06-23-2016, 10:41 PM
I'm shooting a lot of 500mm+ images and if you are talking about 1% missed shots you could be tutoring students, not asking for advice, bravo!
A couple of things I have noticed,
Any sort of mist/haze significantly reduces focus accuracy.
Shooting in the heat of the day reduces focus accuracy.
The wider the aperture the more likely these conditions will affect sharpness in the conditions above. (kind of a new theory of mine)
After buying the Nikor 500mm F4 the weather had a certain amount of haze/ humidity...I struggled to get any sort of sharpness applicable to the quality I expected from the lens. So I went out and shot early in the morning.... the lens was sharp all along.
When shooting in "hazyish" conditions nothing was sharp wide open, but when stopped down to F11 there was decent sharpness.
I came to the (ongoing) conclusion that when shooting in humid conditions (if you have to) , stop down. If you want the sharpest results shoot early in the morning or late in the evening, unless you are shooting fairly close up.
The seller of the lens said "never shoot telephoto between 10 am and 6 pm in late spring- autumn"
He gave me a copy of his published book "Wildlife in the Pyrenees" as a gift when I bought the lens, most of the pictures in the book were taken with the Nikor!
A couple of things I have noticed,
Any sort of mist/haze significantly reduces focus accuracy.
Shooting in the heat of the day reduces focus accuracy.
The wider the aperture the more likely these conditions will affect sharpness in the conditions above. (kind of a new theory of mine)
After buying the Nikor 500mm F4 the weather had a certain amount of haze/ humidity...I struggled to get any sort of sharpness applicable to the quality I expected from the lens. So I went out and shot early in the morning.... the lens was sharp all along.
When shooting in "hazyish" conditions nothing was sharp wide open, but when stopped down to F11 there was decent sharpness.
I came to the (ongoing) conclusion that when shooting in humid conditions (if you have to) , stop down. If you want the sharpest results shoot early in the morning or late in the evening, unless you are shooting fairly close up.
The seller of the lens said "never shoot telephoto between 10 am and 6 pm in late spring- autumn"
He gave me a copy of his published book "Wildlife in the Pyrenees" as a gift when I bought the lens, most of the pictures in the book were taken with the Nikor!