Best mode fro Wildlife Photography? AV, TV, P...Manual!

jcoutts

jcoutts

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Hi,

Been tryng to get some pics of wild birds. Robins, Blue Tits etc... Trapesing around my local park trying to get the little buggers!. I can hear them but they don't sit still for long

Anyway, wasn't really sure what mode to put the camera in so I started in "P" or program mode - not too bad did a fairly good job but then I noticed on playback (Image Info) that the shutter speeds being used for my shaky hand and 300mm telephoto seemed to be a bit low. The photos weren't bad but I wanted to make sure they were sharp and in focus - If I got any worth keeping that is..:lol:

So I put the camera in "TV" mode, pushed the shutter speed up to about 1/400 and ISO 400.... But then if the bird was like in a tree, in the thicket of the tree the exposure was too dark, so then I have to push the ISO to 800. So then we have noise to start worrying about. :bang:

If the bird was say on an outlying branch, or at the top of the tree it was O.K.

I was just curious to know what mode you guys use when your taking these kind of pics. :shrug:

Needless to say my expedition wasn't too successful. :help:
 
I tend to use Av for most things but Tv if I want to control the shutter speed to blur wings etc.

Oh, and I usually use a tripod...
 
From your signature I deduced that you must be using the Siggy 70-300 for your bird photography. While being a good starting point for bird photography, you will soon find the small aperture of this lens a very limiting factor for bird photography. Working with long lenses definitely means that every camera movement is exaggerated and you are right to want to use fast shutterspeeds for handheld photos. The other problem with this lens is the softness at the long end. You deffinitely need f/8 or smaller apertures to get sharp results from this lens at the 300mm end. Which means even slower shutterspeeds and/or higher ISO values.

For bird photography, if you want consistency with the results you get, you will definitely need to invest both money and time. I too used to just walk around in the park, trying to shoot at birds while walking. It's a lot hard and you need to be very lucky, or the birds to be used to the human presence. A hide would be a good idea, maybe visit your local nature spot that has hides for photographers and bird watchers.

If you don't want to invest in a faster tele lens, then investing in a good and sturdy tripod, and a cable release might do the trick.

As for the original question, i always use Aperture Priority while photographing birds. It gives me the greatest flexibility to assess the situation and use the aperture value that is needed for that situation. Having a bird close to you, even though using the largest aperture would give you the fastest shutterspeed, it will definitely give you the shallowest depth of field. While in Cyprus this summer, I was out shooting bee-eaters. I manage to get really close to them, and found myself using apertures such as f/11-f/16 in order to get the whole bird in focus. Sometimes, while working at 600mm, I use f/16 for small birds, like robins and still get the tail out of focus. To get things clear, I only use such small apertures when the backround is really far away and it will still be out of focus to give me the effect I like.

One technique I find quite easy and that almost always delivers is by shotting from your car, while having the lens on a beanbag. This is an easy way to approach timid birds while in the wild, because they dont see cars as a threat.

This is a thread I posted some while ago, the EXIF info should be there, so use the photos to see that using small apertures still gives the results you are after. When the backround is near your subject then using larger aperture, or smaller aperture value is the right thing to do, but if you are close to the bird, this would mean that you must be really careful on your focusing point (probably the eye)

Bottom line, if you are really keen on keen photography, investing in a better lens would be ideal, along with a solid tripod. You should keep practising with your existing setup, but it needs patience, good technique, and probably some reading on bird behaviour.

Sometimes when using a car or a hide is not an option, I just set up my gear at a location where I know it holds birds, sit there and just wait for an hour or two. Perfectly still. At some point the birds will come to you.

Hope this helps
 
Entirely up to you. I tend to live in manual mode because I want to leave my options open whether I'm modifying aperture or speed at any point in time and don't want to be keeping an eye on the other parameter whilst adjusting the one.

Presumably you can modify P-mode to offset it biassed towards faster speed? What about some kind of auto-ISO mode whereby you say "ISO200 unless I really need higher"?
 
For wildlife photos, 'eyes-in-focus' is the holy grail. With only a few exceptions, if the eyes aren't in focus, your shot won't stand up.

So, here's three tips:

1. Whatever your lens, realistically if you're not shooting at a specific 'trap' point where the birds come to you, you'll be pointing all over the place trying to catch them. Buy the fastest focusing lens you can; this means USM/HSM/AF-S depending on your camera make. It needs to get a lock on as quickly as possible, and be accurate.

I use the centre cross point only for two reasons: firstly, it's a cross-type, and has the best accuracy; and second, because most of the time you'll not fill the frame with the bird - keep it in the centre [where it's sharpest], and crop after the fact to place it in the finished photo. Single, fast, AF point, middle of the frame.

2. Now, depth of field with longer telephotos is frighteningly thin - so in fact, maximum aperture won't cut it unless you're very lucky, and the camera autofocuses on the eyes. With fast moving/jittery wildlife, most of the time you just won't have time to recompose and fine tune the focus. F/2.8 is just too hit+miss with wild birds; better to use a deeper DoF like f/8 - even at this aperture, any background a few metres behind the subject will still be out of focus.

So, I use aperture priority at f/5.6-f/11, and of course this puts your lens in the sweet spot, but slows down your shutter release times. So now you'll get a good DoF, but the whole shot will be blurred.

3. The lucky combination of blur-free and in-focus images means good light, or a higher ISO. Sorry, but there's not much way around this, and that's why most peoples bird shots are taken on bright [but not necessarily sunny] days. Of course, higher ISO means grain, but any shot where your eyes aren't in focus goes in the bin... A tripod is a great help, but your tripod head must enable you to move in multiple axes at once, and come to a complete and steady halt for the photo - in practise this means a gimbal or good ball head. If it's a flighty bird, you might only have a quarter second from positioning to shot disappearing - you need to rely on the tripod if you're using it.


Hope that helps. But, there is another way, which does away with all the above:

'Trap Focus'. This is where you set your camera to a known point, prefocused, and as soon as a bird or animal comes into focus, the camera fires. You can use whatever aperture and shutter speed you want, but remember a deeper DOF and faster release help your chance of a great shot. Here's how it's done on the D80:

A. Pick a point where you know animals will come. Given the general large size of the Earth, you either have to be lucky, or cheat by providing food/shelter/general 'bonhomie' in the shape of bird feeders/saucers of milk etc. Remember - once you start feeding, you have to keep it up!

B. In your camera menu, set the AE/AF lock button to 'AF ON'. Now, the camera won't focus until you press this button. Pressing the shutter release won't do anything.

C. Using the AE/AF lock button, focus on your intended target point. Use a tripod - you'll be here a while...

D. Hold down the shutter release [ideally using AF-S single focus mode on the D80, and continuous shooting mode] and wait. If you have a remote control, set it to 'hold' down the shutter release.

E. Now, every time the camera sees something in focus, it'll take a shot, and another, and another, until the memory card is full. Rinse and repeat...


Hope this helped!
 
PigleT, I admire you using manual mode, but as I see it, if you meter through the lens using the camera, and then obey its settings, you might as well use 'P', 'A' or 'S' modes - they really are all the same, they just put the control of Shutter speed and Aperture under different fingers.

'P' mode, often maligned, is just a quick and easy way of obeying the camera's meter, with the ability to under/overexpose mapped to another control... the only exception comes if you use the Ansel Adams 'Zone' method of exposure with multiple spot readings; but this isn't applicable to wildlife, and even in landscapes is [arguably] redundant with bracketing.

Auto ISO is a superb invention - a real shot saver, but as I understand it Nikon seem to provide this on more bodies than Canon. It's there on the D80, but not on the 40D/450D, I think [although I'd happily be proven wrong, it's a wonderful idea..]

Don't mean to offend - hope I haven't - just always been curious as to the effectiveness of fully manual mode without separate light metering...
 
I don't know about the 450D, but the 40D does have an auto ISO setting :)
 
Thanks for setting me straight! It's a great mode, and I'm pleased that it's available. Am I alone in wanting to see the next logical step from 'auto-ISO' to a fully fledged 'ISO Priority' mode, whereby shutter and aperture can be set within user tolerances?
 
Thanks danbroad and stylgeo for your in depth answers. Its nice to have the kind help and advice offered. I actually only just purchased the Siggy... and unfortunately my pocket won't extend to the high class lenses just yet.

I will have another try at this and am hoping to get a manfrotto tripod from santa. Hopefully this should help a little.

Am also going to try and entice them into my smallish garden which should be good, perhaps then I can get closer to them "Through an open window" and get a good shot or two.

Thanks again to everyone for the advice.
 
I can't really help that much as I'm still low down on the ladder, but the 450d has auto ISO as well.
 
jgs001, my 450d does not have Auto ISO as such, from the manual I just looked at this is only when in one of the basic zones.

If you have it (I notice you have the IS kit lens) which I didn't get! You must have purchased your cam. earlier and may have a later firmware. - Hmmm which raises another question. Can "I" upgrade the firmware on my camera??

I'll have to check out the Canon site.
 
I've had my 450d since June. It's had Auto ISO on it since I got it. I did upgrade the firmware when the latest release came out and it didn't change the ISO options. I have Auto ISO in all modes including M... Makes a mess of using M mind you... I ended up with a shutter speed of 4000 taking a picture of a plant as I forgot about the Auto ISO and and ISO of 800 in bright sunlight...

I've just checked, I'm running Firmware 1.0.9 and defo have Auto in the ISO lists.
 
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