Not my worst photo when it comes to image quality. Instead it’s almost entirely blocked by a leaf but you get a great shot of frass. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/214879154
Probably my worst image quality
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/188574456
Never underestimate the birder community’s ability to identify seemingly impossible blobs of birds.
You’re right about that! 
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/231680882
New photos of a black vulure. I couldn’t take better shots.
This photo is pretty gruesome, and this one is just plain bad.
Oh this ones easy. I found a very rare species of robber fly while at work, that proceeded to fly high up into a tree and all I had was my cellphone. I spent the next week going to the site sitting in the same location every day for hours and eventually caught a specimen. Fortunately, Tristan was kind enough to back me up which softened the blow.
I know the heartbreak of a distant and blurry photo of some bird you really wanted to document. Just a suggestion: there are free tools online where you can sharpen your blurry images. I haven’t used them myself as I have Photoshop. Also, cropping an image of a distant animal is usually helpful.
Here’s my new contester. I was playing a game when out the window I saw something flying. As soon as I saw that it was an owl, I rushed to get my camera, adjusted the settings to low-light and focused manually (because it has this little torch go off when it is dark), all within a minute, it was the quickest I have ever adjusted the settings in my life lol. My heart was BEATING lol, like I ran a marathon.
Anyway the pic is awful, and required ALOT of extreme adjustments to the contrast and brightness sliders lol. You can literally see the individual pixels. It was only after the owl flew away that I remembered that I can slow the shutter speed down to compensate for the low light levels.
Well, looking in my Peterson Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, I find that it most resembles either the Short-eared Owl or the Tawny Owl. The maps show both of those breeding in Britain but not usually in Ireland; the text says that the Tawny Owl is the only one that enters towns and cities, whereas the Short-eared Owl occurs in open marshy country, sand dunes, and moors.
It’s actually not all too bad. With a few more adjustments, it looks like some sort of illustration:
Or like if someone’s printer was running low on ink.
I posted a Black-footed Albatross from my first pelagic. After seeing them up close on later pelagic trips, from what I remember the movement definitely looked like an albatross. But I don’t count this one as the lifer. Albatross observation
Tawny is actually not native to Ireland (however, with a brief google search, it seems there has been some reports.), and then they also have pure black eyes, this one had the lighter coloured sclera, so the only candidates were long eared and short eared.
I’ve actually forgotten to link the observation so here it is. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/229119972. I’m leaning towards long-eared rather than short-eared, due to habitat, (closer to more arable fields and forests than a moor or marsh, although one is within a couple km of where I live.), and the appearance (the black near the top of the facial disc, teh possibly more finer speckles to the upperside…), however, I’m all ears for hearing others views. I would prefer the if the discussion was on the observation tho…
Definitely if the printer was running out of ink, I’d say! X)
“Sharpening” an originally blurry image sounds not OK to me. It “adds” information that is not available in the image, and nobody knows where that information comes from. Just deconvolution with a blur mask might somehow enhance the look, but does not really add to the picture. Cropping is useful, it saves disk space on Inat and makes word for IDers easier.
I have a few blurry obs that I still decided to upload (a magpie (my knownledge of birds is almos nonexistent and I wanted to know what it is) that didn’t allow me to get closer; and a tiny beetle that was just tiny). Both are the best possible outcome available with a phone.
I think!
