Having trouble posting, so let me try again...
A lot of birds around here, so I wanted to try my hand. Used my 70-300mm lens (hand held), through my back window. Manual settings were about 1600 ISO, speed was somewhere around 1/250-400. Lens was as wide open as I could get it.
what could I do better?
I have basically the same set up, lens and all. Make sure you have a clean window. Most of my hummer shots are through the window under the same lighting conditions. You have a lot of noise there. This is because of ISO 1600. Not to worry, this is to be expected nut you need to practice at a lower ISO like 400 or less if you can get a away with it. Check out my recent post:
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-125439-1.htmlThis was shot through my kitchen window. The feeder is just out of camera on the left. I shot this at F8. Wide open will give me fringing. If F8 is too much, just open it it up one level. Try not to shoot with the aperture wide open.
I used an ISO of 400 and a shutter speed of 1/1250 sec. I wanted to slow the wing motion more than I normally do. Now then, I used the camera's internal light meter. It was at was slightly underexposed at that. I prefer to shoot this way.
Whenever I can, I try to shoot at ISO 200. This lets me pump up the shutter speed above that of ISO 100. The speed is usually around 1/640 sec. to 1/800 sec. At ISO 200, I like to use an aperture of 6.3 for this is the sweet spot for my lens at that ISO.
I shoot with a Sony a580 using a 75-300mm zoom most of the time. It is basically a kit lens. It is their lowest end 300mm lens at $249.00
Oh, I have yet to shoot birds with a tripod. I usually have a cup of coffee in one had and the camera in the other. This is not a joke.
One more thing, I did enlarge it only slightly and then cropped it in pp. Perfectly legal.
I hope that I may have been of some help.
Tom
I'd be thrilled with these, given the conditions! And I like your title as UHH inspires me every day, as well. Looking forward to more of your photos Sportsmom!
to Tom- thanks for this very clear and concise advice. I was going in a totally different direction, so I am curious to see what results I will get using your advice!! again, thanks!
and Linda- thanks for the compliments.
SportsMom wrote:
to Tom- thanks for this very clear and concise advice. I was going in a totally different direction, so I am curious to see what results I will get using your advice!! again, thanks!
and Linda- thanks for the compliments.
Post them when you get them!
rlaugh
Loc: Michigan & Florida
Very good start...now you can tweek it further...like tainkc said,drop the ISO and raise shutter speed and see what happens!!
tainkc wrote:
I wanted to slow the wing motion more than I normally do. Now then, I used the camera's internal light meter. It was at was slightly underexposed at that. I prefer to shoot this way.
Tom
Why do you prefer to shoot with it underexposed? You brighten in Photoshop? I am curious because overall I have made every attempt in the past to avoid editing as much as possible... I did try the way you said and my pics were extremely dark, but it was later in the day...
SportsMom wrote:
Why do you prefer to shoot with it underexposed? You brighten in Photoshop? I am curious because overall I have made every attempt in the past to avoid editing as much as possible... I did try the way you said and my pics were extremely dark, but it was later in the day...
Let me expound upon my reasoning (pretty fancy word usage, huh?) Anyway, I hate pp with a passion. I do try to get everything just the way I want it in the camera first. Less time spent in pp that way. But if the lighting seems a little too harsh or contrasty, I prefer to underexpose just a tad It is a lot easier to bring up the exposure and the shadows than the other way around. If it is overexposed and you have blowouts, then you are screwed. Blowouts like in the sky or something shiny is almost always impossible to remove or bring sown to a satisfactory level. It is that simple. Go and experiment with that and you will see what I am talking about first hand.
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