Never done any serious wildlife photography but on the weekend I wanted to try out my new Oly 70 - 300 so took it and tripod for a walk.
Things I learnt.
On the way back I passed the local fishing club complete with flying herons and gulls. Letting the dog off the lead was not an option so I switched to CAF and burst mode to track them. I was impressed at how many of these were in focus and tack sharp (well what did you expect at 1/3000th if the focus is right
). But hardly any (ok none) keepers because they all had a perfectly exposed grey (but bright) sky.
I could bring the detail out nicely in the birds by pushing the exposure by an average of 3 - 4 EV. Course this made them unacceptably noisy.
So how do you guys expose for this type of shot - go for the bird and fix the blown sky in PP or go for somewhere in the middle. My guess is go for the bird but interested to hear what you would do.
Things I learnt.
- Don't take the dog (never actually used the tripod cos of his patience levels)
- Don't rely on auto exposure (again dog in one hand - camera in t'other)
- IS works well
- Lens is good but avoid its extremities
- 2 times crop factor on the four thirds actually makes this a pretty long lens
- AF is pretty good and fast (single spot)
On the way back I passed the local fishing club complete with flying herons and gulls. Letting the dog off the lead was not an option so I switched to CAF and burst mode to track them. I was impressed at how many of these were in focus and tack sharp (well what did you expect at 1/3000th if the focus is right
). But hardly any (ok none) keepers because they all had a perfectly exposed grey (but bright) sky.I could bring the detail out nicely in the birds by pushing the exposure by an average of 3 - 4 EV. Course this made them unacceptably noisy.
So how do you guys expose for this type of shot - go for the bird and fix the blown sky in PP or go for somewhere in the middle. My guess is go for the bird but interested to hear what you would do.