Photographing Dolphins - Settings...

[GeordieStew]

Morning all!

We have 100+ bottlenose dolphins up and down the North East coast and I'm starting to enjoy photographing them from shore/pier.

Using Sony a1 and 200-600.

I tend to get a lot of out of focus, blurry, dark shots (usually a mix of the above). My keeper rate is not high. Although I do have some crackers.

Can anyone with any experience suggest the best settings? Focus size/window? Shutter speed (usually 1/500+)

Should I also try a polariser to remove glare?

Thanks in advance

 

[KIPAX]

My keeper rate is not high. Although I do have some crackers.

A lesson i learnt early on is to forget about the pictures in the bin and just concentrate on the keepers... It really doesnt matter what your keep rate is..

The trouble wiht Dolphins is your watching for them and you get a couple of seconds to focus and shoot .... that would account for your out of focus.... 500 shutter would count for blurry.. get the shutter count up as for dark then i take it your on auto exposure so you need to take some test shots that look good then put the same settings in manual (prusuming a decent day wiht same lighting)

 

[nandbytes]

Morning all!

We have 100+ bottlenose dolphins up and down the North East coast and I'm starting to enjoy photographing them from shore/pier.

Using Sony a1 and 200-600.

I tend to get a lot of out of focus, blurry, dark shots (usually a mix of the above). My keeper rate is not high. Although I do have some crackers.

Can anyone with any experience suggest the best settings? Focus size/window? Shutter speed (usually 1/500+)

Should I also try a polariser to remove glare?

Thanks in advance

real time tracking with zone area focus. Set tracking sensitivity to 4 or 5.
set your camera to ISO 500, f6.3 and experiment with the shutter (drop it down to the minimum you can get away with). you can increase the brightness (i.e. ISO) in post without consequence.
then hope for the best

there is not really much more to it unfortunately because as mentioned above there is a bit of luck in it too.

and yes do not count the bin, count the keepers. You only need the one "money shot" which is why its called the "money shot". the rest can be whatever.

 

[GeordieStew]

Thank you both.

Really appreciate your input. I'm seeing them most days now (really impressed every time).

 

[davidy233]

How I do it - 1000th second minimum - whatever f-stop will get enough of dolphin in focus (f8 is a good guide) - with that combo meter off some grass or similar thing with mid range tone - note ISO that gives and set camera to that ISO. Take some test shots and adjust ISO as needed - once you've got it only adjust further if light changes.

Here's one of mine - you can see my settings by clicking through to Flickr

Bottlenose dolphin - Chanonry Point by David Young, on Flickr

 

[GeordieStew]

How I do it - 1000th second minimum - whatever f-stop will get enough of dolphin in focus (f8 is a good guide) - with that combo meter off some grass or similar thing with mid range tone - note ISO that gives and set camera to that ISO. Take some test shots and adjust ISO as needed - once you've got it only adjust further if light changes.

Here's one of mine - you can see my settings by clicking through to Flickr

by David Young, on Flickr

Thanks David. All makes sense. EXIF appears to be private in Flickr.

 

[nandbytes]

very nice shot

but the beauty of having an ISO invariant camera is for action you can set it to a certain ISO and forget about it. So the A1 (OP's camera for example) is ISO invariant from ISO500 onwards.
So he can set it to ISO 500 and forget about it. He can boost it in PP as needed, there won't be any impact on image quality to setting it accurately in camera.
And while shooting high shutter speed action the ISO won't be lower than 500 anyway

 

[davidy233]

Thanks David. All makes sense. EXIF appears to be private in Flickr.

It's 1250th of a second, f8, ISO 800 at 400mm - An additional tip is that when they start leaping they often do so in wee bunches - I got this one because another dolphin breached moments before - tend to find that by the time you spot them out of the water then it's too late so I anticipate when they are going to breach.

KIPAX has photographed them at same place as me - and his advice about ignoring the misses is excellent - only keep the good ones.

 

[KIPAX]

KIPAX has photographed them at same place as me - and his advice about ignoring the misses is excellent - only keep the good ones.

2 more weeks 10 days in Nairn means I can get back out to them

 

[JohnC6]

I recently returned from Chanonry Point..and was at 1/3200- 1/4000 sec f6.3 and f7.1. The light was poor so I was at ISO 1600.

As KIPAX points out it's really tricky trying to capture them breaching.. What I did was to watch a breach and slowly pan in the direction it was going. It also helps to pull out a bit to 280mm and 5300mm. I was using a Sigma 150-600 butwe're booked there for next year and I might use my Canon 100-400 Mk.11.

This photogrpaher is recommending 1/5000 sec.Much faster than Dave's 1/1200 sec. but his photo above is excellent. PIty th https://www.naturettl.com/photograph-dolphins/