JimBart wrote:
When you are shooting birds or BIF especially in manual what are your most frequently used settings (speed, aperture and iso) and focus point?
If you don’t shoot manual and set all 3 settings, what do you do. Why?
Reason for asking…. I’m looking for easier ways of shooting nature as I currently use 1/1000, F 5.6 - F8, and auto iso along with spot metering
Help me out with your technique if possible
Thanks a bunch
Jim, I went through your bird pics in the gallery. I don't see a lot of BIF. You must be practicing / preparing?
Your EXIF doesn't come over with the lens ID. You'd want to consider, from technical reviews of your lens, what might be the sharpest apertures for your lens. If it doesn't matter much from the specs, just consider the depth of field.
You might want to consider a few composition ideas:
1, Find a situation where the sun / daylight is directly behind you and the birds are flying at / over your position.
2, Find a situation where static subjects are facing / turning / approaching your position. The rear-view of the subject is rarely a keeper image.
3, Consider your metering approach. I'm seeing a lot of blown highlights, indicating your spot metering approach is too small or incorrectly placed for the camera to protect your highlights (whites) from over exposure. For Nikon, matrix metering considers the entire frame and you can use your Exposure Composition dial or your manual settings to position the meter to the right of the 0-mark, but not too much as to lose the details of the highlights.
4, Use a selectively positioned, off-center AF point, placed specifically on the bird's eye, or 'face' if the distance is that great.
5, Use a tripod and patience. My favorite approach for a static subject is get the camera, exposure, tripod and AF point set in preparation for the bird to 'turn' to the best composition, such as a bird preening and then turning / standing in a way that 'matches' to my AF point. I burst a few images each time (only) when they turn toward me and 'match' to my AF point.
6, Use the AF-C 'continuous' auto-focus so the camera / lens are constantly focusing when you half-press the shutter, or 'hold' the assigned BFF, if used.