You should probably get that smudge off your lens.
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I know, I know! I took it to some dunes and now it’s full of sand. Don’t want to muck it up further attempting amateur repairs.
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Pied-billed
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i know this is an old post but… as another autisto-inatter… i used to post tons of blurry pictures in the same sort of way, and over time my photos got better just as i became interested in different things and learned what and wasn’t going to work for ID. The community has also changed a lot. So maybe he will go that path too, or probably already has. That being said, if people don’t like blurry photos, that’s their problem.
Some of my old photos are pretty unusable. I just wanted to fill out the map back then and was worse at using my phone camera, and also cameras have gotten better.
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I apologise, due to budget cuts we could no longer afford fighter jets.
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But they are still playing with a suspect lineup that fits in a room.
While the same line for plant and insect IDers can often fill a stadium.
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This photo’s hilarious! How could you put it here?!?!
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I’ve uploaded hundreds of bad pictures on iNat. And I am impressed with the identifiers who can ID species looking on such pictures. So, I will upload more bad pictures :) I think they are not perfect but works - documents species.
I had to think a lot which picture is my worst and did not come to any reasonable conclusion…
So, let’s take a look at something bad taken during my vacations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/178891184 (Mustela putorius, seventh obs in my country)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/179400393 ( Actitis hypoleucos)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/178734417 (Kingfisher)
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Speaking as an amateur photographer who finds fault in every picture I take, this epic quest to post the worst diagnostic photo ever on iNat is kind of inspirational in a strange way. Not that I’m inspired to strive for mediocrity … I’ll still throw out all my fuzzy pics. Unless it’s an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
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I often tell interested nature photo people I see that iNat is a super way to develop photography skills. And for the very reason you cite.
In the process of improving your skills, you quickly improve your nature knowledge and understanding.
And even if-- no, wait. Especially IF the picture isn’t a ‘cover shot’ you are building something. It all runs together to quickly build an enriching experience and skills and a record that you can go back to and always learn more from when you do.
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Agreed. We all want to capture perfectly that fleeting encounter with an interesting animal or plant in nature but nothings ever perfect. But it’s the journey not the destination … or something like that.
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Though admittedly it could be worse, would you have spotted this organism from 30 feet in the air?
(Observation for when you think you’ve found it: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/177032805)
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What is that project that IDs the really bad photos? I need to join that, lol.
I also have a few:
this squirrel:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/182555887
And this purple (I think?) finch:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/182504984
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Not my proudest moment, but I uploaded this gem for a vertebrate bioblitz. If you squint, you can kinda see that its a wild sow and her piglets.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/180253885
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This one, saw a hummingbird while doing insect photography with a manual only lens, couldn’t focus well in time to take the picture, and had my ISO set high for close ups looking down, so I had an almost solid white image when I zoomed out and aimed up at the sky, but I changed the exposure and contrast after the fact so you can see the bird (horribly out of focus)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/183023659
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Knowing bird people, I’m surprised it isn’t Research Grade.
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probably these birds, which remain unidentified, lol. i couldn’t get very close and even a samsung phone’s 30x zoom can only do so much. the second photo was sent by text message from my mom’s phone, adding slight pixelation to an already blurry photo.
a few runner-ups are this photo of a hummingbird (horribly backlit and the bird doesn’t appear to have wings) and these photos of a carolina wren (i had to zoom so.much that there was barely any contrast in the photo). i also have uploaded several grainy silhouettes of vultures flying overhead, 3 different times now iirc.
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Birds are just too quick 
And all of my vulture obs are the same way, unless they’re feathers.
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