[Des!]

Can anyone suggest how I can take sharper & clearer photo's.

They seem to be a bit hazy.

Attached is a selection.

Camera Nikon D300, 1.4 tele & 300 lens

I'm using Aperture priority settings on the camera.

I can't seem to get consistant good images (or what I think are good).

Any help will be much appreciated!!!

[Chalky W]

Des,

a starting point in trying to help answer your question is are these images straight from the camera or are they cropped as distance always has a role to play in getting sharp pictures. There is no EXIF data attached to the pictures you've posted which would also be a help giving shutter speeds and ISO settings etc. Is the 300mm lens an f2.8 or an f4 or larger, some info about your lens might help as well.

I shoot with a D300 and either a Sigma 300mm, 500mm or my huge Sigmonster 300-800mm and I have no trouble in getting sharp images provided I work within the limits of each lens, you have to work that one out yourself. I also have a 1.4tc but images when using it aren't as sharp as the lens on it's own except on a very bright day.

There may be a combination of reasons but a major solution is to get as close to the subject as you possibly can and be prepared to wait quite a while for that chance to present itself.

A bit more technical info on the lens and your settings might aid others in giving you some technical help.

Chalky.

[cledry]

Firstly you need to provide more information. I would say firstly your exposures themselves are not close to correct. I don't shoot Nikon, but with my Olympus I use S-AF small spot and also spot metering. I will often meter on a light coloured bird, lock exposure and use +EV to compensate. It helps if you know the EV and Zone system.

Don't crop, move as close as possible. I generally will fire off a couple of quick shots at distance, then gradually edge close ready to shoot in an instant. Fire off a few more shots and repeat. I like to use a burst of shots, this helps lessen vibration from the initial shutter actuation plus it can often capture subtle changes in the pose of the bird.

[fugl]

The softness of the first photo (rail) is partly at any rate the result of screening vegetation--showing as out-of-focus streaks--between subject & camera.

The Ruddy Duck looks fine: sharp, well-exposed (maybe could use a little lightening in Photo Shop or similar program).

I don’t know what the problem is with #3. Maybe some combination of over-cropping (was it cropped?), camera-shake, poor focus, and/or over-post-processing (was it post-processed?).

The last 2 photos are grossly over-exposed.

I think your best bet at this stage is to familiarize yourself with how your camera’s focusing & exposure systems work by photographing suitable bird-size inanimate objects at various distances. Just about anything will do for the test objects as long as they have reasonable amounts of fine detail & contrast and come in a wide range of colors--dead black, bright white & everything in between. Use a tripod (at least initially) to control for camera shake & experiment with the different exposure options & other settings. This will give you a feel for what the camera & lens are capable of under ideal conditions & maybe also some clue as to what’s been going wrong in the field. And, of course, if you haven’t already done so, RTFM.

Good luck.

Edit: I forgot to ask, are your lens & TC Nikons or some other brand?

[Musoman]

Its difficult to say, till we got info. There's so many things we dont know.

EG You use a 1.4x telecon, which will lose you one stop. If your lens Max Aperture is f4 to start with, then your max aperture becomes f5.6. Adding to that, not many lenses are sharp at their widest aperture, so you would possibly need to stop down to f8 to get into the sweet spot. You'll get soft IQ if you dont, and is possibly whats not helping with the above shots.

But without all the info everyone is asking for, there's little point in us guessing