Thank you all for shedding some light on this Nikon P1000 image quality issue, and sorry for not providing the exif info , I thought that you can readily extract the exif from the jpegs I attached .

So here are the exif infos of both the Cheetah and Cardinal pics.

The photos were consistent , all the 27 Cardinal pics have the same "blur\shake" or whatever it was , and all 4 of the Cheetah shot were clear.

I kind of gave up on the Nikon P1000 accepting that is a very low quality image camera depending on the "production lottery" , some come out better than others  and I got a bad 1 .

I'll use the Nikon P1000 very little and just for when I need the farthest reach and accepting that it's gonna be a low quality image.

 

I've been shooting animals with different cameras recently and I'm much happier with the quality.

 

The exif infos I attached were 1mb but the forum reduced them to 70kb , so if they are not readable I'll reupload them from a bigger size , let me know.

 

Enjoy the spring.

Thanks ABWay , I do have a UV filter , so I'm gonna take it off and see the difference.

I still believe that I got a defective P1000 , because my old superzoom Canon SX50 HS (only 1200mm) never gave me a problem , photos always beyond my expectations , very satisfactory , rarely a shaky or blurred photo. But with this P1000 I find myself asking everybody for help and no matter what I try the image are always shaky or blurred ,tripod or not ,  I believe more and more that the VR is defective in my item , I never had this problem with my Canon which I still enjoy , but I was craving more telephoto reach. The photo of the cheetah was taken in the first 2 weeks of owning the P1000 when most photos were still and beautiful , afterward I didn't get still photos anymore.

In a week or 2 I'll exchange it if I doesn't give me correct photos.

Could this be a clue ?

I shot this plane with autofocus first and it looked terrible so I tried manual focus and it looks a lot better , hand held.

F.8

1/80 sec.

ISO 100

Focal length 539mm or equivalent 3000

Both

Hi Tony,
Thanks for replying , I didn't include many details because I thought that you can read the properties/exif from my images , my mistake , so now I include 2 pics of the properties of the cardinal and cheetah from PC and Phone together , you said that the tripod is the problem but the good photo of the cheetah is also handheld with a lot less light and slower shutter speed . With the cardinal the light was perfect and the settings very fast but it looks blurred by movement  ,maybe not out of focus , pay attention to the little branches all around the bird,they seem doubled as shaking , I had a very steady hand leaning on a fence and no wind. In the shot of the cheetah I held the camera high to avoid the Cheetah fence at the Philadelphia Zoo..
I heard rumors from other Nikon owners that the Nikon VR doesn't like complete stillness ,it will try to correct anyway and create a shake ,I don't know if it's true but after 2 weeks of good quality images using this camera the pics didn't come out "still" anymore ,.there always seem to be a little shake no matter what ,in daylight ,sunny , cloudy sunset ,flash etc... I don't know what to do . my fear is that it is defective and worked good only for 2 weeks ,I'm gonna try different setting soon to see if I'm missing something . I got a 5 years total warranty from Adorama so I might use for a replacement .
I include also a shot of an Owl with the tripod and the problem is still there like the cardinal.

When I went into the settings I didn't see an option to disengage the VR in the still images menu/column . It's only in the menu column of the video controls . does it sound correct ?

Please give me some advice , this is my first Nikon since digital so maybe there are some things about Nikon that I don't know . the only FF camera I own is the Sony A7 and I also have a few APSC from Sony  , Fuji and Canon .

 

Regards.

 

Taipei

 

 

Sorry I forgot the Owl's properties .

F.8

1/80sec

Iso 100

Focal length ,503mm or equivalent 2800

Good morning , Why this drastic difference in quality ? I have a Nikon P1000 , I took pics of the Cheetah with the factory settings and came out good ,later I might have customized some settings in the menu. So last week I took pics of this cardinal bird and all the pics were so poor , was VR off ? Was it misfiring? I was leaning on a solid fence ,no wind ,very steady. The light conditions were better than the cheetah (cloudy ,hand held without leaning on anything )what settings could have been wrong? Is the camera suddenly defective ?
Thanks for reading

Good morning ,
Why this drastic difference in quality ?
I took pics of the Cheetah with the factory settings and later I might have customized some settings in the menu.
So last week I took pics of this cardinal bird and all the pics were so poor , was VR off ? Was it misfiring? I was leaning on a solid fence ,no wind ,very steady. The light conditions were better than the cheetah (cloudy ,hand held ,no leaning)what settings could have been wrong?
Is the camera defective?
Thanks for reading

Yes ,there are programs to rescue your pics from SD cards ,hard drives etc ,but stop using that SD card so you don't rewrite over the old pics.
Sandisk has a rescue app ,Nero and more brands ,search it