Wildlife Photography

[BrandonsBirbs]

It sounds like the issue you are having is bad exposures (assuming it is overexposure blowing out the highlights on the birds?)

Yeah, overexposure on the white birds and underexposure on the black birds such as Jackdaws and Crows which are our main bird around here.

I would recommend always using evaluative metering (matrix in your camera I think).

Yes it's called matrix, thank you.

I would also leave the shake reduction on when handholding, unless it is causing you problems. This way you can use slower shutter speeds when necessary and still get sharp images.

I'm not sure but this is a guess, the shake reduction with the Bigma didn't seem to help only take away from the images however my new glass is Pentax so maybe itd work best with the inbuilt SR? Worth a try thank you!

I use the same settings as you. 1/400 or more for stationary and 1/2000 or more for BIF. Auto ISO and Auto aperture.

I've never had a camera that got the exposure perfect on light colored birds in full sun.

Okay it's not just me, good!!

Anytime the bird has a light color on it and the sun is out the camera will almost always overexpose the image and blow the highlights. You correct this by lowering the exposure compensation by around 2/3rds of a stop. I pretty much leave my exposure compensation at this most of the time. Sometimes you have to lower it more and occasionally you don't need to lower it at all.

You always want to take one image of your subject then look at the image and make sure there are no blinkies (highlights blown out). If there are you lower the exposure compensation until you do not clip the highlights. Then in post processing you can add some exposure back to the overall image then reduce the highlights so the bright whites do not get blown out.

This sounds great, thank you so much Dee's this is what I needed! Appreciate the information as always!

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

This is true but also getting the wings in the position you like best requires those extra shots most of the time. I never could get wings in flight like I could a still object. Matrix should get most of those frame in flight in focus. I was shooting a Nikon D500 @10 frames a second so that is very similar to you K3 for fps. Hope you get the combo you need. I quit shooting about 2 years ago. I may shoot some here with my chickens but no more wildlife chasing. Age has taken a toll.

I do feel as though I'm much better at tracking and panning when it comes to BIF, I can manage to get a few in focus shots but they're usually so over or under exposed even editing can't save them. I'm glad you always recommend matrix metering, nice to know it's a collective choice. Thank you very much, sorry to hear that but I'm sure you shot some great shots

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Some of my shots when it goes right, all from last Saturday

 

[mdees88]

Yeah, overexposure on the white birds and underexposure on the black birds such as Jackdaws and Crows which are our main bird around here.

I have to adjust my exposure compensation to some degree about 90% of the time. Dark birds with bright backgrounds get underexposed and bright birds with dark backgrounds get overexposed. Here are some examples where I had to adjust the exposure compensation...

In this osprey image you can see I had the exposure compensation set to -.7 (which is -2/3rds). Unfortunately it was not enough. I tried to fix it the best I could in lightroom but the whites on top of the head are clearly blown out. I should have set it to -1 1/3rds.

In this image the background was bright and the bird was dark which means the camera will most likely underexpose the image. So I set my exposure compensation to +2/3rds. This will slighrly overexpose the background but the bird is exposed properly (could have raised it a little more too).

The same in this image. I had to set it at + 1 2/3rds to show some details in the darker areas of the cormorant. I probably could've bumped it up a tad more.

You always want to take a test shot as soon as you can and see how your exposure is. You can look for blinkies if your camera shows them or you can look at the histogram and make sure you have data in all sections without having any data at the far right or left sides meaning either the highlights or shadows are getting clipped. But in high key and low key images, you will have data up against the edge and you really have to look at your subject to make sure it is exposed properly.

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

I have to adjust my exposure compensation to some degree about 90% of the time. Dark birds with bright backgrounds get underexposed and bright birds with dark backgrounds get overexposed. Here are some examples where I had to adjust the exposure compensation...

In this osprey image you can see I had the exposure compensation set to -.7 (which is -2/3rds). Unfortunately it was not enough. I tried to fix it the best I could in lightroom but the whites on top of the head are clearly blown out. I should have set it to -1 1/3rds.

View attachment 3527527

In this image the background was bright and the bird was dark which means the camera will most likely underexpose the image. So I set my exposure compensation to +2/3rds. It blows the background out but the bird is exposed properly (could have raised it a little more too).

View attachment 3527528

The same in this image. I had to set it at + 1 2/3rds to show some details in the darker areas of the cormorant. I probably could've bumped it up a tad more.

View attachment 3527529


You always want to take a test shot as soon as you can and see how your exposure is. You can look for blinkies if your camera shows them or you can look at the histogram and make sure you have data in all sections without having any data at the far right or left sides meaning either the highlights or shadows are getting clipped. But in high key and low key images, you will have data up against the edge and you really have to look at your subject to make sure it is exposed properly.

Brilliant examples, really well written, thank you dude. Does go to show I need to stop being so lazy sometimes and actually check, my camera does should blinkies and histogram (wish viewfinder could show histogram on the go I love that idea). I did a few shots yesterday and even in sun had to go +2 EV, but when a white aeroplane flew past it was overexposed because I didn't change back down.

After doing some shake reduction tests I believe it works very well with this new glass but I need to find more info on what shutter speeds it works on because I don't think it worked for the BIF I saw or a shot with 1/1000s shutter speed.

I'm curious how you would've edited the second photo, would you have replaced the background with something or just left it completely white? I'm so scared to overexpose or underexpose the background as it previously gave my birds halos, doesn't seem to be the case with this glass.

Thank you, as always. You're a legend, my man.

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Anyone aware of any camera mount external monitors which are pretty budget priced? I've been turned off a bit by the instant cameras and think i would get more use from one of these. Looking under £200 ($250-300) preferably. Ain't gotta be the best but any thought would be fab. Cheers all

 

[Nomadicus]

Anyone aware of any camera mount external monitors which are pretty budget priced? I've been turned off a bit by the instant cameras and think i would get more use from one of these. Looking under £200 ($250-300) preferably. Ain't gotta be the best but any thought would be fab. Cheers all

It's been years since I looked at them. I think they are mostly used for video. I wanted one so I could see better but they were not budget friendly enough back then. At least now the displays on camera are a little larger. Hope you find something that works for you now.

 

[mdees88]

I'm curious how you would've edited the second photo, would you have replaced the background with something or just left it completely white? I'm so scared to overexpose or underexpose the background as it previously gave my birds halos, doesn't seem to be the case with this glass.

The last two photos have minimal editing. For me, they will never be great because of the bland, featureless sky backgrounds. If I were to do anything else with them it would be turning them into high key images by raising the background exposure some more in lightroom which would make the background completely white. Like in these photos....

I don't think there should be any halos in your original images regardless of whether they are under or overexposed slightly, but if you are making masks in lightroom and trying to adjust the background exposure only, you can definitely get "halos" that way if the mask is not exact. That might have just been an issue with your other lens.

Ideally you want both the bird and the background exposed properly. When you are shooting in good light that coming from behind you, most of the time they should be pretty close (unless the bird or background is in a shadow). But obviously the subject is more important than the background. As camera technology has improved so has the dynamic range. The more dynamic range you have, the larger the difference between bright and dark arears your camera can record. This also means (as long as my ISO is low) I can underexpose the image in camera and then add a lot exposure back in lightroom without adding much extra noise or IQ loss. But you always want to get it as close to correct in the field as possible.

All I care about is getting the subject exposed properly in camera. With the birds I shoot, and in the light I shoot, I am almost always lowering the EV to -2/3 to protect the bright whites in ospreys, pelicans, and killdeer (any bird with white in it). If I want a lighter or darker background I will try and move my position in the field to get it. Then I will fine tune it in lightroom. If was shooting darker birds that were flying with a bright sky background I would have to add maybe +1EV or more, but honestly I don't want to take a pic of a bird flying in a featureless sky because the background will be bland and boring no matter what. So I will try to position myself where I can get eyelevel with a bird that's flying lower so I can get some kind of landscape in the background which will make for a better and image and I won't have to change the EV as much.

As far as external monitors go, most all the youtube photographers are using Atomos Ninja's. They are $300-500 though plus more for batteries, cables, memory cards, etc. A lot of people use them for shooting video but the photographers are using them to record their screens so they can show us what they are seeing while they are taking images. The issues are they are quite big and they take external batteries which can be heavy and make them a little cumbersome. Jan Wegener just posted a video a while back about a cheaper one a company sent him and I think he liked it. Not sure if it will work with your camera though because he uses Canon. He talks about it in this video at 04:05...

 

[casportpony]

Some of my shots when it goes right, all from last Saturday

Excellent!

 

[casportpony]

Very interesting take on AI & photos.