albatross's and aussie birds....

[alexsmith]

Be gentle because I'm very new to this slr lark, (d40 for christmas ) ...I made a resolution to try to make my bird photo's more interesting. I thought I'd try and take photo's that weren't sitting on perches ie flying or doing some behaviour or portraits up close... to be honest i'm a little dis heartened by how hard it is and how much can go wrong. hats off to those of you who make it look easy.... THey say its easier to start on big birds so 1st up Albatross. Whatever the pics are like , in real life they are my favourite to watch, so elegant and kind of ghost like drifting over the waves. The pics had to be taken through a tinted glass observatory so it was pot luck..

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THese were ok but something wasn't right..maybe just too far away.?
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THis would have been my best effort . i love the composition with shadow of the talons ( pure luck btw ) but it didn't come out sharp. b@gger.
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Any C+C welcome . Tips and advice on action shots most welcome especially one thing I think is wrong because I can't understand it but the iso on the osprey was 200 and I've read on here that higher is better ? Is that right? Also I had to set the exposure to +7 for some because they came out too dark otherwise? Maybe that wasn't the right thing to do?

Alex

 

[cosmix3]

Not a bad set, you want to keep the ISO down to prevent noise if poss around 100/200, as for them coming out dark, one thing you can try is set the camera to apature priority, then metter on some grass or the like, take note of the shutter speed, then set the camera to manual and set the apature you had and use the shutter speed you got from mettering on the grass, this can help control the exposure. also may be worth trying a slightly higher apature say F8 or F9.

 

[alexsmith]

Cosmix,
Thanks for the advice....will pactice that next time...
Al