A really good lens will give you sharper results than a cheap one, but it can be hard to tell the difference between a really good lens and just a decent one unless you’re pixel peeping. Some more important factors to create sharp wildlife photos:
- Get the eyes in focus. Sharp eyes lead to a sharp looking photo
- Be selective. If a shot is not sharp, consider it a missed shot. Don’t edit and share it
- Composition. A poorly composed shot might be perfectly sharp, but have lower perceived sharpness. Poor contrast, busy frame, etc can make a shot feel less shop
- Get close. If your subject is tiny in the frame, perceived sharpness is lower. If you do a ton of cropping, you lose sharpness. Get close enough to fill the frame with your subject and capture detail
- Manage noise. Noise reduces detail. Pay attention to lighting so you can keep ISO down. If you do have to push ISO, use some of the amazing noise reduction software that’s available to clean up your image
- Limit sharpening. Over sharpening images in post can make images look bad. If you’re not starting off with a sharp image, sharpening in post won’t fix that
- Post processing. Edit photos to improve contrast in key areas, bring out details that may be lost in shadow or bright areas, draw attention to the correct areas (eyes for example). These things help perceived sharpness
Tagging on to your comment because you’ve covered most of it here.
In addition to getting close to your subject, if you can find an angle to shoot that maximizes the distance of the subject to their background, that can increase subject separation which also helps perceived sharpness.
Jan WegenerJan Wegener has a great video on sharpness that talks about some lesser-considered factors in perceived sharpness.
A really good lens will give you sharper results than a cheap one, but it can be hard to tell the difference between a really good lens and just a decent one unless you’re pixel peeping. Some more important factors to create sharp wildlife photos:
- Get the eyes in focus. Sharp eyes lead to a sharp looking photo
- Be selective. If a shot is not sharp, consider it a missed shot. Don’t edit and share it
- Composition. A poorly composed shot might be perfectly sharp, but have lower perceived sharpness. Poor contrast, busy frame, etc can make a shot feel less shop
- Get close. If your subject is tiny in the frame, perceived sharpness is lower. If you do a ton of cropping, you lose sharpness. Get close enough to fill the frame with your subject and capture detail
- Manage noise. Noise reduces detail. Pay attention to lighting so you can keep ISO down. If you do have to push ISO, use some of the amazing noise reduction software that’s available to clean up your image
- Limit sharpening. Over sharpening images in post can make images look bad. If you’re not starting off with a sharp image, sharpening in post won’t fix that
- Post processing. Edit photos to improve contrast in key areas, bring out details that may be lost in shadow or bright areas, draw attention to the correct areas (eyes for example). These things help perceived sharpness
Tagging on to your comment because you’ve covered most of it here.
In addition to getting close to your subject, if you can find an angle to shoot that maximizes the distance of the subject to their background, that can increase subject separation which also helps perceived sharpness.
Jan WegenerJan Wegener has a great video on sharpness that talks about some lesser-considered factors in perceived sharpness.