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Danny
Hello, I managed to get the sigma 150-600 but can’t get a crisp photo of a target that’s still. Please see attached.
any ideas etc?
cheers Jon
There are several things going on and the lack of sharpness is probably due to several of them:
1. Your ISO is pretty high for the camera body you are using which adds quite a bit of noise that will result in significant softening as it is addressed in processing.
2. It appears to be slightly front focusing to me, take a close look at the clumps of vegetation about 1/3 up from the body on both the left and right borders of the photo. These appear somewhat sharper than the same type of plants closer to the plane of the swan.
3. At 1/640 with an APS/C sensor body, you will need to use the optical stabilizer or be extremely steady.
Manual mode is pretty easy to use, set your camera to manual and the ISO to auto. Set the aperture to its widest setting (that is f6.3 at the extreme tele end of this lens), turn on the image stabilizer, and set the shutter speed to 1/500. This wider aperture and a slightly slower shutter speed combined with the optical stabilizer will help offset the softness component created by noise reduction. You can experiment with slower shutter speeds with stationary subjects and choose the one that provides the best results.
If i am reading this image correctly, this still leaves the problem of AF calibration and I don't believe your 1100D body has microfocus adjustment built in. Sigma sells a dock to work with their lenses and it will also allow you to adjust focus calibration to your camera body and this may be necessary if the AF of the lens isn't currently calibrated to your body. If you have a friend with the Sigma dock, it is the same one for their other lenses so perhaps you can borrow it if you don't want to buy one although they aren't that expensive.
The Sigma 150-600 is capable of some pretty sharp images and is worth "dialing in" and getting more experience with in order to get what it is capable of providing. The first three photos below are from the day I received the lens and was giving it a quick test after calibrating the autofocus system, the last two are of a blue heron who was briefly visible on a hike last summer and he didn't give me the opportunity to choose a good vantage point. I have some far more expensive Canon "great white" telephoto primes and I was amazed at the image quality the Sigma lens provides at its price point, it is a very good deal.
Rodger
There is a lot to unpack here:
I agree with @JRHoffman75's comment that we need to see the original file via some kind of file-sharing program. If you shot using RAW, that would be preferable.
Shooting with a long lens for wildlife is a steep learning curve for someone new to photography, and the default camera settings will often not serve you as well as they would for general imagery. This is because you are seeking to isolate a subject in what can be a cluttered and confusing environment for the focusing system in its default modes.
From the EXIF data you supplied: ISO 3200 600mm f/10 1/640s, my first reaction is that your aperture is far too small, you should be shooting at f/6.3 (the lowest value for a FL of 600mm), that will allow you to increase your shutter speed by a factor of 4, which is useful because for hand-held at 600mm, unless you use good technique, the shutter speed for your type of camera, used hand-held, should be at least 1.6x your focal length, preferably 2x.
At this stage, looking at your image in this post, it seems to me that the camera is focusing on the vegetation that is almost directly in front of the swan, and I suspect the focusing system is fooled by distractions.. That is possible if you were using area autofocus, because the focusing system will seek the closest possible object for which it can find enough contrast. One solution to this is to use a limited number of focal points, but I shall hold back on that until we have a better image to evaluate.
Were you shooting by looking through the viewfinder or the LCD at the back? That can make a significant difference because you want to hold a long telephoto lens like a rifle for the same reasons: you want to stabilize what you are shooting with, and supporting the lens with your hand under the barrel, having your elbows tucked into your torso, and your eye pressed firmly against the viewfinder give you a sort of tripod support system using your body for stabilization. See this example:
