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- Edit My Images
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Hi everyone. New here. I've had a Sigma 100-400mm lens for a while and I've become reasonably okay at photographing animals that aren't moving, I've been trying to learn how to shoot flying birds. Unfortunately, we're back in another lockdown here, so I've only got the neighbourhood crows to practice on. I've generally been getting a decent hit rate with the focus, but I've been struggling with the exposure of the black crows on a white sky. See the example below.
ISO 1600
f6.3
333mm
1/1600sec
I shot in shutter priority, and f6.3 is the fastest that lens goes when zoomed in. I also did +1 stop of exposure compensation. Maybe this needs to go higher?
This one was a day later, at ISO 1000 with about +20 noise reduction in Lightroom. I shot this more in the middle of an overcast day. The problem I usually have shooting in the middle of the day is it gets extremely hot and the birds don't really do a lot. Today it'd been raining, so they were a bit more active.
I know the obvious answer is to make more of an effort to get closer to get sharper images, but is there anything I can do about the noise? Would boosting the exposure compensation further be a good option, or would that just create a bigger problem with a completely blown out sky?
Incidentally, I realise these are perhaps not the best examples of me nailing focus. Maybe that's more of an issue? I'm not really sure if the focus is off or it's just a lack of detail because of the distance and noise.
f6.3
333mm
1/1600sec
I shot in shutter priority, and f6.3 is the fastest that lens goes when zoomed in. I also did +1 stop of exposure compensation. Maybe this needs to go higher?
This one was a day later, at ISO 1000 with about +20 noise reduction in Lightroom. I shot this more in the middle of an overcast day. The problem I usually have shooting in the middle of the day is it gets extremely hot and the birds don't really do a lot. Today it'd been raining, so they were a bit more active.
I know the obvious answer is to make more of an effort to get closer to get sharper images, but is there anything I can do about the noise? Would boosting the exposure compensation further be a good option, or would that just create a bigger problem with a completely blown out sky?
Incidentally, I realise these are perhaps not the best examples of me nailing focus. Maybe that's more of an issue? I'm not really sure if the focus is off or it's just a lack of detail because of the distance and noise.
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