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Coolpix P1000 creates glazed, or glossy background photos with manual focus


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#1
dragon49

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When photographing oddly shaped small birds, or distant birds when the camera isn't sure what the subject is, I often need to go into manual focus with my P1000.  I can usually get a good focus on the bird, but the problem is that the background in the photos is oddly glazed, or glossy.  Not sure which of these terms best describes the backgrounds.  I'm generally pretty indifferent whether I create a bokeh effect with bird shots, but I don't want this glazed effect.  I can avoid it if after getting the correct focus, I switch to auto-focus before taking the shot, but often, doing so brings the bird back out of focus.  What causes this and is there some way to avoid this glazed effect.  Look at a few examples that of photos that I'm 100% certain were taken in manual focus mode:

Edit - I always shoot birds in sports mode -  - bursts up to 7 shots - JPG - fine.  I don't want to have to switch out of sports mode

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#2
Jerry_

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If I understand your issue correctly - and saying it in a simplified way - there are (almost) no details at all left in the background, making the background look glossy?

If so, we need to look at the Aperture (the P1000 has a max aperture of 2.8)

Indeed, for resulting in a good picture the camera needs a certain amount of light. For getting that amount of light it has basically three factors it can operate with:
1/ the time during which the sensor gets the light (shutterspeed)
2/ how large is the opening which lets light go to the sensor (aperture)
3/ how sensitive shall the sensor react to the exposure (time x light) it has got (ISO setting)

You can`t unfortunately just set all of these values to a maximum, as these have other effects. f.i. opting for a longer exposure time adds the risk that small movements/vibrations of the camera or the lens blur the picture (= the shorter the time, such small movements will pass with no effect); the opening of the lens has an impact of the depth of field, i.e. the distance range before&after the set focus point at which the picture still looks sharp. (Also to note that the depth of field is proportional to the distance between the lens and the set subject in focus; i.e. the more distant the subject, the wider the depth of field, so it is still limited)

How does this answer your issue?

While taking pictures of birds in nature, they are most often far away and you will zoom in, possibly to a maximum.
As any (even very small) shaking at a much zoomed in subject, will be seen on the picture, the camera will compensate by shortening the exposure time (ie increase the shutterspeed) (in film days the basic rule set to use at least an exposure time that was equal to the focal length)
As the camera has increased the shutterspeed and in order to still get an enough amount of light, it will open the aperture to let in a maximum of light. You will likely end up on f2.8, which is the maximum for the P1000.
Having opened to a max the aperture, you get a very shallow (short) depth of field - and the more distant the background the more it gets blurred, up to a point where backgrounds with little texture become uniform.

To « overcome » the issue (if understood correctly) there are two options:
1/ scenic: you shoot against a background that is relatively close to the bird (f.i. bushes); obviously this not always possible
2/ technical: you don’t let the camera choose the aperture; either choosing (A)perture priority or (M)anual mode. If setting the aperture do changes moderately, as it will have an impact on the other parameters mentioned above.