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| Bird Photography 2025 - Page 14 | |
| Another year of feathery captures | Rate Topic |
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12th, 2025 22:07 |
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131st Post |
Eric
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Bob wrote:Meanwhile....there were the remains of a pigeon on the garage apron this morning, still relatively intact. i thought.......murphy's law will dictate that a red kite will land on it before I can get the camera etc. Well caught Bob. She is a lovely bird. I know what it’s like in these “quick grab the camera moments” …settings go out of the window to some extent. That’s why I have a custom setting for birds, ready for those moments, with the optimum fstop, shutter speed and iso set to auto. At the risk of labouring the point, (hope you don’t mind) your choice of settings could have improved the image a lot more. If you look at the exif below, 1. The shutter speed should be faster, even for a supposedly static bird. They still twitch their heads all the time! I think 1/500 is the slowest for a bird …especially hand holding a 500mm lens. 2. You have the aperture set at f22. That’s far too small and IQ will have dropped off. Using f11 would be better and give you 2 stops for a faster shutter speed at the same ISO. 3. I may be misreading the exposure compensation bias but it looks like +0.6. That should be 0 …or -0.6 if it was your intention to avoid over exposure. The image is slightly over exposed.  Click here to comment on this image. Click here for EXIF data As mentioned before, you can “pull it back” by increasing the black 10-15% which gives it more punch. (See below) Won’t help the pigeon though  Anyway…nice catch….well done, keep them coming   Click here to comment on this image. Click here for EXIF data
____________________ Eric |
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12th, 2025 22:19 |
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132nd Post |
Eric
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Meant to ask…..did the kite come down to the kill site afterwards? They often do if it’s in a position they feel safe approaching. If not ….a few feathers stuck to some sliced meat, better positioned for the kite to approach might be worth a try.
____________________ Eric |
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14th, 2025 08:56 |
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133rd Post |
Bob
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Thanks Eric. Settings- I only looked at them after I had taken the shots....  thanks for the tips. They had been set for the Feathered Gothic shots ( see Spiders) with the 90mm Tamron in the shower roomI didn't carry out any editing apart from with the the noise reduction method which I set to Better Quality 2013. The other option are Faster ( default) and Better Quality. I will have to pay more attention to the post shoot exposure setting. She eventually dragged the remains out of my line of vision- I was standing at my front door when I took the shots. I found the corpse later - a few metres away. She had concentrated on the heart, and opened the crop, which was full of large seeds! I looked the next day, and only a few feathers and what looked like a sternum remained. Might have been the kite, but just as likely to be a fox, rat, or any other scavenger. Nature has no problems with refuse collection,eh? When I have finished rebuilding the greenhouse, I will make a concerted effort to lure a kite into the back garden 
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14th, 2025 11:20 |
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134th Post |
Bob
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re exposure compensation, both NX Studio and Darktable -which I have just downloaded- show 0 exposure compensation. having said that I looked again at the uncropped shot, and the whites in the pigeon feathers are obviously over exposed. Does this point to an issue with the metering in the camera?  Click here to comment on this image. Click here for EXIF data
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14th, 2025 15:52 |
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135th Post |
Eric
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Sorry Bob…I am wrong! After all these years I finally learnt what exposure bias value = 0/6 means!!!! Thanks to AI.  6 = 0 exposure compensation.  Click here to comment on this image. Click here for EXIF data I never knew that! We live and learn. So you are right there is no exposure comp on the original image and there must be another reason for the slight over exposure in the image.
____________________ Eric |
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14th, 2025 17:02 |
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136th Post |
Eric
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There might be a slight overexposure on the camera. It could be worth adding -0.3 exposure comp for a few frames to see if you get better results. Or even do some exposure auto bracketing -0.6 > -0.3 < 0.0. (Not paying for film anymore!!!) After a session shooting a range of subjects with 3 shots of each you will, I am sure, form a view whether the camera is over metering or not. Whatever the issue may or may not be…it’s not that significant. You are getting some good results now with the combinations you have. It’s really down to just getting use to the equipment and honing your settings choice. Look forward to seeing more photos. You can start a new build /greenhouse thread you know.
____________________ Eric |
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14th, 2025 17:44 |
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137th Post |
Bob
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Phew. That's very useful to know. As you can see from the EXIF, I use aperture priority, but I can manually select the ISO value. I also use spot metering, which I assume meters the area in the focus symbol.I have found that the ISO setting can lead to over or under exposure - so it could be that. I will try bracketing just to see how it works. Have you used Darktable?
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14th, 2025 18:17 |
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138th Post |
chrisbet
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I use Darktable all the time, but they recently upgraded it and all my familiar controls have changed, moved of both! I also use GIMP a lot for simple resizing / cropping / saving to other formats - it can also do mods to the image. I usually shoot in manual mode because I want to be able to control depth of field with the aperture/distance bearing in mind the sharpness of the lens which usually maxes out around f5.6 - f8 and shutter speed- I leave ISO on auto but keep an eye on it so it doesn't stray too high!
____________________ If it is broken it was probably me .... |
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14th, 2025 20:52 |
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139th Post |
Eric
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Bob wrote:Phew. That's very useful to know. As you can see from the EXIF, I use aperture priority, but I can manually select the ISO value. I also use spot metering, which I assume meters the area in the focus symbol.I have found that the ISO setting can lead to over or under exposure - so it could be that. Also, the f22 may have contributed.
____________________ Eric |
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15th, 2025 18:50 |
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140th Post |
jk
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@Bob, If you are in UK shooting then during the day ISO 400-800 should be good most of the time for static stuff, for birds ISO 1600-3200 is better. Sunsets and the like you may want to adjust to suit. Try and use f5.6 to f11 unless shooting macro when you might (note might) want to use f22 but then you might also reveal dust spots on the sensor! Shutter speed is more about creative control, how juddery/jittery you are, and your subject. Birds have a natural jitter so I use one step up in shutter speed when I shoot them! AutoISO is not the friend it may seem to be!!! I shoot either Aperture Priority or Manual all the time. However it is about how you prefer to shoot. With mirrorless cameras what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) but with DSLR it is a bit more tricky. With mirrorless always set up EVF so you use WYSIWYG, unless shooting with flash. Then use EV compensation so it looks right in EVF, this does NOT work if you are using flash. Shoot RAW and adjust image to perfection on your computer in your chosen software. If I had to use GIMP then I would probably be dead already due to frustration. ChrisB uses it as there are few other options on Linux but on Mac or Windows there are loads of good softwares that are much more capable. If you dont mind paying a subscription (I do, but still pay Adobe for the use of my Lightroom Classic v14.5.1 and Photoshop CC 2025). There are equally good other programs but learning a software is time consuming so I pay the money. Practice makes perfect and makes you feel more competent and at ease in most shooting situations!
____________________ Still learning after all these years! https://nikondslr.uk/gallery_view.php?user=2&folderid=none |
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