/p/ - Photography » Thread #295093

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Anonymous Mon 17 Nov 2008 07:10:00 No.295093 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By:

CC? I'm trying to get better at photographing waterfowl and shorebirds, some turn out clear others seem to turn into fuzzy messes on the water. My equipment isn't great (a200 with a 210mm Minolta Beercan), nor is the platform (government truck, I'm snapping shots as I drive around the saltmarsh and stopping with a tripod setup in the middle of checking water gauges with 2 dozen old birders snooping around might not be in my best intrest).

11Equipment MakeSONYCamera ModelDSLR-A200Camera SoftwareDSLR-A200 v1.00Maximum Lens Aperturef/4.0Focal Length (35mm Equiv)315 mm111Image OrientationTop, Left-HandHorizontal Resolution72 dpiVertical Resolution72 dpiImage Created2008:11:14 10:11:03Exposure Time1/320 secF-Numberf/4.5Exposure ProgramNormal ProgramISO Speed Rating100Brightness7.9 EVExposure Bias0 EVMetering ModePatternLight SourceUnknownFlashNo Flash, CompulsoryFocal Length210.00 mmColor Space InformationsRGBImage Width3872Image Height2592RenderingNormalExposure ModeAutoWhite BalanceAutoScene Capture TypeStandardContrastNormalSaturationNormalSharpnessNormal1

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 17 Nov 2008 07:13:00 No.295095 Report

Quoted By:

you have to try, otherwise you will end up with underexposed pictures of ducks, without much compositional thought either.
Spend some of your time off actually "birding" and you will end up with 100x times better pictures than shots from your truck.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 17 Nov 2008 07:14:00 No.295096 Report

Quoted By:

They're blurry because you're shooting them from a moving vehicle. Go on a weekend and try it. Get low to the ground and try and fill the frame with just one or two birds. Don't include any half-birds or quarter-birds, it looks sloppy. Shoot on a sunny day or learn to post-process.

Also, resize.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 17 Nov 2008 07:25:00 No.295103 Report

Quoted By: >>295112 >>295113

OP here, I know composition is lacking, especially when all my shots are "oh crap, lemme stop the truck and snap a pic before they swim away from the roadside" 9/10 times. However, there are a few windowpane spotting scope mounts sitting around the office, would that at least help vs hands?

NatureGuy !se3A3TwzdY

NatureGuy !se3A3TwzdY Mon 17 Nov 2008 07:31:00 No.295112 Report

Quoted By: >>295135

>>295103
You could try the rice or bean bag trick. Though most use it for while in motion car shots you could use it for sitting your truck. Just fill a bag, prefably cloth so it'll have some give, mostly full with rice or beans from the super market.

In general, anything you can attach or rest your camera on will benefit your shots.

You could also bump your ISO up to 400, just make sure you're getting good exposure. Set you camera to show you the histogram after each shot. What you want is a graph with most of the marks in the middle but with the graph touching at either end. If you have to pick one side or the other, generally allowing your image to lack to true blacks (the left side) and then correcting in photoshop will give you better results than the opposite, though it is rather rare when you can do that.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 17 Nov 2008 07:31:00 No.295113 Report

Quoted By:

>>295103
for outdoors, you shouldn't really need any stability with a 210mm lens. Your shutter speeds even at ISO 200 f5.6 (I assume the A200 minimum is 200) you should be able to get shutter speeds in the 1/400 range on an average day.

The real trick is getting close enough with that lens, hence the need to leave the truck.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 17 Nov 2008 07:57:00 No.295135 Report

Quoted By: >>295154

>>295112

OP, I guess I'll try the beanbag along with the window clamp and see what works best from the truck. As for the histogram, basically I want a bell-curvish graph?

Einta !!MWv3ICYobCM

Einta !!MWv3ICYobCM Mon 17 Nov 2008 08:21:00 No.295154 Report

Quoted By: >>295161

>>295135
For histogram you just want to avoid blowing out (so don't have a huge spike at the far right edge) and have decent exposure values across (so don't have everything far to the left).

Ideal:
____-----_

Blown to hell - unrecoverable:
__________-

Dark enough to require a significant push (barring photos you want to be quite dark, blah blah blah)
---________

To note with digital histograms:
You can pull down (reduce exposure) easily, UNLESS you've blown the image.

You can push up (increase exposure), but this will make noise _very_ visible.

As long as you're not blowing, overexposing is better than underexposing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 17 Nov 2008 08:28:00 No.295161 Report

Quoted By:

>>295154

k, gotcha. Well, tomorrow I'll give this all a try and I'll post results. I'll try biking to the spots now and camp out so the ducks aren't spooked so much.

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