Is it me, the gear or the bird? (1 Viewer)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3016/3560063579_2c142349b0_o.jpg

a 100% crop from the shot


Taken with: Canon 400D, Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS + 1.4 TC
at: f4, ISO 400, 1/3200sec taken in aperture priority mode

Well the other day I got a chance to go to a bird display and only managed to just catch the end of it - so could not get a nice front row seat and was instead at the back - which rather destroyed chances for getting shots of several birds who liked to keep skimming the ground rather than fly high. Anyway the kestral came round and I had a chance, made easier by his habbit of hovering over the trainer to catch food.

I took a few early shots of this and found (via histogram and LCD) that whilst the sky was coming out well the angle I was shooting from meant that the bird was shadowing most of himself - so I decided to dial in the camera to overexpose the shot and then moved my ISO from 200 to 400 so as to retain a fast shutter speed (part of me wishes that I had my flash on at the time).

The above, whilst not the best angle, was the best clarity in a shot that I managed to get and I wonder if I should have now dropped my aperture a bit as well as have that little bit of overexposure - dropping the aperture so as to get a little more clarity in the shots as I feel that I just haven't got that clarity at the moment.

So now comes the main part, I know this lens combo can get me far clearer shots, but only of closer subjects mostly, I have no idea how my clarity degrades over distance as much. At the moment this shot is lower than the clarity I would like to get from my gear - but am I overestimating the gear - or is there some flaw in my shooting/settings which is possibly leading to a reduced level of clarity in this shot?

I would welcome any input into this (barring get a longer lens )
ps - more shots from the day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24534478@N04/sets/72157618651990493/

What are you focussed on? you should be able to see the focus point either on the LCD or with the software. IMHO it looks more like a focussing scenario that an exposure one, are you using single point AF or some kind of focus pattern? Are you using some sort of focus / tracking lock (sorry being a Nikon man I'm not too sure of what the Canon offers). Personally I think the exposure is good.

I was working in aiservo mode for focusing and I was working with only the middle focusing point being active - which is what I normally stick with. I did consider changing to using all the AF points, but never thought to change at the time and since he was hovering a few times I thoughtI would have time for a lock on with the middle point.

Thing is to me looking at the LCD image and the resized web image it looks like the focus has locked on - but for some reason the details are just not showing as I would expect - I have wondered if range and a higher ISO have affected the image as well. Of course it could be that with nothing else in the shot to refrence that the AF has not locked on well and that he just looks sharper because he is the only thing in the shot.