Brown Hare.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 300ml 2.5
1/160@f4.5 iso 500


Thanks for looking and your comments on my last post

Lovely pose captured Keith you needed a bit more shutter speed to "freeze the action". Please, please up that ISO to around 1000 the D7000 can handle that all day. By doing this you allow more light into the cameras sensor which in turn give's you more shutter speed. That lens is fast use it for what its good for-capturing fast movement.

F4 would have given you a faster shutter speed also and when looking through your viewfinder and half-pressing the shutter you see a red dot- place this on the subjects face/body and bingo your focus/depth of field will give you much better sharpness.

I don't what to come over like a "no-it all" Keith as I'm not but I do like to help and by just following these simple steps it will improve your photography. Any problems or anything you don't understand give us a bell good luck and all the best

Hey Keith better and closer than any Hare i have ever got, getting to a subject is half the battle and you got that cracked. It looks like it needs to be sharper and i think Craig's advice is spot on. Another technique you could try is pre-focus on a point ahead of the hare press the focus lock button and fire when it runs through that point. It will cut down the work of the autofocus. Do up the iso though! By the way, I have NEVER managed to freeze fast action in a way I am proud of, messed up hunting SEO, flying LOWL a cheetah kill, the list is endless!!! it is hard but i am sure given how close you get you will nail it

Thanks a lot Craig and Phil it's head looks sharp enough to these old eyes but that's great advice

Keith.

I wonder if the fact that i was atF4.5and very close to the Hare and being up close reducing the dof would making the body oof

Not sure about the processing of the hare itself, something odd with the front leg. Close but as the others have said not quite sharp enough. Still, I have not taken a single hare this year.

Shutter speed and focus point Keith F4.5 would have given you more depth of field on the head but the body at the rear would always have been out of focus slightly.But because of the low shutter speed here -1/160 this is never enough to freeze movemet. Wide open aperture, high ISO, red focus spot bang on the subjects face, pick up as early as you can, follow and then let the camera do the work.

Be strict with your settings eg- POOR light/Shutter speed use F4, ISO 1000, good light/high shutter speed F8,ISO 400. You can see your shutter speed any time by just pressing your shutter half way looking at the reading either through the viewfinder or top right on the camera and you will see numbers displayed like this - 1/160,1/200 etc this is your shutter speed AT that TIME. If its low -below 1/200 for moving subjects turn the ISO up or go to F4,F2.8.

And remember when someone says you get noise at that settings- " its better to get an image sharp with noise than to get a burred image with no noise"" as you can remove noise you can NEVER make an image sharp if its not sharp in the first place.

Just relax and use a very simple system like this I use F4,F5.6,F8,F11 mostly, ISO 1000-2000 all the time apart from bright light. Focus spot bang on the subject then hand over to the camera bingo sharper images good luck Keith

Great position you got into there Keith

Got to agree with all that Craig has told you.

Phil also has a point about pre focusing in front and this is fine if you have a subject that is repeating its path for you. The problem is that even if you are very lucky you will only have the one frame that will be anywhere near sharp. If you only have the one chance at the shot then prefocus is a risky strategy needing good light a fast shutter speed and at least f8 IMO

Bob

All has been said. Great shot running hare into your lens.
Looks a little blue-ish on my monitor.

Nits covered, but I really like the crop and pose.

David

I like the running pose coming through the grass, Keith. Some good advice given too.

Andy...

Thanks guys i recon i will try them sitting very still appreciate your help

Keith

All great advice and thanks for sharing. Certainly getting positioned well for one of the most difficult shots to pull off.