Shooting Soaring Birds- Lighting: How do you get lighting on the underside of the bird when shooting up, Is it just being in the right spot when you shoot or Shooting when the light is...

parsons1 Loc: NW Houston

How do you get lighting on the underside of the bird when shooting up,
Is it just being in the right spot when you shoot or
Shooting when the light is behind you shining straight on the bird ?

I've shoot from the side and had good results, but every time I try shooting a soaring bird from underneath.. this is the results I get.

Thanks in advance for any and all comments and tips.

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RE Loc: California

parsons1 wrote:

How do you get lighting on the underside of the bird when shooting up,
Is it just being in the right spot when you shoot or
Shooting when the light is behind you shining straight on the bird ?

I've shoot from the side and had good results, but every time I try shooting a soaring bird from underneath.. this is the results I get.

Thanks in advance for any and all comments and tips.

For me it is always shooting when the bird is flying towards the sun, the golden hour has worked quite well for this for me. It is my favorite time to capture them.

SonyA580 Loc: FL in the winter & MN in the summer

There is light on the bottom of your bird in the photo but, the camera meter saw all that bright sky and closed down the aperture. You have to meter the bird, eliminating the sky, to get the right exposure. The sky will be blown out but you'll get the bird.

parsons1 Loc: NW Houston

Thanks for the tips.

Carolina Wings Loc: Flew from North Carolina to Pennsylvania

parsons1 wrote:

How do you get lighting on the underside of the bird when shooting up,
Is it just being in the right spot when you shoot or
Shooting when the light is behind you shining straight on the bird ?

I've shoot from the side and had good results, but every time I try shooting a soaring bird from underneath.. this is the results I get.

Thanks in advance for any and all comments and tips.

Your shutter speed was 1/4000th...when shooting a bird overhead you want to lighten the exposure...this could've been done by lowering your shutter speed. With 1/4000th you could've lowered it and still had enough shutter speed to capture the action. BIF's are never easy...we learn through trial and error...and trust me I know about the error pat of it ;-)

parsons1 Loc: NW Houston

Carolina Wings wrote:

Your shutter speed was 1/4000th...when shooting a bird overhead you want to lighten the exposure...this could've been done by lowering your shutter speed. With 1/4000th you could've lowered it and still had enough shutter speed to capture the action. BIF's are never easy...we learn through trial and error...and trust me I know about the error part of it ;-)

Don't we all !:mrgreen:
Thanks for the tip, I just need to get out and practice when the weather breaks.

avemal Loc: BALTIMORE

Look at this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFR_UYhOKY

neilds37 Loc: Port Angeles, WA

I found the best results by adjusting the exposure comp. to over-expose a bit.

Strix

I always overexpose any BIF photo, as the much lighter sky background 'washes' out any reliable meter reading (reads - expose the sky properly, not the darker BIF). Set your exposure compensation to +1, shoot several shots, and adjust accordingly. Keep practicing!
Good Luck -
Strix.

Tracht3

My guess is its a turkey vulture. My guess is that you are shooting on A or S mode when you should be on Manual. Shutter speed should be about 1000 to 1250 for this type of bird. Get aperture around 8. Next adjust iso accordingly. Play with iso to make the shot. Remember too open a shot can give you a soft dof. Too much iso leads to noise.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

parsons1 wrote:

How do you get lighting on the underside of the bird when shooting up,
Is it just being in the right spot when you shoot or
Shooting when the light is behind you shining straight on the bird ?

I've shoot from the side and had good results, but every time I try shooting a soaring bird from underneath.. this is the results I get.

Thanks in advance for any and all comments and tips.

As was mentioned by another, it helps to have the sun low enough that the bottom side of the bird is actually lit up by the sun. This example has the turkey vulture flying towards the sun and is actually aimed upward a bit so as to expose the under body to the low, almost setting, sun in the west.

You can even see the shadow of the bird's beak on his underside showing how low the sun was.

sample turkey vulture with low sun

Meives Loc: FORT LAUDERDALE

[quote=parsons1]I tried to see if there was any light on the bottom with a histogram. There was not enough light.

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

parsons1 wrote:

How do you get lighting on the underside of the bird when shooting up,
Is it just being in the right spot when you shoot or
Shooting when the light is behind you shining straight on the bird ?

I've shoot from the side and had good results, but every time I try shooting a soaring bird from underneath.. this is the results I get.

Thanks in advance for any and all comments and tips.

parsons1,

Often a lot depends on your settings. However you can do a lot in post processing if you take your time. Below are two photos, the first one is the original and the second one is after I did a little bit of PP work on it to bring out a little feather detail.

These were taken in late February around 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I used to Sigma 500 mm lens with a Tamron 1.4 X TC. The photo was not cropped at all. I would normally do more PP work on this photo it just wanted to show you can bring out detail on the underside if you want to.

Jim D

(Download)

twowindsbear

IF you can get the bird to fly a bit lower, and
IF you have a good snowfall on the ground
THEN the light reflecting from the snow will fill in the shadowed under-side of the bird
OTHERWISE up your exposure and 'live with' the blown-out sky.

Good luck!

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

JimH123 wrote:

As was mentioned by another, it helps to have the sun low enough that the bottom side of the bird is actually lit up by the sun. This example has the turkey vulture flying towards the sun and is actually aimed upward a bit so as to expose the under body to the low, almost setting, sun in the west.

You can even see the shadow of the bird's beak on his underside showing how low the sun was.

Thanks for the shot and the info. In all seriousness, I have never seen a turkey vulture in flight look so good. With all the hawks and eagles people shoot, it sort of gets overlooked.