[stoppingdown]

Because of the name "stopping down"? 

 

LOL 

 

Actually, I think that the bird was at roughly 15/20m from me and, according to the DoF calculator linked by Klaus, Æ’/8 would have made about 25/40cm of depth of field. Enough for the bird. But... I didn't knew how much precision the a6000 delivers (and I still don't know). Æ’/11 gives about 35/60cm and it accommodates more margin of error. Had the bird presented its head, it would have been ok if part of the body was blurred. Not so if the tail is the only focused part of the body, and I presume the camera focuses roughly on the closer object.

 

In my plans I hoped to shot at least a dozen bursts, starting from Æ’/11 and then going to Æ’/8 and even below, so I could have more information about the focusing precision and the margin to take. Unfortunately, I only managed in having two bursts (there were many sandpipers, but most of them were on the shores, without flying, or too far). It will require a lot of testing to find the best combination of AF configuration and aperture.

 

I saw Gordon Laing's posts about the Tour. Actually his reports from Tour 2015 gave me the hint that the a6000 could start to be interesting for subjects in motion.