The birds they mock me
Discussion
Tony1963 said:
Cheers - couldn't believe my luck when I spotted it, nice and close with the sun at my back for once 
mikef said:
I like that; some of us are further down the learning curve 
Just for guidance then, mine are all taken with a Canon 100-500mm with 1.4x giving 700mm, on a full frame mirrorless. Max aperture is then F10. I change the shutter speed depending on available light and whether it’s bird in flight or not. I like 1/2000 sec once the light is good, for either scenario. Obviously I try to keep the ISO low, but DXO Pure Raw does an excellent job of removing noise in processing.
Tony1963 said:
mikef said:
I like that; some of us are further down the learning curve
Just for guidance then, mine are all taken with a Canon 100-500mm with 1.4x giving 700mm, on a full frame mirrorless. Max aperture is then F10. I change the shutter speed depending on available light and whether it’s bird in flight or not. I like 1/2000 sec once the light is good, for either scenario. Obviously I try to keep the ISO low, but DXO Pure Raw does an excellent job of removing noise in processing.
mikef said:
Thanks - do you hand-hold those long lenses? Many of these don't look like shots that you could spend a long time setting up a tripod when the subject shows up, or is it setting up then being patient ?
All mine are handheld. The 100-500 is surprisingly light, but the downside of smaller lumps of glass is the smaller max aperture. Not the issue with mirrorless that is is with dSLR when it comes to autofocus. My set up is very similar to Smollet's and Tony's.
Canon R5 with a 100-500 RF lens, all these shots are as wide open as the focal length will allow. On that lens at 500mm that means f7.1.
I adjust the ISO to give me whatever I feel will be sufficiently fast shutter speed for the shot - the combination of in-body & in-lens image stabilisation means for a stationary bird (as much as they ever are stationary) I'm usually happy with anything around 1/200 or faster, even at 500mm. If I want to freeze movement I'll adjust accordingly.
Like Tony I use DxO Pure Raw to remove noise if I've had to use a higher ISO - i think it's brilliant, but unless you're very patient you'll need a laptop / desktop with a decent chip to run any volume of shots through it as it can be very slow.
All my shots are handheld.
Again like Tony I have a 1.4x unit for the lens, but I very rarely find myself using it - the resolution on the R5's sensor is sufficiently good that I'm happy to crop in post processing (all of my shots above are cropped to some degree). There is some debate online about which option gives the best shots (whether what you gain in number of pixels engaged using the 1.4x you end up losing via resolution losses through the extra glass and being unable to stop down lower than f10 etc) I can't be be bothered pursuing my own research on this right now as I'm happy enough cropping in post, as described. Tony - I'd be interested in your experience / comparisons here as you've obviously gone the other route?
As with any other type of photography there's no doubt that having appropriate gear helps, my ratio of keepers has gone up massively since moving to my current set up - in particular the autofocus (especially the eye tracking servo) you get with R bodies and RF lenses is fantastic. But again like any other form of photography sometimes it's more about being in the right place at the right time. I've set up a bird feeding station right outside my kitchen window - primarily because I just like seeing them, but it definitely helps me get some good shots if I'm in the mood to pick up the camera. Time (and lots of missed shots) means I've got a better idea of how to be in the right place at the right time, but clearly there's plenty of blind luck involved too. Enjoy your learning - I definitely still am!
Canon R5 with a 100-500 RF lens, all these shots are as wide open as the focal length will allow. On that lens at 500mm that means f7.1.
I adjust the ISO to give me whatever I feel will be sufficiently fast shutter speed for the shot - the combination of in-body & in-lens image stabilisation means for a stationary bird (as much as they ever are stationary) I'm usually happy with anything around 1/200 or faster, even at 500mm. If I want to freeze movement I'll adjust accordingly.
Like Tony I use DxO Pure Raw to remove noise if I've had to use a higher ISO - i think it's brilliant, but unless you're very patient you'll need a laptop / desktop with a decent chip to run any volume of shots through it as it can be very slow.
All my shots are handheld.
Again like Tony I have a 1.4x unit for the lens, but I very rarely find myself using it - the resolution on the R5's sensor is sufficiently good that I'm happy to crop in post processing (all of my shots above are cropped to some degree). There is some debate online about which option gives the best shots (whether what you gain in number of pixels engaged using the 1.4x you end up losing via resolution losses through the extra glass and being unable to stop down lower than f10 etc) I can't be be bothered pursuing my own research on this right now as I'm happy enough cropping in post, as described. Tony - I'd be interested in your experience / comparisons here as you've obviously gone the other route?
As with any other type of photography there's no doubt that having appropriate gear helps, my ratio of keepers has gone up massively since moving to my current set up - in particular the autofocus (especially the eye tracking servo) you get with R bodies and RF lenses is fantastic. But again like any other form of photography sometimes it's more about being in the right place at the right time. I've set up a bird feeding station right outside my kitchen window - primarily because I just like seeing them, but it definitely helps me get some good shots if I'm in the mood to pick up the camera. Time (and lots of missed shots) means I've got a better idea of how to be in the right place at the right time, but clearly there's plenty of blind luck involved too. Enjoy your learning - I definitely still am!
Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff