I’m an enthusiastic amateur and I’ve been shooting for a few months. I’ve got a cannon r50 which I love and have mostly been using the rf 35mm prime which I also love.
Ive recently branched out from landscape to try some wildlife (birding) and picked up an rf 100-400. I think the lens is phenomenal (especially for the price) but for birds in flight I‘m feeling very slightly underwhelmed by the image quality.
I shoot in either manual or av priority and all the images are shot at either 1/2500 or 1/3200, f8, iso 1600 or less, with neutral exposure. Servo autofocus, subject set as animal, eye tracking on, usually with flexible zone 3. Electronic first curtain shutter and high speed continuous.
Semi often I’ll miss closer range/ fast moving shots because I point at the wrong spot which is improving but I’ve got a a lot to learn. However equally often I’ll be pointing at the right spot and autofocus just won’t pick the bird up, even against a plain blue sky causing missed shots that are really gutting. Fairly often it’ll miss or lose focus even against a plain background with good lighting. Im normally zoomed all the way at 400mm so I don’t know if that’s on me and if it would be better technique to start zoomed out and zoom in while tracking? When trying this I struggle to track smoothly at the same time for birds in flight.
So for the two limitations (sharpness and autofocus for birds in flight) is the issue the camera, lens, or just a case of me needing more practice?
I’m considering upgrading to an r7 as the single dial and lack of customisable settings/ buttons is getting annoying switching between landscape, bigger animal, and bird settings. If the autofocus is a decent improvement I’d probably pull the trigger (especially if this consequently improved sharpness/ keeper rate).
Any help and/ or technique pointers would be much appreciated.
All images are RAW out of camera abs converted to jpegs in darktable with no edits