I can't say that I'm exactly pleased with this shot. It doesn't look too bad like this, but the focus is very soft and that really shows up in the print. At least I think I know the cause of the problem.

The image was shot with a zoom lens (nothing wrong with that per say). Zooms tend to be sharpest in the middle of their range of focal lengths, with things getting a bit "softer" towards either end. I was using my 28-80mm at 80mm. Compounding this problem, I was also shooting "wide open" (i.e. using the largest aperture setting available), most lenses are sharpest when "closed down" 1-2 stops from maximum aperture.

The good news is that the overall conditions (light, weather, etc) of the scene are common enough here and I can re-shoot the scene with the technical problems in mind. The bad news is that things are warming up and I'm still not quite ready to lug around camera and tripod over hill and dale again, so I might have to wait 8 months to a years time before all the factors come together once more.