I did.

Generally I shoot in shutter speed priority , or program more. Either way I let the ISO frost between 100 and 1000

It is biased to be as low as there Mon F-stop will allow.

Thanks folks,

if I missed any important points I will pick them up when I read again, and respond if I don't understand or need clarification.

Cheers

Al

How tight is too tight, is not a fixed value or focal length dependent?

Here are a couple of articles that get you started Diffraction Limited Photography: Pixel Size, Aperture and Airy Disks and What Is Lens Diffraction? - Photography Life - generally speaking, when diffraction happens depends on the size of the aperture and the number of MP of the sensor - the more pixels, the earlier the onset of diffraction. As a rule of thumb, expect diffraction effects to become visible when you stop down more than f/11 on a DX camera (and more than f/8 on an FX one). The good news is that the effect is gradual and some can be recovered with sharpening to some extent.

I was focussed manually on a spot above a pool

That might work if you set the camera up for trap-focus (not sure if the D90 can do that though). It's a technique that results in the shutter being tripped when something enters a predetermined focus area. Relying on manual focus to get something as fast as martins in my opinion is relying too much on luck (hence you spray and pray approach). You increase your chances quite a bit if you put the camera on AF-C, pre-focus on a spot where you expect the bird and once it enters that zone, fire off a burst and hope the AF has locked on and is tracking the bird. Or find out if the D90 can be set-up for trap-focus. As already mentioned, start practising on larger, slower birds with a predictable flight path; martins are too fast and their flight pattern too erratic to make good test subjects. Where I live, seagulls are ubiquitous and do well as practice subjects. Set the camera to AF-C, single point or dynamic area (the auto-area and 3D modes are too slow), acquire focus on the bird as early as possible and follow the bird with the camera trying to keep the active AF area on the bird. In AF-C mode, the camera activates tracking mode automatically and attempts to keep focus on the bird as it moves closer - all you have to do is keeping the active AF point on the bird (in dynamic mode, the surrounding AF points will also be used, so if your initial AF point moves off the bird in that case, the camera may still be able to track). The D90 only has 11 AF points (spaced rather far apart), the newer D7200 (highly recommended) has 52 (which naturally decreases the space between them). On the D500, it's 153 with coverage almost to the edge of the viewfinder in the horizontal direction. Naturally, the focus speed of the lens also enters the equation - lower-end lenses tend to have smaller, weaker motors and hence focus slower.

That oystercatcher take-off shot is where AF-C would come in handy - you focused on the bird and as it took off, AF tracking would have kept the focus on the bird (you would have to acquire focus and keep the shutter release button half-pressed to keep the AF active). Many people (me included) have resorted to back-button focusing. This is a technique where one decouples the AF operation from the shutter release button. Some cameras have a dedicated AF-ON button - on the D90, one can program the AE-L/AF-L button to take over that function. Now the camera focuses only when that button is depressed and not with a half-press of the shutter release.

This image is from a situation quite similar to your oystercatcher image (a bit harder as the bird is flying almost towards me rather than almost perpendicular to the direction the camera is pointed in your case) - taken with a D300 (same AF as your D90) and the quite slow-focusing AF-D 80-400. The bird just took off from its perch (onto which I had pre-focused) and as the camera was in AF-C mode it could track the bird taking off resulting in an in-focus image. 1/1250s shutter speed was not fast enough to freeze the motion of the wings though. And DOF is too shallow at this focus distance to cover the entire bird.

And one more thing - VR does not freeze subject motion - at 1/800s shutter speed (or faster) it is generally better to turn it off as it no longer has any beneficial effects (and some potentially detrimental ones).

Among many other Contradictions of nature

the more you stop down the more depth of field you have

BUT

the more you stop down, the more diffraction you have

IS (image stabilization) aka VR (vibration reduction) works only on the camera/user side of the lens.

Higher shutter speed does not eliminate, but only reduces, the reduction on the camera/user side

These are involved with "circle of confusion link" so it is human perception, not "reality" that is involved.

OR "you can't have it all" (attr. to K Hepburn)

Sorry Folks,

Work got in the way of life....

This is all very interesting stuff I probably should have been aware of.

Look like I am going back to basics and doing some testing... That is going to have to be the weekend.

Many thanks

Al

Shoot at f/8 to f/11. DOF will always be shallow, so concentrate on getting an eye in focus, then all else is forgiven.

By all mean, handhold for BIF. You'll totally miss the best shots with a tripod slowing you down. A tripod is for when you're camped under a nest for hours. Raise ISO to get shutter speed up in the 1/1000 to 1/4000 range.

Handheld:

White-faced Ibis Flies By by David Stephens, on Flickr

Handheld:

Beautiful Take-off (Explored) by David Stephens, on Flickr

Handheld:

Mallard Fly-by (Explored) by David Stephens, on Flickr

I know three women that handhold that kit and one's only about 5' 1" tall. You can do it. If it's hard at first, it'll get easier.

Shoot a bunch. I crop almost everything. Good luck