DuckSouth.com

Nikon D80 18-135mm Nikkor 3.5-5.6 lens
Focal length 75mm
1/1250 shutter
f/13
no flash
ISO 1600

When I view this picture on ACDSee the trees farthest away are kinda blurry. Not as sharp as I'd hope. They are probably 600yrds awaye from where I took the picture. I think the problems are

1)Less than average glass
2)no VR
3)nothing. That is the best any average slr and average glass could do.

What do ya'll think?

what was your focus point?
Auto oro Man?
It looks like the sticks in the foreground are really crisp, may be as simple as the picture being out of focus,

oh, and it looks like your light source (sun) is off to the side. get this behind you and get your sensor (camera) out of the shade.

Other than being out of focus I don't think this photo will 'POP' until you can get your light right.

Take that same pic at the same time of day, and slow everything down. Let some light in....VR might be an issue then....don't you love this game?

I had the camera set on the preset "landscape" setting. I focused on trees at the far end of the picture. The sun was back to my right. I'm facing basically due south. I'll try to slow it down and see what happens. Headed off to take some pics of the moon rise at 822.

the only problem i see with this picture is there are no birds sitting on the water

There it is, a real live black panther, sitting on his haunches on the right of the sandbar....hide the women and children...


I'm interested in those moon pics, its been pretty at dusk and dawn.

What would help with the softness of the trees would be a tripod and use either the timer or a remote trigger. I've been told before when having my photo's critiqued, "Light is KING".

Blackduck wrote:

Nikon D80 18-135mm Nikkor 3.5-5.6 lens
Focal length 75mm
1/1250 shutter
f/13
no flash
ISO 1600

When I view this picture on ACDSee the trees farthest away are kinda blurry. Not as sharp as I'd hope. They are probably 600yrds awaye from where I took the picture. I think the problems are

1)Less than average glass
2)no VR
3)nothing. That is the best any average slr and average glass could do.

What do ya'll think?

Everyone has made some very valid points so far, i'll add my 2 cents and hope i don't screw everything up...

1) maybe, but at f13 most of that equalizes somewhat, I suspect there might be a different issue.
2)wouldn't make much difference at 1/1250 of a second unless you have a SEVERE case of the shakes....
3) i think they can do better....

first and foremost ISO 1600 is gonna be noisy, which can make an image look less "sharp" so bump the ISO down to 100...now this is gonna kill you shutter speed, so you'll need to use a tripod to makeup for it, but the resolution will be much better.... also with f13 at 75mm, if your camera was focused on a subject nearer than approximately 66 feet, you depth of field won't extend 600 yards so make sure you're focused at the hyperfocal distance to give you max depth of field to the rear (google "depth of field calculator" for some helpful info).... also, I suspect your image could use a bit of sharpening and post processing.... but realize that a sensor can only resolve a finite amount of detail, and while i don't think you've reached the limit, it is important to remember there is a limit....

one other thing, at a certain point diffraction, from the use of small apertures, limits the DSLR's ability to resolve an image, meaning that the quality actually gets worse with a smaller f-stop....this usually happens around f-8 or f-11...so I try to avoid these if at all possible (but sometimes, like your image, you really need the smaller aperture).... just be aware of this diffraction, there isn't much you can do about it besides avoiding small apertures....

i did not even notice the black panther! WOW, how lucky were you to catch one in the wild!