Papou Loc: Ottawa, Canada

Hi sir,

No worries, I am a school teacher ! I will need to learn how to clean the sensor. F14 was a trial error. I usually shoot at f8. For the speed, I was normally shooting at 1/1600 but after reading Steve Perry's book, I tried 1/4000. I think I will bring it down to 1/3200.

If you have any other comments, I am open to ideas !

Regards

Éric

Papou Loc: Ottawa, Canada

Hi Sir,

Thanks for the suggestions. Will do !

Regards,

Éric

Papou Loc: Ottawa, Canada

Will do a clean up. Never done this before !

regards

Éric

Papou Loc: Ottawa, Canada

Hi sir,

Will bring down the F to F8, the speed to 1/1600 and the ISO should be taking care by itself on automode hopefully very low !

Regards,

Éric

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

I think when you do some PP you might find there is a really nice photo in there. Hard to figure it out when it is so dark. Grab that exposure slider on whatever software you use and crank it up. You haven’t burned the highlights, pretty common with eagles and though under exposed it is not ‘too’ under exposed. The histogram another response showed isn’t really to bad at all. You can clean up the sensor dirt in seconds with your PP program. The exposure ideas for the next shot are pretty much right on.
...Cam

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

If you want to shoot wildlife there is a lot to learn. You might consider buying, it's an ebook, the Steve Perry guide for wildlife photography. When I photograph wildlife I generally use my widest aperture, in my case f/5.6 in order to get a fast shutter speed, for birds in flight it's often 2500 or 3200. I use a higher ISO, usually higher than 1000 but I try to stay no higher than 4000. These settings are pretty much standard for action wildlife. I can use Topaz DeNoise as needed in post. I now shoot most often with a Nikon 500PF lens, but I was shooting with a Nikon 200-500 and still have it. In this shot, in addition to your exposure and camera settings being off, the birds are just too far away for an image to turn out really good. Also, it's best to wait until you can get a clear shot of the bird without it being hidden by a tree. There is a lot to learn in wildlife photography.

Alphabravo2020

Here is the result of some experimentation in LR. I didn't use any masking. Only a tiny bit of noise reduction as feathers and hair suffer greatly from NR.

For future reference, I would attempt to minimize ISO. You should be able to get close to 100. Lower the shutter speed to a more reasonable value, say, 1/800, and drop the aperture down to F8 or even lower.

Edit: Plenty of good advice above. Happy shooting :D Some great dynamics in this shot with the two birds reacting to one another.

Edit: Another thought. I use an app like FotoTool to check the depth of field for a particular shot. In this case at 700mm it looks like you were about 500 feet away. You could go as low as f/4 and still have a depth of field of 24 feet. That would give you lots of wiggle room to lower ISO and reduce noise.

(Download)

nimbushopper Loc: Tampa, FL

What Ken said! The photo is pretty sharp but a little noisy. The lighting is not the best but you had no control over that.

Papou Loc: Ottawa, Canada

Hi sir,

Haven't finished read Steve Perry book. Great book by the way. Will try to lower everything to F8 when 1.4 TC on or lower when without it. I agree with you, BYF is a ongoing learning process and getting closer is alway my goal as long as I don't bother the animal !

Regards,

Éric

tcthome Loc: NJ

Topaz denoise will help a little. Good light (not always available) on your subject will always give better photos.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Simply widening the aperture, alone, may not be the solution if AUTO ISO lowers the ISO in a way that maintains the same overall dark exposure. You need to pay attention to how the meter is reporting the exposure, in the view finder telling you how things are going. These two posts have a lot of discussion, the second post has an editing example. Both posts show looking at the highlight warnings and assuring the meter is reporting an exposure 'to the right'.

ETTR in Practice

ETTR in Practice II

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Try it. It's not brain surgery. When I got my first DSLR I worried about cleaning my own sensor. Eventually I got a new DSLR so I tried cleaning the old one. It was really simple, no problems were encountered, and so I cleaned the new camera also. Been cleaning my own since then.

Paul gave you a link to his cleaning post. Worth reading the thread. I have my own page on sensor cleaning. There is not one way to do it: different people have different methods. That alone should let you know that it's not a difficult job.

You need some things to do it. The Rocket Blower is frequently recommended. That is a brand name, but the basic idea is that you blow off any dust on the sensor. You just need a blower that you can keep clean. The Rocket Blower (or equivalent) is probably available at any photography store.

The Rocket Blower is sometimes all you need. But if you need more, you may wind up doing a wet clean. That requires a sensor swab. There are different sizes to fit different sensors. A photography store will be able to tell you what size you need for your camera.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Excellent 💫💫💫💫💫

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Not bothering the animal is why we shoot with long lenses. You will also find that the distance that actually does bother an animal is a moving distance in some ways, unless defined by a national or other park you are shooting in. Animals that have been raised near or around people will put up with a shorter distance than an animal not raised near or around people. Over time you learn to realize when an animal may feel "bothered" and at that point you simply move away to a distance where the animal seems to feel no longer bothered. Just the other day I had two foxes under my deck at 10 in the morning..they sort of ambled off when I shooed them out...they obviously, unknown to me, are familiar with my house and me! I photograph a lot of wildlife, including with Steve Perry and some others, and it is a journey to get the shot you want but always well worth it. In three weeks I'm off to Yellowstone for the sixth time and hoping to get that elusive wolf shot, my fingers are crossed. In December I was at Bosque del Apache and in January at two wildlife refuges. Each setting is different with different animals but each is similar in how I shoot...f/5.6 with a long lens for the most part. If the background is clear, i.e., sky I can shoot at a larger aperture but often I just leave it at f/5.6 because the distance between my lens and the animals is so far away that it does not matter if I change the aperture one stop down. Good luck with your new avocation with wildlife...it can be addicting.

JeffDavidson Loc: Originally Detroit Now Los Angeles

F8, Faster shutter speed and mayber adjust the EV and spot or group metering to have better focus.