There's a Robin watching me.. advice!

[Raider]

Sitting out in the garden yesterday I couldn't help but notice that this little fellow was stalking me. I think i've spotted their nest (in a grate in next door's wall), so I guess he's just being careful!

I was fairly close to the Robin (around 6-10m usually), but I'm frequently disapointed by the quality. I think I have one main problem and that is that I can't get close enough to make the bird fill the frame, hence once cropped it's a bit soft. If I got the Sigma 100-300mm with the 1.4x convertor, I could shoot at 420mm with the same F5.6 as my current lens, and i'm sure the results would be sharper..

I think the tree is a bit distracting here.. it was shot at F6.3, F5.6 might have made the difference

Quite soft again, possibly due to the 1/160 shutter time, although similar shots at 1/400s can still look soft.

Bit too far away again (well it was in a tree..)

 

[Raider]

From my experience of photographing birds you have to be super accurate with focus. In some of your shots surrounding trees and branches appear sharper than the Robin.
i.e. 1st photo - the branch on the right edge of the photo is sharper than the Robin

Practice makes perfect though

Tis a very good point. Maybe it's worth switching to manual focus as an experiment. I've noticed that with the 70-300mm APO DG that if I press the button over and over, the focus does move around a bit.

Do other people here generally use manual focus? I guess if the subject isn't moving then it should only take an extra second or two.

 

[Raider]

I've just tried with manual focus and the results were fairly similar.

I think I need to bring the tripod into action!

 

[Raider]

2nd photo is suffering from camera shake. I feel that is the best composed shot however.

1st i have not seen the orginal but seems it has been cropped a fair bit and as you say has ended up quit soft.
Do you have use any filters ie UV or Polariser, as the first seems to be washed out colour wise. possibly a UV filter might have helped, maybe not.

3rd doesn't work because of the sky but you couldn't help that.

King4aDay: that is a lovely shot, even though it's legless and tailess it works as it's not just your normal centred shot. colours of the sunset/rise helping to bring out the robins breast and green (grass/plants/leaves) are spot on.

I think my photos are a combination of camera shake, slightly too much cropping and possibly the lens being soft wide open at F5.6.

I'm gonna try and use my tripod next time, and maybe stop down to F8 if possible. Off to Cornwall this weekend so should give me a good opportunity to test things out!