Gary Truchelut Loc: Coldspring, TX

I have been shooting bird pictures for quite some time now and I learned something new the other day after watching a video presentation. I tried it on my last outing and it worked perfectly for me. This is a simple, no thinking required, way to expose for the whites in your image.
When you get to your shooting location, find something big and white like a car, truck, side of a building, etc. Set your camera to manual exposure mode, spot metering and turn on the blinkies. Now take a shot of the white object with the light meter set as correct exposure and note f you have over-exposed areas. If so, reduce aperture or increase shutter speed or lower ISO until you have no blinkies in the shot. Which method you choose will depend on what you are shooting that day. In our case it would be birds so we would set the shutter speed and f-stop where we desire it to be and change ISO within limits of our camera to get the proper exposure. No matter what the light meter says after this, ignore it and keep shooting. Give it a try and see if you like it. If the lighting changes drastically take a test shot of a white object and reset. This method works with any background dark or light. Remember that most birds have some white on them somewhere so you want to get that white exposed correctly.

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Psergel Loc: New Mexico

Getting feather detail on a white bird in harsh light is one of the toughest challenges I've run into. I'll give your method a shot (or two). Thanks

Jay Pat Loc: Round Rock, Texas, USA

I like your thinking, Gary!! Thanks!

MtnMan Loc: ID

Did you try spot metering and auto ISO? You'd probably need to set EV to plus one to two to not have gray birds.
It might be easier than manually adjusting ISO and checking blinkies.

Gary Truchelut Loc: Coldspring, TX

I think I have tried everything at least once. I have used auto ISO off and on with varying results. I've only used this method one time but the results have been good and I didn't have to change my exposure unless the conditions changed drastically. At that point I just re-set the shutter speed to regain correct exposure.

Gary Truchelut Loc: Coldspring, TX

I like your thinking, Gary!! Thanks![/quote]I can't take credit for this idea but thank you. It is harder to write down how to do this than it is to actually do it.[quote=Jay Pat]

Gary Truchelut Loc: Coldspring, TX

Thanks, I hope it works as good for you as it has for me so far.

chaman

Easier perhaps but not a method to get the best IQ possible. The OP response corroborates it.

K7DJJ Loc: Spring Hill, FL

I too, have had good results with this method since watching the video.

RRS Loc: Not sure

Gary, do you have a link to the video?

MtnMan Loc: ID

The auto ISO approach has worked well for me...when I set it up correctly. With spot metering you need to be careful where you have the spot.
I'll try the blinkie approach and compare. Before I just manually adjusted the ISO to get the shutter speed I wanted in aperture priority.

RRS Loc: Not sure

Do you have a link to the video??

K7DJJ Loc: Spring Hill, FL

I think this will get you there.
Doug

https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=F_4meHY_iIM&u=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D58G-ttOw6PM%26feature%3Dshare

RRS Loc: Not sure

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raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

Good advice!