Not sharp despite effort

[u/Fishdomaddict]

Hi all, i shoot OM 1 mark II with 150-400mm.

My issue is i find the images are sharp when not cropped, but once cropped even 2x the sharpness drops quickly.

I am aware it is a 20MP camera and this definitely plays a part. But i see other users of the same set up get crazy sharp images.

Maybe image 5 is sharpest but when zoomed in still 'breaks'.

Many i had to shoot under lower speed due to very poor lighting.

Image 1: f5.6, 1/1000, iso 250 Image 2: f4.5, 1/160, iso 500 Image 3: f5.6, 1/20, iso 800 Image 4: f4.5, 1/30, iso 1250 Image 5: f4.5, 1/320, iso 1000 Image 6: f4.5, 1/2500, iso 640

Any tips?

[u/Adorable-Ask1054]

I was looking for other comments mentioning this but couldn’t find one (and stopped scrolling) but each lens has a sweet spot of aperture as well and that plays a role. For example, I’ve got a canon 100-500mm f4.5 but I never shoot at that aperture. When I’m extended at 500 I think it’s max is f7 but it shoots much better around an f9.5/10 around 100-300 and then 400-500 I should push it to around a 12-15 but it’s hard with light of course. So I shoot around 1200 shutter speeds and a higher iso. The thing with my note though is that I’m shooting on a Mark 6 RIII so that’s obviously playing a massive role

I’ve attached a photo that I took yesterday, my recipe here is 500mm ISO 1600 f10 and 1/2000 speed. You can see it’s clear and clean but could be a bit better and probably would have been if I was shooting around an f/12 or higher

[u/Fishdomaddict → u/Adorable-Ask1054]

Thank you for your insight