Static birds - camera settings?

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I have been key wording and culling my photos from last year. Birds and landscapes are my favourite subjects, just wish I had more time to learn. BIF are difficult but, static birds should be easier. I do not have the big whites, 500L or 600L but use a Canon f4 300L and a Sigma 150-600 C.

I usually set the shutter speed to 1000 more, use shutter priority with auto iso and safety shift. If the light is good this works but often the light is poor and the camera sets unsuitable settings Even when I set the max iso and min shutter speeds.

I am not great at hand holding a long lens so I need a high shutter speed but on a tripod with a cable release this is less of a problem.

Given that static birds are never really static, what settings do others use?
 
As fast as I can really but living in West Scotland, it’s not easy to get desired shutter speeds at f6.3.

Aim for at least the same shutter speed as your focal length, ie, 600 sec at 600 mm for example. That said if you pick your moment and also get lucky, it’s possible at slower shutter speeds with static birds.

A bare, safe minimum is 1/1000 sec in an ideal world, or so I find .

edit- meant to say, I work in aperture priority or manual mode.
 
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I also use manual, auto ISO capped at why I consider the "acceptable maximum" and then adjust shutterspeed as needed. I also think it depends on the bird. Long Tailed Tits I try for a minimum of 1/500th at 450mm handheld because they're never truly still. Robins sit fairly still, and I have gotten clean images at 1/250th or lower handheld at 450mm (300mm on crop sensor) but I have fairly steady hands and a light camera/lens. I sometimes use a monopod which is very handy when I can't get those speeds.
 
I nearly always use aperture priority but beyond that I don't have any hard or fast rules I must stick to. I think it's a question of experimenting. If the bird is there long enough, I think it's a good idea to try a variety so you can see what worked best when you load them up at home. I'll play with aperture and iso to try and find the best balance I can of depth of field (for the subject vs distracting background), shutter speed (to freeze subject and camera shake) and sensor noise.

Yesterday I ended up taking some perched kingfisher shots where despite being at 500 or 700mm, I was playing with shutter speeds as low as ~1/100s because that was the light. With hindsight I didn't follow my own advice of experimenting with the ISO a touch more but the light was such that I was never going to hit the reciprocal focal length guideline at an ISO below my personal threshold. I should have followed my own advice to experiment a bit more with regards to ISO noise vs camera movement but nevertheless I came away with photos I'm more than happy with. Perhaps not as tack sharp as if it had been a sunnier day but so be it. Pixel peeping is not the road to happiness...

High speed burst on a tripod does help for slow shutter speeds; often I'll find there's one mid-burst that is notably sharper than those that bracket it.
 
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