Birds

[Artshot]

Left the macro lens at home today and took out my vintage 300mm f/4.5 manual focus. My biggest problems have to do with exposure, and not so much focus. The eagle is a classic example. I had lots of time to set whatever I wanted before scaring him out of the tree.
Set pinpoint metering, and turned the exposure to +1. Still get an underexposed photo. I did remember to set my camera to take RAW photos, but it's going to be awhile before I get into new software.

[Manfred M]

The metering issue you are having with the eagle is pretty typical of what one gets when shooting into the sky. Your camera's light meter gives pretty good results when the scene is "average", but when you shoot at the sky, which is relatively bright it will tend to underexpose the scene. That's what your exposure compensation is all about and it really takes a bit of experience and a bit of trial and error to figure out how much exposure compensation to dial in. I tend to shoot to the histogram in situations where the lighting is strange, ensuring that I don't clip the highlights or crush the shadow detail, so much as I can.

All that the spot metering mode does for you is takes the reading at that point, and if it happens to equate to about 18% gray, then the exposure will be "correct", otherwise the reading will be high or low and your exposure will be off.

[Wavelength]

Who is that fish catcher, i wonder!!! all images look nice to me; you got the eye contact with eagle which is a plus point

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[Artshot]

Thanks for the replies. I believe thats a Merganser with the large fish.

I was hoping there was some technique to turn easy bird in flight photos into something worth keeping. Seems only right that all the great shots are difficult and hard to come by. Just don't have the patience to be in those places at this time of year.

[NorthernFocus]

....I was hoping there was some technique to turn easy bird in flight photos into something worth keeping...

Using manual exposure is the best bet. Expose for the bird and settle for whatever you get on the surroundings and "correct" as much as you can/want with PP.

By "pin point metering" in the OP I assume you were referring to spot metering. Whatever you did the WB/color is way off as well as the exposure. With the eagle in the tree you could have taken the time to shoot, check histogram, adjust, and re-shoot until you got the exposure where you wanted it.

[rpcrowe]

Most, if not all, relatively modern DSLR cameras have exposure bracketing capability, giving you one shot over, one shot under and one shot right at what the meter is reading. You can with most cameras play with this bracketing by adding + or - exposure compensation. All Canon DSLR cameras (and I think, some other brand cameras) will, if exposure compensation AND burst mode is selected will shoot the bracketed shots in sequence and then stop shooting until the shutter button pressed again. It is easy as pie and can pretty well be an insurance policy against under or over exposure.

I really don't know why so few photographers use bracketing in cases where exposure could be a bit chancy. Perhaps because they consider it unprofessional Well, National Geographic photographers were bracketing their exposures in the 1960's and 1970's and no one thought them "unprofessional" for doing so It was a lot more expensive to bracket with film than to digitally backet...

Some photographers state that bracketing uses too much memory both memory card and hard drive. IMO, memory cards of today are dirt cheap and once you have determined "keepers", you can easily delete the rejects from your hard drive... Some photographers claim that bracketing slows down their workflow because of the extra imagery to look at. But, using Adobe Bridge or Lightroom, I can cull through my images quickly and consign the rejects to the trash equally as easily...

Do I use AEB all the time? Certainly not! Do I use AEB when burst shooting action? heck no! However, when the exposure is tricky, am I ashamed to use AEB? Certainly NOT.

[Artshot]

I used spot metering for the eagle in the tree, which was a mistake. What I don't do enough of is check my photos and adjust. So it's time to start packing along a pair of reading glasses. It's also time to start making notes and some quick reference cards as my memory isn't much better than my eye site.
I appreciate all the advise and ideas on using the camera. I'm willing to go to great lengths to avoid excessive post processing.

[xpatUSA]

I used spot metering for the eagle in the tree, which was a mistake.

As a center-spot-metering only practitioner, I'm not convinced that it was a mistake. How big is the "spot" for your camera? Was the eagle "bigger" than your spot? If the eagle was "smaller", then that would have been a mistake as bits of sky and bright bark crept into your spot.

Perhaps an incident light-meter would have served better if the eagle and your good self were under the same light.

[george013]

I used spot metering for the eagle in the tree, which was a mistake. What I don't do enough of is check my photos and adjust. So it's time to start packing along a pair of reading glasses. It's also time to start making notes and some quick reference cards as my memory isn't much better than my eye site.
I appreciate all the advise and ideas on using the camera. I'm willing to go to great lengths to avoid excessive post processing.

You probably metered the white head of the eagle. That should be in the right side in the histogram but by spotmetering it's in the middle. So underexposed.

George

[Artshot]

This works. Trying out my new flash with macro when this Harrier was spotted. Just had time to pop off the diffuser, spin the focus to infinity, turn the aperture to f/4 and shoot.
This photo is cropped 95% with a 200mm lens, so the Harrier was a long ways off.
Should be able to get some good shots at half the distance.