billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

If it is consistent I would use an exposure compensation of +2 using Aperture priority at your shutter speed. If the bird is gliding you could go as low as 1/1000 sec.

jabra

Have you tried Spot Metering Mode? Coupled with Auto ISO and with some good aim will properly expose darker underside.

TonyBrown

I shoot manual with auto iso, but if the bird is silhouetted against a light background then I use 1.0+EV. You can get rid of shadows in post processing, but I find that reducing the darker
areas on the bird when I take the shot often gives me a better end result.

stangage

First if your not shooting in RAW mode you're wasting the capabilities of your camera.
Second shoot in a spot metering mode and be sure from your in camera histogram you're not clipping the dark end of the exposure.
Then you can always bring back the underside of the wings in post processing.

From a lot of experience practicing with photographing pelicans at the beach, 1/1500 is generally good to stop wing motion for hand held shots of big birds up to 500 - 600 mm if your lens or camera has good image stabilization.
I generally try to fix shutter speed and fixed on a tighter aperture to get better depth of field and let AUTO ISO take care of the exposure. Shoot in burst mode for several seconds to get the one GOOD shot.

Worst case shooting situation I have found is when the sky is significantly brighter than the light on the subject -under-wings - so it helps to have a darker sky - evenings with your back to the sun. But birds have the uncanny habit of not willingly posing for you. And, even with spot metering the image you're working with in camera is generally smaller than the spot metering region.

10MPlayer Loc: California

Shooting late in the afternoon or at dawn when the sun is low, as in the middle sandhill crane shot, can help get more light under the wings. Being aware of the sun's location helps a lot. Otherwise, as mentioned above, shoot RAW and lift the shadows in post processing.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Are you using one of the camera's auto exposure modes?

If so, the problem is likely the bright sky. On a sunny day a clear blue sky... or even one with some clouds in the distance.... is a large area of brightness that will cause a camera to want to under-expose.

In any of the auto exposure modes, try dialing in about +1 Exposure Compensation. Doing this will probably make the sky too light and you might even lose some cloud highlight detail, but that's the background so who cares and if you wish you can selectively darken the sky a bit in post-processing.

Or, if you're using a strictly manual exposure mode (not even Auto ISO), you should bias your settings for about 1 stop over-exposure.

The most ideal way might be to not use E.C. or bias, but instead use a fill flash to "open up" the shadows. However, flash makes you slow down your shooting, works best with slower shutter speeds (up to 1.200 or 1/250 with most cameras) and subjects may be too far away to use it effectively (high speed sync allows faster shutter speeds, but significantly reduces the flash's "reach").

1/2000, 1/2500 shutter speed is plenty fast. In fact with larger birds like a hawk you could probably use slower.... say 1/1000, 1/1200. But using a slower shutter speed won't, by itself, correct the exposure problem. For that you need to use E.C. for AE modes or set a bias if using M, as described above.

Of course, inevitably, about the time you've got it figured out and everything set up for proper exposure of the "shadow side" of the bird.... the next time by the bird pose more fully lit!

lukevaliant Loc: gloucester city,n. j.

huh?