Canon SX50 consistently out of focus pictures

I bought the Canon SX50 Power Shot about 4 months ago and have taken at least 8000 photos in that time.  Mostly birds and wild life.  I understand apppeture, Shuter speed and ISO for the most part and typically use the manual option.  The auto mode usually doesn't give me a high enough shutter speed for my subjects. I am so frustrated with this camera at this point.  I can't believe how poor most of the photos are.  I have the IS set at continous and most photos are taken at the full 1200 mm. If I try the continous shooting it is slow and clunky.  And doesn't capture what I want. I realize I am new at this but I am missing something.  I have thought of selling the camera and getting something different but I love not having to change lenses and the nice zoom. I have attached a couple of untouched images.  None of which are the nice crisp photos I am after and I am definitely unable to print anything (espically if the ISO is too high). Any help would be appreciated. Thank you! I had another image I wanted to upload but its too big.  I have no idea how to change its size.

KSL23232323 wrote:
Thanks Jazzman1.
I am going out to experiment today with keeping my zoom to 600-800mm. Someone else told me the same thing. 600-800 would be an acceptable zoom provided I can keep the camera still. And yes I do struggle with the camera wanting to focus on other than my subject. I take a lot of photos of birds in the trees so branches and leaves, tiny stems cause focusing issues.
I will report back after.
Ksl232323Good you decide to back off some zoom range, you will get much better results.  Because of the lower IQ of the Canon SX HS super zoom cameras I got a DSLR for IQ, and use my SX60 for longer zoom range.  To get a good DSLR lens in the longest range of the SX50 would cost a fortune.  I have a Canon DSLR, and Canon EF 70-300mm L  lens that cost 3 times as much as the SX50, but the furthest range is only 300mm.  That's only one of the difference in DSLR's and Powershot HS Bridge Camera .....IQ vs zoom.   With the SX50 we sacrifice IQ for more zoom, and the DSLR's sacrifice Zoom range for better IQ and superior build, within a given price range.   To get the best of both worlds in one body would cost a small fortune.  Most guys I know, including myself  get excellent results with DSLR lens in the range of 200-600mm.   Saying that to say that the Powershot SX HS camera's can get very good pics in that range also.  In fact I've had the Canon SX40, SX50, and now the SX60, and I could swear I got way better results with my SX40, that only had 35X zoom.  I really miss my SX40 now, and think I went for the hipe, at the time, for longer zoom range and really lost out big time on IQ of my pics.  Looking back on pics I took with the SX40, I think they are better than those I took with my newer models.  I was much happier with the shorter zoom range. 

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