Holding lens right

Selecting better weather conditions to shoot on

Learning masking techniques (like hunters do)

Another nice tool worth mentioning is a DXO mark website . It has tests (more or less scientific) done for most of the common camera-lens combinations. Thus providing a "subjective" lens resolution parameter. Despite mostly criticised and stated to be "Nikon glorified" resource it provides an accurate enough picture of the lens resolution. It is called Sharpness and measure in perceptual megapixels.





That's most of the things i learned a "hard way". Hope this article helps someone to miss my mistakes.

Bad thing is that you usually do not have it with birds. But you can use tent's and blinds and some other great "hunting" hideout techniques. You could really have better pictures with that knowledge then with better lens.Other way of improving final picture quality, besides buying a 5000$ lens of course, is holding it right. Most people try to keep the camera with long lens like a camera with a normal lens. And that's really not right! Long lens is potentially much more sensitive to shake then, say a wide is. thus having relatively steady hands is not an option. Just google the web forIn general the main idea is for keeping the end of the lens steady laying on your elbow, while eye looks into a viewfinder. This technique makes "points of contact" more reliable. Thing is your fingers aren't. They muscles that are guided by your nervous system and they constantly fighting each other on where to pull to keep relatively in a steady position. Thus learning to keep the long lens "right" is more important then a Pro lens in a bag.Anyway knowing all of those things Pro lens is great! It usually has image stabilisation systems, helping you to handhold it more steady and an eye blink quick autofocus. However those things are mostly exaggerated. Again: