What’s wrong with this picture?
L
ook at this picture closely. These are collared aracari toucans from Costa Rica, and the one on the left is out of focus. It is a few inches closer to the camera position than the one on the right, and that made all the difference. I was shooting with a Canon 500mm f/4 telephoto, and given the relatively close proximity to the toucans (I was about 40 to 50 feet away) the depth of field with the long lens was insufficient to render both subjects in focus. When there are two subjects in the frame, both have to be sharp. It doesn’t matter if the subjects are people, flowers, animals, pieces of fruit, architectural details, or whatever. In my opinion, if there are two elements in the picture that are prominent enough to be subjects, they both must be sharp. In this situation, since the light level was low and I had to have a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the birds, I was forced to shoot with an f/4 lens aper-
21
