Catching Lunchby
ciaeagleComment by HarveyG: Your name sake?! :) Lovely story caught, with water drops, flight action, wing flare out, the river where he was fishing and the obligatory man made custom bird poles :) There's a teeny fish in (R) claw and your title alluded to it so I looked ;)
If I may:
For sharpness on digital, try using a s/s at least 3x your max focal length equivalent:
So if the lens was at 400mm, try use a s/s of 3x 600 = 1/2000s
D7000 = APS-C or DX sensor at 1.5x crop factor.
Nikkor 80-400mm is a full frame (FX) lens and is effectively an 120-600mm on the D7000! The narrow AOV in ° forces you to push the s/s to 1/2000s or the 3/Lens Rule.
Especially if you are hand holding, panning and putting your faith in VR. Switch off VR and push your ISO to 1600 on the D7000 in this low light. Put it on a bean bag, tripod, gimbal. You will get crisp crisp results.
It was never this critical in the film days because we didn't pixel peep on a Jumbo Print!
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