Today we went to the wildlife springs, 
Took some great shots.. but they ended up being terrible..

I ahve a cannon rebel.. with a ef400mm F5.6L and an extender EF 2xll

This is really upsetting me.. I want to be a good photographer.. I don't want to be perfect.. just good.. ya know..

The settings.. I am just not getting the settings..

quality i have at large
red eye on
beep on
AF mode?  ONE SHOT
                     AI FOCUS      
                     AI SERVO

Metering mode?  those three selections

iso speed?

A-DEP is what?
same with 
M
AV
TV
P
and the rectangle...

I know what he icons are..

any help will be awesome...

;0)

can you post a picture?

that would help wouldn't it!
sorry, dork moment... '0)

Nothing much wrong and rather a lot to go over but in general the x2 converter on the 400mm is pushing your luck as that will be over 800mm so the chances are reduced in getting sharp wildlife shots without a tripod and unless the light is great.. just use the 400mm on its own for a while..  Use 1 shot AF and focus on the eye use the manual over-ride on the focus to fine tune  

I looked at the exif data and the bird shot is

800mm, ISO 400, F/11, shutter speed 30th sec

I am going to guess that your lens is having a very tough time trying to auto focus as most lens cant over F/5.6 with the extenders on. Also unless you were shooting off a tripod a 30th of a sec is way to slow for that focal length should be closer to 800th of a sec to reduce camera shake. Your auto focus mode should be on one shot as the camera is haivng a hard time trying to focus with that lens. When shooting wildlife you can turn off redeye also as all those preflashs will do it potentially scare your subject.

Try this and see how it works for you

1.set the camera to Tv (shutter priority) set the shutter speed to atleast a 600th of a sec on a monopod.
2.usless its a very sunny day you are most likely going to have to push the ISO up to 800 or higher to get proper exposure

1. set focus to one shot us AF, but be prepared to MF.

Hope this helps

Danny.. your gallery is awesome..
I will try that.. as far as the settings.. a-dep, M, Av, TV, P or the retangle.. should I set to any of those.. or just stick to the icons.. the flower?

Viper:
The thing of it is.. with that lens it doesn't auto focus.. I have to manually focus.. 
I am using the tripod.. I can't hold that thing up... ;0)

it does have a AF and MF.. and I know what happens when there is AF going on.. 
it also has the 3.5m and the 8.5 m ... which is ????????

With my shots, I use Aperture (to get the shutter speed) Servo focusing and adjust the ISO depending on conditions. With the 400 and the 2x, your min aperture will be f8 and with the Digital Rebel, will only obtain manual focusing! The Canon 1 series bodies only retain auto focus at f8.

Nameless:
Love the swan.. ;0)

I have my camera cleaning.. 

ISO.. conditions.. the lower setting is for what? and the higher setting 1600 is for what condition..

I am so sorry that I am being a pain in the buttocks.. 

ISO is raised when there is not enough light to keep proper exposure but higher iso means more noise. I always use the lowest ISO setting possible when shooting.

it also has the 3.5m and the 8.5 m ... which is ????????

those options are for changing the lens min focusing distance on a 400mm lens you will find yourself shooting over 8.5m most times so by setting it there the lens is supposed to AF faster.

@Kassie;
You've gotten some pretty good advice so far..and, your shots are not bad.
I think that one of the key areas here, it has been mentioned several times, is to use a faster shutter speed.  One way to do that is to increase the ISO speed (yes, it comes with a sacrifice of image noise)...but bumping it up will allow you to use a bit faster shutter speed that may be the cause of the soft images.
Another few points to consider;

1. When you manually focus....are you sure that the focus is correct?...the reason I ask is that the viewfinder screens on most DSLR's are not ideally set up for manual focusing (split screen)...perhaps check the diopter adjustment if necessary...
2. Out of the cam images generally require some measure of sharpening in post process...though, I do not think it would help terribly much here.

I would also heed danob's advice and practice with just the 400mm alone ( without the tele extender)....get comfortable with that first.  Wildlife telephotography, like high magnification macro work requires a fair bit of practice to understand the limitations of both the equipment and the photographer.

With time, I am sure things wil fall into place and your  images will come out the way you expect.

Good Luck.

Attached Link: Canon

I found this.. really what I was looking for.. to know the definition of what the settings are..

((((big huggies)))))

Today we are going out again, my husband and I, and I will take all your advice with me.. ;0)

Alice

I am not fond of using Servo focus unless I know my subject can be moving.   I use Nikon but suppose Canon's does the same thing.   The lens keep trying to refocus and it is easy to snap off a less than sharp image.

Agreed with Danny and others to get comfortable with the 400 before trying to up the magnification..that is leading to problems you are not ready to handle without practice with the lens as it is.   The 400 will give you more available aperture(light gathering ability) and therefore faster shutter.    

I also prefer to shoot in Aperture priority though others will differ with me on that.   Critters take a reasonable fast shutter unless they are sleeping or quite still.

Even with a tripod 400 mm is 8x magnification and some shake can come through. Wind can do it, body motion can do it..craming the shutter instead of a gentle push can do it.  With the extenders the problem is greatly magnified..no pun.  

If the subject is still or will stay in frame, you might focus, move your head from the camera on tripod, cover the viewfinder with a finger and push the shutter. This is not for action shots but will help prevent body motion from moving the stuff when the image is clicked.

The diopter on the viewfinder will let you adjust your shooting eye to what is Really in focus.  I wear glasses and must look through the same part of the glasses for each shot in manual focus.  Developing a personal "hold" on the camera when using mf is likely a good idea..repeat the same each shot and it becomes a habit.

Personally, you will learn more by not using the special settings for portrait, landscape, etc., whatever the Canon has there.       

Best wishes.          TomDart.

Attached Link: Depth of Field Calculator

What to notice is where the photo is sharp.  Look at the tree on the right and the closest dove.. I believe focus was on the tree and should have been perhaps a tiny bit more in  The dove in the background is out of focus.  Another shot with focus on  the middle dove left the closest bird without acceptable detail in the feathers.

The depth of field at the settings used gave me only 1 foot stuff in focus, from front to back.  The distant dove is a bit too far.     If push comes to shove and all would not focus, I would rather have the foreground in focus and the background out of focus because that is more visually acceptable.  

You can go to the net and look for a depth of field calculator where you punch in your camera, distance to subject and camera settings for the picture.  This will tell you the range of focus.

I hope this helps more than confuses. TomDart

Attached Link: My Husband

I have 18-55mm lens.. *which I posted an image I took with that today in the gallery.. ;0)
and I have a 75-300mm lens...
I took some pictures of my husband while we were at lunch and played around with the settings..
I am a big fan of B/W photos.. 

which was fun playing around with that..
Tom.. I do appreciate all your words of wisdom.. it does help me understand alittle more..

If you are talking about dof, to figure it you need the lens mm of the shot, the F stop and the distance from the subject.

I am not sure to what your question refers.  Yes, as it should be his face is in focus. Focus does drop off from the shoulders back.    For all of him to be in focus you need a larger aperture number(smaller opening), meaning less light will be getting in but the dof will be deeper.

With flash you can get away with f/8 or similar quite easily if you want more in focus.

I like the bw, btw.       TomDart.