Photographing birds over water and spot metering

[Brownbear]

This morning I gave it another try using matrix metering and the 51 point focus... This time I staked out the water to see where all the funky reflections were and tried to avoid them (not always easy, as there are tall rusty reddish posts in the background reflected in the water)

Andre.. if you are reading the tide was low so I was able to get closer and lower down, and I got very dirty In fact, I was quite a sight on the bus ride back home. Closer would be better but the rocks are slippery and I can't risk falling in the water as I can't afford a new camera.

For Joe..
Manual Matrix Metering 2500 SS F8 (extender on camera) Exp Comp +1 iso auto to a max of 3200... 52 focus points.

Sometimes the shots went as high as 3200 iso which means at full size I have noise and I am going to have to figure out how to edit it out... But overall the auto iso seems to work well most of the time. The only thing I am not crazy about is the 52 focus points because the camera grabs focus where it wants, sometimes on the head but sometimes on the wing or body... I will give it another week trying this type of focus...


Over water...

Image 1



Image 2




Image 3



Image 4



My favourite shot



And a few more shots which are okay...


Image 5



Image 6



Image 7



Image 8



Image 9


And just for fun...





PS

Joe, you see I manage to clip wings no matter what type of of focusing I use.

Dave, all numbered :

[nimitzbenedicto]

This morning I gave it another try using matrix metering and the 51 point focus... ...

Manual Matrix Metering 2500 SS F8 (extender on camera) Exp Comp +1 iso auto to a max of 3200... 52 focus points.

The only thing I am not crazy about is the 52 focus points because the camera grabs focus where it wants, sometimes on the head but sometimes on the wing or body... I will give it another week trying this type of focus...

:

Wow, clear and sharp BIF images.......

btw, I'll be following your results with that 51 focus pts. setting. I'd like to know how you solve it.
I also have the same prob with my D300's 51 focus pts. which seem to be jumping around the frame. hehehe......

Thanks

[jprzybyla]

Much better than your first set. I really like images 7 & 8. Study these images, nice light, sharp with good detail. Regarding cutting off the wings I think the tele-converter may be part of the problem, it may fill the viewfinder too much. If I remember correctly you have a Tamron 100-400. Shooting with that lens at the 1.3 crop mode of the D7100 would give you a full frame equivalent of 530mm, more than enough for most birds in flight and for stationary birds. Another consideration is that any time you put something on the front of the lens or between the lens and the camera you loose some acuity. A tele-converter may allow you to have more reach but the image is softened by the addition of it. In another post you mentioned your focus points jumping around, with my D7000 I have only seen that happen when I was using 3-D Dynamic area. I use another setting called Dynamic Area which makes all 39 of my focus points available but I only see the center focus point in the viewfinder when shooting. When shooting flying birds I put the center focus point on the body where the wings are and rely on the aperture of f8 to provide enough depth of field for sharp detail of the head. Setting your camera to the 1.3 crop mode with your 400mm lens with give you a depth of field of 4.3 feet for a bird 75 feet away, more than enough for the whole bird to be in sharp focus for most birds.

[NorthernFocus]

Hey, Christina. Somehow I missed this thread until now. Well you are definitely holding the birds in the viewfinder. Focus looks pretty good on all of these. The front bird slipping out of DOF on no.8 but keeping multiple birds within DOF is really difficult. Nos. 7,8, and 9 the birds are best exposed out of this lot. Study your settings and what is in the frame of each image and see if it makes sense to you why all the other ones are over exposed. Remember you have to think like the camera meter which wants to turn the world grey. Trick is you have to remember what the scenes looked like in person, not what the captured images look like because they are the cameras version of a "corrected" view.

Joe, regarding your advice for using the 1.3 crop mode, the 7100 doesn't grey out the rest of the frame like higher end cameras. It just provides a little outline showing you the cropped framing. Anyone who can concentrate on that while doing all of the other simultaneous tasks involved in shooting BIF is way above my skill level. Then again I can't text and drive at the same time either so maybe it's just me

BTW, Christina, training wild geese in synchronized flight like in the first three shots may be illegal in Canada

[Brownbear]

Thank you Victor... I will experiment with this method for another week or two and then switch back to single point and let you know... Likely my next post will be in a new thread as I have eagles, bears, geese and herons on the go as mini project 52s, and they are starting to get confusing... It's enough that I've showed improvements.

Joe... As always thank you for your help and advice. If I could insert a heart/thank you symbol I would do just that.

That you and Dan are preferring #7 and #8 over my favourites perhaps including #6 and maybe #4 for the light and detail on the wings is a surprise. I will study those images.

I purchased a new better lens a Nikon fixed 300 mm and a teleconverter. (my other lens was a push pull 200-400 mm) so it is better for light but I lost the option of zooming in and out... I will skip the teleconverter next time around.

I am using that dynamic area focus setting that works so well for you, and I will experiment with it for another week or so... I guess I think my best shots are when I have been able to place focus on the eye. So we will see... LOL

Dan... Thank you so much for your critique and advice. In the overexposed images, I exposed for the birds and saw only a wee bit of clipping in the white bits of the geese... Without the exposure comp my histogram was at the dark end.. With these the histogram was in the middle, and towards the right... In LR the auto button definitely wanted to bring the exposure down but I left it pretty much as is.

I will review but I think it is just the water that is overexposed and the white bits of the geese but not the actual geese?

Thank you for some great advice.. Synchronized Wild Geese in Flight by Christina... Great idea and it sure sounds like a lot of fun!

[Brownbear]

With respect to exposure I'm curious if I am now overexposing my birds

Goose straight from the camera (raw unedited) downsized to 1200 pixels



After hitting Auto WB and Auto in LR



Which is the better shot, or is it somewhere in between?
Thank you.

[NorthernFocus]

Hey, Christina. I wouldn't say you are overexposing in camera. I'd say to captured good data to work with. You succeeded in shooting to the right on the histogram without blowing anything out. But processing is definitely needed to represent reality. Don't get to hung up on the technical. Which one looks more natural to you? IMO the edited version is closer the mark, maybe slightly dark. But that doesn't mean you didn't make a good capture unless your goal is zero processing. I think you are doing pretty darn well and advancing your skills rapidly.

Here is what I came up with while you were posting you last one. I don't have any tools on this machine other than ViewNX which doesn't do much with jpegs.

[Brownbear]

Hi Dan,

Thank you for doing this... Truly appreciated and very helpful for me to see. Yes, I'm exposing to the right on purpose but maybe a bit too much... I like to do as little processing as possible but I know I need to learn to do this well.

Somewhere in between them all. Your edit seems a bit dark and the rocks a bit green but I'm not sure... The river ends on the ocean so I think the water looks blue depending on the spot and lighting. I will have to return and take another look. I can see that my goose was lighter than he should've been

Thank you.

[Cantab]

BTW, Christina, training wild geese in synchronized flight like in the first three shots may be illegal in Canada

I loved the synchronized geese! I noted that the right hand goose in image 3 is checking on his pals to make sure they stay in sync.

My favourite image out of this set is probably #8.

I'm following your experience with multiple focus points closely. My Canon has only 9 or 11 points, quite a different proposition from 51 which presumably are able to stay focussed on a moving target. I took some flying bird shots last week at the raptor centre I visited. The background on all of them was vegetation, not sky, so in the end I manually focussed on where I anticipated the bird would be, so that the camera did not try to focus on the vegetation.

I can see multiple focus points could be very useful if the background is all sky that the camera won't try to lock onto but maybe not otherwise? But then I've still a lot to learn. Thanks again for starting what is a very educational thread.

[Brownbear]

Thank you, Bruce. There is no doubt that I will be trying for this type of shot again. The nice thing about geese is that they usually honk a lot before they take flight.

Very helpful to hear.

Yes, the manual says 51 points is good for BIF in the sky... I will have to try your technique, too.

It's nice to hear that. I also learn by reading other peoples threads.

PS I have not forgotten about finding a slug... It hasn't rained in Vancouver for quite some time, but as soon as it does I will find a slug, and it is inevitable that the rains will return... I think a better title for that type of thread would be slugs, snakes, spiders and anything slithery... ie; more options

[Brownbear]

Two new edits decreasing the exposure as shot... I think these are an improvement. Thank you Joe and Dan for your help.




The WB is the same in both photos but I think the water is greener because of all the seaweed on the rocks.