Canon 7d mkii and Tamron 150-600mm g2 lens

[Anjeanette41]

Hello,

    Bird and wildlife photographer from Indiana and I just bought a Canon 7d mk ii and a Tamron 150-600 mm g2 lens from MPB>COM. I am coming from a Canon 90d and Sigma 150-600 mm contemporary lens set up and now that I have the Canon 7dmk ii I don't really know how to set it up for the best sharp resutls when shooting birds and birds in flight. 

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for when the light is relatively good outside? as I know neither this camera or lens does well in lower light conditions. 

 I am struggling to get decent in focus shots. I use higher shutter speeds and not wide open aperture hoping that would help but it does not seem to. I use adobe lightroom and Topaz sharpen AI to help some in post processing but I would love to be able to get sharper images right out of camera. 

Thanks for any tips and or tricks that may be helpful in advance.

[Waddizzle]

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@Anjeanette41 wrote:
Tronhard,
Wow, those are some awesome bird shots.
Well, today for instance I was out shooting over a corn field and clear blue skies and got some shots of a red tailed hawk that was being chased by some crows. It was a bit further away but figured I would try anyway. I had my shutter speed at 1/2000 , aperture at f 9.0 and my iso was at 400. I do all my bird photography handheld. All my shots came out blurry. I used Ai servo , high speed continuous mode, with 1pt AF auto focus selection.

As far as me switching from sigma 150-600mm Contemporary lens to the Tamron 150-600mm g2 lens its because in order for me to get enough money to get my new camera I had to sell it and all my other lenses that I had and I figured that I would give tamron a try. I just had enough money after buying the camera because I just got a paycheck to get the tamron lens with the canon 7dmk ii. The sigma lens did ok, I had it for a while and figured I'd give another super telephoto lens a go.

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I would recommend removing any filter, except for a Clear filter.  How far away were you?  Did you crop the photos?

[Anjeanette41]

I don't use any filters. As far as how far I was, not sure but I had to zoom in to 600mm and on the review on my camera screen the red tailed hawk was still pretty small until I zoomed in. I haven't uploaded the photos yet to my pc but I can see that they are out of focus on the back of my camera.

[ebiggs1]

If you were getting good shots with the Siggy use the very same settings for the Tamron. My personal preference when I am doing this work is set the lens to f8. I try to keep SS above 1/1000 and ISO in the 800 range. But whatever you did with the Sigma will work with the Tamron.

Always shoot Raw. Use LR and PS. I see no reason for any additional "sharpening" software. Don't over crop, get closer to your subject.  Remember you are not taking snapshots when you do BIF.

BTW, if anything the G2 Tamron just might be a teny, tiny bit sharper than the Sigma.

[Waddizzle]

It sounds like you may have been a bit too far away from the subject. Severe cropping can severely reduce resolution.

Also, shooting across a lot of water can distort light