Farne Islands 2014

I'd be interested in anyone's comments on the following, please. I set out with the main aim of improving on what I was pretty chuffed with last year on the Farne Islands, but ended up disappointed. Started trying to get head-on puffin shots with K5 and Sigma 120-400 but found it too slow to auto-focus. Swapped to Pentax 18-135 with some improvement in focus speed, but the light wasn't great, so couldn't get a high enough shutter speed for a sharp image a lot of the time. Does that seem a reasonable explanation for the fairly mediocre quality? Recent posts using the DA* 300 seem far superior. I'm happier with a few other shots away from the Farnes that I'll post separately. Thanks for any comments!

1.Sigma


2. Pentax - big crop


3. Sigma - even bigger crop


4. Pentax - big crop from no.5


5. Pentax


6. Sigma


7. Pentax


8. Pentax


9. Pentax

Lovely tern pictures John. not sure about the WB though, hence the sunny coloured sky

Done a good job on the puffins too, and have shown that a long lens isn't always necessary on the Farnes

The shags belong in Jurassic Park. Amazing looking birds.

Just add that you shouldn't be shy of bumping up the ISO with the K5. You might have got your shots more happily at ISO 1600

The one with the two puffins sitting is excellent, and looks very sharp. Maybe some of the in-flight ones are a touch soft ... Did you feel you had the option of a higher ISO or wider aperture? In any case its a set of great variety and all with natural colours.

Very nice set.

Thanks for your comments, all.

Some are certainly "a touch soft", but the question is why? Is it that my lens is not as good as the DA*300 (most probably) or is it my fault for getting the settings wrong (highly likely)?

In all honesty, I found it hard to get the shots I wanted on the day and checking the camera screen after each one became a bit of a bind. I had the camera, as I often do, on TAv with automatic ISO, which I think now was probably a mistake. Could have done with you there with me!
Not a disaster, but not what I wanted either, so a bit frustrating!

All part of the learning curve, as they say!

I like talking about camera settings, but I'm no bird photographer ! There's much more experience around here about specific lenses and speeds required. With the mode, I think TAv may be a but tricky, because you have to juggle aperture and shutter speed together, and I imagine it can be easy to 'hit the buffers' quite a lot ?

My own instinct would be perhaps Tv is the best, assuming you want to prioritise controlling shutter speed, although I'm sure many experts might operate in manual ... Only issue there is exposure if light levels vary. There's a lot of great info & advice over on the thread dealing with 'ev compensation ' also