I cannot seem to bring out full detail in feathers of birds, I also struggle with the very small window for ISO reduction, all the pics look good on the screen of my canon R5.
https://we.tl/t-FpPNuIzFFV
To start with, what focal length are you using, how far away are you from your subjects and how much are you cropping?
What ISO are you using?
Can you show us an example, before and after cropping?
Don’t forget what you see on the back of the camera is a very small JPEG version, which might already have been processed in the camera.
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Most images are taken using the maximum zoom, of a 100-500mm zoom, when I remember I try to pull back a little, as I was told about the sweet spot area, and at times I might zoom out to get a higher aperture. I do often crop, possibly too much, but not sure how to quantify how much. Yes, I would be happy to show you some images. I will add some to this thread later.
Posting samples is fairly limited for new users…but you can always add a link to a sharing service like wetransfer.com or use whatever cloud service you use…
I will set something up, all my images at present go onto a hard drive. Thanks for the info though.
box.com is so much better than that wetransfer … free account @ wetransfer means that your shared files will expire in a week ? pathetic
Are you using a tripod or monopod? And what shutter speed? Motion blur is a suspect.
Hand held, usually maximum shutter speed, as I say they look crystal clear on the camera screen. For non-moving subjects, between 1/1000 sec and 1/640th.
Ok I got a wet transfer account, is there a link I need to use to send them to?
Can you also add the DOP file?
I don’t know what that is
I found it, but new members are not allowed to upload them
Put it on WeTransfer like you did with the image file
You should share an uncropped image if you can. Premature speculation, but my guess is you are really pushing what your lens is capable of, especially if you’re shooting at 500mm (with an extender mounted, or not?) wide open, and cropping in more than a tiny amount. Birds are among the most demanding of subjects, especially smaller birds.
Is this a full-frame sensor camera, or micro-four-thirds, or what? Those photogs getting images with a lot of feather detail are likely using perfect technique with very expensive lenses and filling the frame with the subject when they shoot, i.e., no cropping. If they’re shooting full-frame, they are likely on a tripod or at least a monopod. You can do better handheld in micro four-thirds, but there are limits, depending on the light and lens quality.
An app like Topaz Sharpen AI may do better than DxO at detail, but you have to be careful with it, as it’s easy to push it too far to get feather detail, and then you’re just mucking up your image with other artifacts.
No extender, it is 10_-500 zoom. I posted a raw, and cropped jpg.
I don’t seem to be able to do it through wet transfer.
Had a look at the cr3 file with Canon DPP and PhotoLab and … got the impression that the take was not as sharp as it could be. I therefore checked metadata:
While ISO and shutter speed settings were adequate, aperture was fully open, but upper and lower Focus Distances are recorded as 114m and 82m respectively. While this range seems sufficient for a sharp image, focus might have been missed within that range nevertheless, even though one would not expect that with on-sensor PDAF. Still, mis-focusing an EF lens on a RF body might happen due to sone inertia in the lens or because the camera was set to prioritise shutter release over focusing.
Neither DPL nor DPP were able to produce a sharp appearance of the birds feathers on the 27in 5K screen of my iMac, but a customised image should still be good enough for small prints.
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Zip it and then send the zip.
Well, Peter, I don’t know what adjustments you made because I don’t yet have the DOP, but I can tell you that you’ve really got to stop trying to take images at such long distances with such a short lens ! 
You’ve basically made a 3-4Mpx image which if printed, would only be 18cm across.
Here is a screenshot of your image, viewed at 400%, in PL7…
As you can see, it not bad but also not great and won’t print to reasonable size.
However, I passed it through Topaz PhotoAI and enlarged it to 6712px x 6712px, which will print to around 71cm square.
Here is a screenshot, viewed at 100%, in Topaz PhotoAI…
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