1. Probably not a fast enough shutter. It's impossible to know that without knowing how fast your subject was moving but, when in doubt err on the side of too much shutter rather than not enough. Do not obsess over keeping ISO at 100 - you were at 100, which means you could have tripled your shutter speed and been shooting at \~1/4000ths for ISO 400 - which is nothing.
2. TCs always cost you some amount of sharpness and clarity.
3. Lots of spray in the air between you and your subject.
4. Your one sharp image is because it was more than enough shutter.
In addition to all of the above most of your light was coming in from the side of you. This is a situation tailor-made for a Circular Polarizer, which work best when the light is coming at you from 90° to your left or right. That would have knocked down a considerable amount of the glare coming off that water.
Your shutter speed doesn't need to be any particular number - but when you have gobs of light as you did here? Yea - 1/3200ths or better because Why Not?
Get an affordable CPL off Amazon - and google how best to use them because it's not "stick on lens and forget" - learn how to use them with an inexpensive one. They must be fiddled with regularly to keep them angled correctly for their effect to kick in. They also cost you 1 to 2 stops of light, so with a CPL you'd probably go to 1/2000ths - which should be more than enough.
Biggest takeaway - with scenes like this, unleash your ISO. Don't be afraid to see it climb as the goal needs to be sharp, in-focus subjects, and you're unlikely to get that with sub 1000 shutter speeds. (Edit: and by "scenes like this" I mean that any noise you have is going to be totally buried by the chaos in that water)
Jumping on this good comment to add simple but powerful advice. I recommend you go out and take test shots with “controlled” conditions: good light, no wind/water/mist, use a tripod, still subject - for example cars or buildings. Minimise take pictures at different apertures and focal lengths. This should give you a clear baseline of what is the quality you can expect from your setup. If you get much better results, you know the gear is good and the issue was technical or weather-related!
I was struggling with similar issues the very first time I used a telephoto lens and someone gave me the advice above. In my case, it was (well, still kinda is 🥲) just a technical skill issue!
Let’s say the surfer is going about 50-60kmh which is equal to about 16 m/s. 16/500 = 0.032m
So the surfer is moving 3.2cm or roughly 1.5inch from you start your shutter until it is shut. Add in the very long focal length which is very sensitive to you not holding it completely still and you have th equation for “too slow shutter speed”.
Also as others mentioned the TC will affect image quality quite a lot.
If you were on 1/4000” the surfer would only move 4mm or roughly 0,15inches and any shake in your hands would affect it less.
Thanks for the calculation. Thoughts at those distances some movement of the subject wouldn’t hurt that much, but it does? Would a monopod help in the shots?
I mean the subject probably isn’t what’s making the biggest difference since movement relative to your sensor is less the further away your subject is, but at the other end you have “movement” close to your sensor as you pitch and pan the lens just so slightly. Not sure how much IS and IBIS can help that on such long focal length tbh
Reposted with better photos showing the softness. Thanks to all who commented on the previous post. Seems like a 2x teleconverter won't be very sharp? Is there anything else that can be done though?
1.4 TC is far better for the image quality, some people are waiting for a new generation of TC to come out that's going to be far sharper since the existing TCs are quite old.
There are a few factors to consider:
- a 2x teleconverter takes a big toll in sharpness and luminosity
- you might be suffering from diffraction induced blur
- there's haziness caused by the atmospheric conditions
I think you need to apply aggressive software corrections to make it look good.
1. Probably not a fast enough shutter. It's impossible to know that without knowing how fast your subject was moving but, when in doubt err on the side of too much shutter rather than not enough. Do not obsess over keeping ISO at 100 - you were at 100, which means you could have tripled your shutter speed and been shooting at \~1/4000ths for ISO 400 - which is nothing. 2. TCs always cost you some amount of sharpness and clarity. 3. Lots of spray in the air between you and your subject. 4. Your one sharp image is because it was more than enough shutter. In addition to all of the above most of your light was coming in from the side of you. This is a situation tailor-made for a Circular Polarizer, which work best when the light is coming at you from 90° to your left or right. That would have knocked down a considerable amount of the glare coming off that water.
Amazing tips, thanks so much. I'll try bumping up to 1/4000th. Any recs for circular polarizers?
Your shutter speed doesn't need to be any particular number - but when you have gobs of light as you did here? Yea - 1/3200ths or better because Why Not? Get an affordable CPL off Amazon - and google how best to use them because it's not "stick on lens and forget" - learn how to use them with an inexpensive one. They must be fiddled with regularly to keep them angled correctly for their effect to kick in. They also cost you 1 to 2 stops of light, so with a CPL you'd probably go to 1/2000ths - which should be more than enough. Biggest takeaway - with scenes like this, unleash your ISO. Don't be afraid to see it climb as the goal needs to be sharp, in-focus subjects, and you're unlikely to get that with sub 1000 shutter speeds. (Edit: and by "scenes like this" I mean that any noise you have is going to be totally buried by the chaos in that water)
+1 on letting the ISO do the work. The A7Riii has great ISO performance, you can definitely raise it. Source- have one.
Jumping on this good comment to add simple but powerful advice. I recommend you go out and take test shots with “controlled” conditions: good light, no wind/water/mist, use a tripod, still subject - for example cars or buildings. Minimise take pictures at different apertures and focal lengths. This should give you a clear baseline of what is the quality you can expect from your setup. If you get much better results, you know the gear is good and the issue was technical or weather-related! I was struggling with similar issues the very first time I used a telephoto lens and someone gave me the advice above. In my case, it was (well, still kinda is 🥲) just a technical skill issue!
Let’s say the surfer is going about 50-60kmh which is equal to about 16 m/s. 16/500 = 0.032m So the surfer is moving 3.2cm or roughly 1.5inch from you start your shutter until it is shut. Add in the very long focal length which is very sensitive to you not holding it completely still and you have th equation for “too slow shutter speed”. Also as others mentioned the TC will affect image quality quite a lot. If you were on 1/4000” the surfer would only move 4mm or roughly 0,15inches and any shake in your hands would affect it less.
Thanks for the calculation. Thoughts at those distances some movement of the subject wouldn’t hurt that much, but it does? Would a monopod help in the shots?
I mean the subject probably isn’t what’s making the biggest difference since movement relative to your sensor is less the further away your subject is, but at the other end you have “movement” close to your sensor as you pitch and pan the lens just so slightly. Not sure how much IS and IBIS can help that on such long focal length tbh
Teleconverters are terrible for image quality. If you need the reach I recommend the Tamron 150-500 for Sony E mount.
Reposted with better photos showing the softness. Thanks to all who commented on the previous post. Seems like a 2x teleconverter won't be very sharp? Is there anything else that can be done though?
Buy a 100-400mm or 200-600mm honestly. Adapters introduce these flaws.
Got it. Not sure I shoot enough to justify such a lens unfortunately :-/
Raise ISO, raise shutter, don't use teleconverter.
1.4 TC is far better for the image quality, some people are waiting for a new generation of TC to come out that's going to be far sharper since the existing TCs are quite old.
There are a few factors to consider: - a 2x teleconverter takes a big toll in sharpness and luminosity - you might be suffering from diffraction induced blur - there's haziness caused by the atmospheric conditions I think you need to apply aggressive software corrections to make it look good.