I am officially the most stupid person on the forum. I drove out to see if the BOP were there in the afternoon. A juvenile white-bellied sea eagle flew over and I managed a couple of photos, then a whistling kite and I managed a couple more then THE BATTERY WAS FLAT!! AND THE OTHER ONE WAS AT HOME!!!!
After this another whistling kite flew low and slowly right over my car, me and my camera with its FLAT BATTERY. And there were 2 more whistling kites circling nice and low on the other side of the road.
I have to keep going back so I can get my exposure issues sorted (that's my story anyway) - all the photos are too dark. I am using shutter priority. The first photo was taken at f/5.6 1/1000 sec ISO 100 at 400 mm at about 4:10 pm. Any thoughts, Canon users? (or anyone else)
juvenile white-bellied sea eagle
whistling kite
whistling kite
Nice shots Birdgirl....I can't help you on technical issues though, I know as much about camera's as I do about flying the NASA space shuttle.
OR backing up road trains Tassie ;')
kim are you using the histogram in your camera to check how you are going with exposure? Akos is always telling me to remember to do it and I still seriously underexpose all the time. if you press the display button a few times while you are on playback it should bring up the view with the histo on the left hand side of the rear screen. Most canons are the same on basic stuff so I would presume yours is no different to mine with regards to this. For a good exposure you need the peaks to be over to the right side of the histogram. buggered if I know how people do it ... I never seem to have enough light . When using shutter priority set your camera to over expos by 1/3 of a stop, and keep checking to see if there are any flashing numbers in the viewfinder which will indicate the wrong exposure. Hope this helps
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Nothing wrong with these, Kim. If you are shooting into a bright(ish) sky and you subject is dark(ish), plus you are using one of the semi-automatic modes, you may wish to dial up some exposure compensation. The camera is setting exposure for the bright sky and the result is an under-exposed subject. Dial up +1 exposure compensation via the thumbwheel on the back of the camera and see how you go (camera instructions will outline this feature. I have the 40D so I don't know whether the 7D is the same). You can adjust, one way or the other, when you see the result. My recommendation is to shoot in 'Manual' mode so that you determine the exposure and can compensate for darker/lighter subjects. It may take a little time to fine-tune but it is very worthwhile. Hope this helps.
.
You have been posting some ripper BoP images. Keep 'em comin'.
.
Cheers,
.
George
Cheers,
George
Melbourne, VIC
Sorry birdie, we must have posted together. Yes, when you become more familiar with your camera, Kim, always set the preview function to show the histogram and the highlight alert. As birdie said, above, you should set the exposure so that the peak in the histogram is as far to the right as possible without over-exposing the subject. The highlight alert will show which part(s) of the subject is/are over-exposed. The added advantage of proper exposure is low noise images. I hope that I have not confused you.
.
Cheers,
.
George
Cheers,
George
Melbourne, VIC
Oh and don't feel like the nong of the week Kim, not only did I underexpose all my shots at the beach the 2nd day, using a polarising filter, but I also got it stuck on there and couldn't get it off! AS for flat batteries....that is nothing, full cards, wrong size settings, no card...we have all done it at some time ... I know I certainly have ;')
Sunshine Coast Queensland
:lol: Yes, we've all been there, birdie. I've had two fully-charged batteries and about 8GB of empty CF cards..... at home. No good to me when I'm about 100km from home!
.
Another tip from me..... disable the ability to shoot without a memory card in the camera. No point taking a string of shots of that rare bird unless you have a card in the camera. Yep, been there too.
Cheers,
George
Melbourne, VIC
oh yes George..that last one is a must!!! I nearly changed it when i was trying to test something without taking anything today and then I remembered what it is like to find the "no card " thing after you have shot the world's best shot !
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Hey just re read your post Kim.... I would say never to use ISO 100 when shooting at 1/1000th. I underexposed in bright sunlight this week with a PL filter ( 2 stops) and 1/640 all because I had it on 200 ISO
Sunshine Coast Queensland
at least you walked away with good shots of both birdgirl. It could have been worse with the battery flat before any shots.
Whistling kites are wonderful birds and i love your shots.
Cheers, Owen.
Hi birdgirl. Your photos aren't too underexposed. All the people here have given you the right advice. I am a NIkon user but the rpinciples are the same. One thing I will suggest that hasn't been suggested is that you can also try center weighted or spot metering. I am suggesting this but I don't normally use it. Reason being is that I manually under or overexpose depending on the situation. Give it a shot though. It will be better than using average metering for BIF especially against the bright sky.
I was born to live and I live to die.
Yes ALex I have been advised to do that too off F& Ph forum. I use centre weighted but have some esp compensation dialled in to make up for what the camera may do. With experience you can judge which scenes are going to produce the underexposed shot....not that it works for me most of the time! I also use the extra partial metering button just next to your trigger thumb area.... just to make sure that it switches to the centre subject only. this is all very well but when you are tracking a BOP flying with the wind across your line of vision and against a blue sky .... well it is trial and error I guess !
Sunshine Coast Queensland
What a great word 'nong' ill use that. Nice photos Birdgirl.
Very nice Kim. Here are a couple of tips. Though remember, these are generally what settings I use, and it's not the be all end all!
I use Av mode, Evaluative metering. When shooting against the sky, I generally overexpose by at least one stop, sometimes three stops if it's a white, cloudy sky (in case of three stops, I use manual mode, as I can only compensate +/- 2 stops), this means shutter speeds get slower, so that's when I bump my ISO up to 800 to gain shutter speed. If your shoot to the right exposure (shooting RAW files) is good (meaning you bunch the histogram to the right, with minimal, or no, clipping of whites), you can then correct exposure (i.e. decrease, while converting the file to a working tiff file in photoshop.
Well done overall, just shoot lots and hard!
Forget ISO100 for birds Kim, just read that. You want SHUTTER SPEED. Good exposure (to the right) working with RAW files will quickly get you into 400-800 territory. Also, you have a 7D right? In that case, don't use intermittent ISOs, like 250, 320, 500, 640 etc as they are not true ISOs as such, but software generated. :) I had my 30D for over five years and have used ISO100 I think a few times, generally shooting at 400-800! :)