dellenthompson wrote:
They were dark, grainy unfocused,... it was AWFUL.
Dark? As in "underexposed?"
Well, that's easily fixed.
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No, I didn't use a tripod, but I thought it was possible to capture wildlife with this lens hand held like with the 70-200 2.8. I did have a filter on...B+W premium digital MRC nano.
If I were testing a lens I wouldn't have a filter on it...I'd want to be sure that the quality I was getting was the lens and not some semi-cheap piece of glass or plastic. (that's a good filter by the way)
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I'm studying Brian Petersons understanding exposure now. Is there something else that would be useful to figure out what shutter speed, aperature, ISO to use? I've see where they say still animals should be shot in AV, BIF in TV. Is that true? Help!
Good!
That's a great book.
Shutter, aperture and ISO are all subjective, they are what you set AFTER you determine what exposure you are looking for and what "creatively correct" exposure you want to execute.
You said you used the following settings:
The ISO was 1250, the shutter was 1/4000, at F7.1 and F5.6.
That shutter speed is plenty fast for birds who are not flying and your aperture is a "shortish/middle of the road" aperture...no problems there. The ISO is slightly high; not sure how your camera reacts to that high an ISO.
If it were me, I'd do the following:
1.) Remove the filter during testing at least.
2.) Use a lower ISO like 400-800 or less if I could get away with it.
3.) Remember that your camera's meter will be fooled in many circumstances and backlit water reflecting birds is one of them...sorry to say but that's a fact of life when using a camera's meter...that's why shots came out dark...the water or the brightest part of the sky was correctly exposed but your subject wasn't.
What shots you posted aren't bad at all...are they cropped a lot?
If they are; then that also brings up another point....filling the frame.
You cannot do miracles with any lens....if your subject is like a small bug in the huge frame, then the quality will suffer no matter how good your lens is...trust me. FILL THE FRAME with the subject! :)
Those steps should help a LOT....keep shooting and posting and let us know how it goes.