this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Photography
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That's a fantastic shot! I'm guessing you're on a higher resolution body? I'm still on 24 MP sensors and heavy crops are... fine if the focus is great but you can't really make up for fine details that weren't there to begin with.
It's a combination of megapixels, lens quality, and focus ability, all in increasing order of importance. I truly believe I could have gotten just as good of a shot at 24mp, everyhing else the same.
This was a Nikon Z8 with the "kit" Nikkor Z 24-120mm. I toyed around with different configurations but this lens was the sharpest and fastest to focus. My cheap f/1.8 lenses looked smeary in comparison.
I have done similar hummingbird shoots with my D750 with it's Nikkor N 24-120. You CAN get similar shots but the focusing will be 10x harder. Most of the pictures I've posted on this account were taken with that camera and I still consider it a treasure
I'm rocking an A9ii and when I attempt birds I'm using Tamron's 150-500, which is fairly sharp.
I think my problem with bird photography is wanting to take photos of smaller birds at decent distances and physics is simply getting in the way. For example, I was taking photos of a house finch a few weeks ago when I was probably 60 feet away. Even at 500mm, the finch still didn't fill much of the frame. I'll be posting the photo soon, but I would be amazed if it's anywhere near this good after a big crop.