Today in Finchley

Nice exposure control on the Magpie Lee, shame the Crow was so well hidden

Les :)
 
Nice exposure control on the Magpie Lee, shame the Crow was so well hidden

Les :)

Thanks Les, Yes, I always have trouble capturing crows properly. I also tried tracking pigeons in flight yesterday. Oh boy, does that need some practise! :LOL:
 
You should try catching a Tern in flight- very quick indeed :)
DSC05292 Tern by Les Moxon, on Flickr

Excellent shot, Les. Is that on a Sony camera? I've not got used to the green tracking box on mine. Pigeons and crows were swooping back and forth yesterday very quickly and I barely had time to get them into my focal box to start tracking them. The occassional time I did, the box wasn't following as it should do. I was in tracking mode and tried tracking wide, tracking zone, tracking flexible spot, tracking expandable flexible spot, but I think perhaps there was too much background stuff confusing the camera. For metering I tried multi metering, centre, spot, entire screen average, nothing really worked. Maybe I need to find some more open space so I can track them for longer. There were too many trees and building roofs that the birds appeared from and disappeared into in a matter of seconds.
 
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Excellent shot, Les. Is that on a Sony camera? I've not got used to the green tracking box on mine. Pigeons and crows were swooping back and forth yesterday very quickly and I barely had time to get them into my focal box to start tracking them. The occassional time I did, the box wasn't following as it should do. I was in tracking mode and tried tracking wide, tracking zone, tracking flexible spot, tracking expandable flexible spot, but I think perhaps there was too much background stuff confusing the camera. For metering I tried multi metering, centre, spot, entire screen average, nothing really worked. Maybe I need to find some more open space so I can track them for longer. There were too many trees and building roofs that the birds appeared from and disappeared into in a matter of seconds.


Yes indeed a Sony Lee ( are there other brands??? ) :LOL::LOL::LOL:

Shot with my Sony a7Riii & Sony 200-600mm Grand Master lens - hand held using wide tracking flexible spot - auto ISO f8 @ 1/2000th sec Full frame @ 42mp

Get your self out beyond the town mate - find a nice lake


Les :)
 
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Yes indeed a Sony Lee ( are there other brands??? ) :LOL::LOL::LOL:

Shot with my Sony a7Riii & Sony 200-600mm Grand Master lens - hand held using wide tracking flexible spot - auto ISO f8 @ 1/2000th sec Full frame @ 42mp

Get your self out beyond the town mate - find a nice lake


Les :)

:LOL: .

Ok, so 1/2000 sec seems to be the sweet spot for freezing action.
Yes that's what I need to do, get out of town and find somewhere a bit more open and easier to shoot BIF. I'll ask in the talk nature forum if anyone knows of a good place within around 20 miles from me to go and find birds other than pigeons, magpies and crows.
 
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Yes indeed a Sony Lee ( are there other brands??? ) :LOL::LOL::LOL:

Shot with my Sony a7Riii & Sony 200-600mm Grand Master lens - hand held using wide tracking flexible spot - auto ISO f8 @ 1/2000th sec Full frame @ 42mp

Get your self out beyond the town mate - find a nice lake


Les :)
Great shot of the Tern, Les
Still not convinced the 200-600 is a GM lens :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
 
Lee
I had a look at these images on Flickr.
Is there a reason you are shooting at such a high ISO on a lovely sunny day?
Do you have the a6600 set to Auto ISO?
Not a problem - curious that's all ;)
Magpies can be a nightmare to shoot due to the dark darks and bright brights so well done (y)
On days like these I try and shoot at ISO 400 or lower.
 
Lee
I had a look at these images on Flickr.
Is there a reason you are shooting at such a high ISO on a lovely sunny day?
Do you have the a6600 set to Auto ISO?
Not a problem - curious that's all ;)
Magpies can be a nightmare to shoot due to the dark darks and bright brights so well done (y)
On days like these I try and shoot at ISO 400 or lower.

Hi Mike, thanks for looking and I much appreciate your comments. :)

Yeah, I believe I was on Auto ISO. The Crow came out pretty high didn't it, at 2000 ISO! The Crow silhouettes however came out at 100 and 125 ISO and the Magpie came out at 320 ISO, so they seem ok?

Would I have been better off lowering the shutter speed for the Crow in the branches?
 
By dropping the ISO 2 stops to 500 would still have given you a shutter speed of 1/500 which is plenty fast to capture the crow in a tree,
The lower the ISO is, the less noise there will be.
The images of the Wolfhound were shot at ISO 12800 and a shutter speed of 1/2000.
If you look at the background, you'll see the noise generated by shooting at such a high ISO.

As an experiment, the next time you go out shooting birds etc in sunny weather, try setting the ISO to 800, Av 6.3 or 7.1 and controlling the shutter speed with the rear dial.
If you find your images are sharp and your shutter speed is still high then try lowering ISO a stop or 2.
If your images are shaky increase the ISO
 
By dropping the ISO 2 stops to 500 would still have given you a shutter speed of 1/500 which is plenty fast to capture the crow in a tree,
The lower the ISO is, the less noise there will be.
The images of the Wolfhound were shot at ISO 12800 and a shutter speed of 1/2000.
If you look at the background, you'll see the noise generated by shooting at such a high ISO.

As an experiment, the next time you go out shooting birds etc in sunny weather, try setting the ISO to 800, Av 6.3 or 7.1 and controlling the shutter speed with the rear dial.
If you find your images are sharp and your shutter speed is still high then try lowering ISO a stop or 2.
If your images are shaky increase the ISO

Brilliant stuff, thanks for the help, Mike! I had stuck with 1/2000 thinking that I needed it for anything to do with birds. As you say, I should have dropped ISO and SS to 500, 1/500. Lesson learnt!

The high ISO on the dog came about because of the previous 1/2000 shutter speed from trying to shoot birds. I'd simply forgotten to slow the shutter down hence the very silly ISO. Another lesson learnt!

I've been out around midday today and had more luck with BIF, albeit only crows. I made sure the ISO was much lower. But also I discovered that even at that time of day, if I focused too low with the 70-350 then the auto ISO would go to 2000 because it's a slow lens and needs a ton of light. Once I was focusing well above the trees it was so much better. I don't know if I got anything worth showing but I'm keeping my fingers crossed and will have a look when I get home and post them up for critique if they're not utterly terrible. :D
 
You can limit the range of ISO sensitivity when the ISO sensitivity is set manually.
  1. MENU →
    s_menu_shoot1.png
    (Camera Settings1) → [ISO Setting] → [ISO Range Limit] → [Minimum] or [Maximum], and select the desired values.
To set the range for [ISO AUTO]
If you want to adjust the range of ISO sensitivity that is automatically set in the [ISO AUTO] mode, select MENU →
s_menu_shoot1.png
(Camera Settings1) → [ISO Setting] → [ISO] → [ISO AUTO], and then press the right side of the control wheel to select [ISO AUTO Maximum]/[ISO AUTO Minimum].
 
Ok so nothing worth showing except maybe a couple of shots of planes. Need some more help please guys! I got some good BIF shots and airplane shots, but on all of them, my exposures were crap. The histogram is approximately a 1cm vertical band right in the middle and with nothing left or right. So only captured mids. :facepalm: So when processing them I'm exposing noise.

All my shots had ISO between 200 and 400, I was at F6.3, 350mm, and shutter speed 1/2000. How can I get BIF if I'd have to drop the shutter speed a lot in order to get more light in? Maybe 1/1000 would fix the exposure and be enough to freeze birds?
 
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You can limit the range of ISO sensitivity when the ISO sensitivity is set manually.
  1. MENU →
    s_menu_shoot1.png
    (Camera Settings1) → [ISO Setting] → [ISO Range Limit] → [Minimum] or [Maximum], and select the desired values.
To set the range for [ISO AUTO]
If you want to adjust the range of ISO sensitivity that is automatically set in the [ISO AUTO] mode, select MENU →
s_menu_shoot1.png
(Camera Settings1) → [ISO Setting] → [ISO] → [ISO AUTO], and then press the right side of the control wheel to select [ISO AUTO Maximum]/[ISO AUTO Minimum].

Thanks Mike, yep, I'm aware of those.
 
:LOL: .

Ok, so 1/2000 sec seems to be the sweet spot for freezing action.
Yes that's what I need to do, get out of town and find somewhere a bit more open and easier to shoot BIF. I'll ask in the talk nature forum if anyone knows of a good place within around 20 miles from me to go and find birds other than pigeons, magpies and crows.


I start at 1/2000th sec but sometimes go as high as 1/4000th sec
 
I start at 1/2000th sec but sometimes go as high as 1/4000th sec

The problem I had yesterday Les was that I got some fairly decent BIF shots with auto ISO between 200 and 400, F6.3 and 350mm, and shutter speed 1/2000 . But my histogram only showed a vertical coloured band, approximately right in the middle with nothing to the left or right, so obviously incorrect exposure instead of a spread across the graph. So I'm wondering how to get correct exposure when trying to capture BIF? Would 1/1000th have fixed it but been fast enough to freeze the action?

Here's a screenshot of an unprocessed shot showing the histogram.

Histogram.jpg
 
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The problem I had yesterday Les was that I got some fairly decent BIF shots with auto ISO between 200 and 400, F6.3 and 350mm, and shutter speed 1/2000 . But my histogram only showed a coloured band right in the middle with nothing to the left or right, so obviously incorrect exposure instead of a spread across the graph. So I'm wondering how to get correct exposure when trying to capture BIF? Would 1/1000th have fixed it but been fast enough to freeze the action?


Ok Lee, I would then suggest forget auto ISO and use it manually until the desired shutter speed can be achieved along with your desired f stop ( usually f8 is what I select)
something I use on a regular basis

Les :)
 
Ok Lee, I would then suggest forget auto ISO and use it manually until the desired shutter speed can be achieved along with your desired f stop ( usually f8 is what I select)
something I use on a regular basis

Les :)

Right but then I'd introduce noise wouldn't I if the ISO goes much beyond 800?
 
That depends on the body you're using - my a7Riii is happy to around ISO 5,000 and sometimes slightly higher when situations dictate

this: ISO 5,000 f8 @ 1/1600th sec

DSC06737 No food here by Les Moxon, on Flickr

Les :)

Nice photo, Les. So when you took that shot or any shot at all, low or high ISO, does your histogram always show a spread of colours from left to right with a sort of mountain peak in the middle, is that what the histogram should always look like? Or have you sometimes had usable shots with mostly colours to the left or right or just middle or would you discard those those?
 
By the way, mine is aps-c so less tolerance than yours, I guess your 5000 ISO would be my 1000 to 2000 ISO.
 
Nice photo, Les. So when you took that shot or any shot at all, low or high ISO, does your histogram always show a spread of colours from left to right with a sort of mountain peak in the middle, is that what the histogram should always look like? Or have you sometimes had usable shots with mostly colours to the left or right or just middle or would you discard those those?
Ok Lee, The Histogram shows my focal point and is as you say in the middle :) I usually check in camera what the Histogram is doing and adjust from there :)

Of course I do have a different camera to you and this will effect performance etc etc

Les :)
 
By the way, mine is aps-c so less tolerance than yours, I guess your 5000 ISO would be my 1000 to 2000 ISO.


I have the APS-C function on my camera giving me a focal length of 900mm using the Sony 200-600mm lens, I never use it as there is plenty of scope to crop down my image as the sensor size in the a7Riii is 42mp

Les :)
 
Ok Lee, The Histogram shows my focal point and is as you say in the middle :) I usually check in camera what the Histogram is doing and adjust from there :)

Of course I do have a different camera to you and this will effect performance etc etc

Les :)

So your histogram when you've imported your photo to process, looks like my histogram in my screenshot above, just in the middle with nothing left or right?
 
So your histogram when you've imported your photo to process, looks like my histogram in my screenshot above, just in the middle with nothing left or right?


Mine sits bang in the middle when viewed both in camera and Photoshop 2021 :)
 
Mine sits bang in the middle when viewed both in camera and Photoshop 2021 :)

I see. I thought a histogram should look like this, which is from one of my photos

Histogram Peaked.jpg

as opposed to this from my BIF photo

Histogram Middle.jpg

But maybe they're both ok.
 
I haven't read all the above posts in detail, but I would suggest that you worry less about what the histogram says. Your BIF photo shows a huge expanse of grey with a tiny bird in the middle of it. Your camera is exposing mainly for the sky as the bird is such an insignificant part of the image.

The tone of grey you have captured is what us old folks used to call 18% grey, which is what the meter in your camera is calibrated to expose for correctly. It has done that very well. To expose correctly for the bird you would need to adjust the exposure manually and this is where experience comes in. Did you want to expose correctly for the sky or the bird?

The top two pics should show a decent range of tones in the histogram because they exist in the image, from almost black (the crow or the magpie's black feathers) to very bright (the sky and yellow leaves and the magpie's white feathers) . The meter in your camera has read the tones in the scene correctly and made an average of them all which has given you a correct exposure of the whole scene. It is the equivalent of the whole scene being 18% grey. I'm not sure I've explained that very accurately. If not I can have another go later.

if the crow image was mine I would try to darken the crows plumage because it is actually a very black bird. Although the sun's reflection off them can make it look brighter.
 
I haven't read all the above posts in detail, but I would suggest that you worry less about what the histogram says. Your BIF photo shows a huge expanse of grey with a tiny bird in the middle of it. Your camera is exposing mainly for the sky as the bird is such an insignificant part of the image.

The tone of grey you have captured is what us old folks used to call 18% grey, which is what the meter in your camera is calibrated to expose for correctly. It has done that very well. To expose correctly for the bird you would need to adjust the exposure manually and this is where experience comes in. Did you want to expose correctly for the sky or the bird?

The top two pics should show a decent range of tones in the histogram because they exist in the image, from almost black (the crow or the magpie's black feathers) to very bright (the sky and yellow leaves and the magpie's white feathers) . The meter in your camera has read the tones in the scene correctly and made an average of them all which has given you a correct exposure of the whole scene. It is the equivalent of the whole scene being 18% grey. I'm not sure I've explained that very accurately. If not I can have another go later.

if the crow image was mine I would try to darken the crows plumage because it is actually a very black bird. Although the sun's reflection off them can make it look brighter.

Thanks jerry. It's the bird I wanted to expose correctly for and get as much clarity and detail on. When you say expose correctly, are we talking mainly about metering? I can't quite remember if my metering was spot, centre or multi metering. What would you suggest for better manual metering?
 
I don't meter manually myself although some do. I use exposure compensation. You can dial in + or - exposure values depending on the situation. But you need to assess the lighting yourself visually first. Hope that helps.

Ok, I can only control the exposure compensation value in aperture priority. If I was in manual mode instead of aperture priority, to get the equivalent of + or - exposure compensation, would it be a case of me adjusting my settings so that the exposure meter shows + or -?
 
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