Fast shutters

[kevfreeflight]

I did post this in the welcome area - Les325 is kindly advising me but thought may be something for a few more of you.

I am new to the forum and need some help. I have a Sony DLSR A100 with a decent 75-300 telephoto lens on. I tend to take photos of gliders as I am a pilot and love to fly and spend my weekends over thecountryside in North Yorkshire in a glider. A lot of the pics I take of gliders are published in a bi - monthly gliding magazine. However, have recently taken up taking shots of birds. I took a few at the weekend and would be grateful if you could advise me, in extreme basics - of how to get a fast shutter to be able to stop the bird in flight and get a sharp image of the feathers. The pic I took was taken at a bird sanctaury (Fairburn Ings - near Castleford - West Yorks) and it was a dull morning yesterday. (how do I post pics??)
I just cannot seem to get it right and really need help in being told what settings to put the camera on to freeze the wings as am desperate to get that one shot I always wanted. If someone can point me in the right direction, I would be grateful.
I did take some of the moon, not brilliant at all, would like to have had more detail and sharper, but I need help!! Just cannot seem to get it right at the moment and its getting to me!
Any advice in basic language would really be appreciated and I look forward to hearing from you.
My best wishes - as always

Kev

Can I just be clear on one thing - I fly gliders as a hobby. I sit in them alone and hold my pilots licence. These things are full of technology, electronics, things that make noise and register thermals etc. But, in comparrison, they are simple as hell than to a camera. I need the idiots guide in my case.:bonk: I know there is an ISO setting on the camera, now what??????

Kev - lurkling under a rock and thanking Les325 again

 

[boccers_2000]

I did post this in the welcome area - Les325 is kindly advising me but thought may be something for a few more of you.

I am new to the forum and need some help. I have a Sony DLSR A100 with a decent 75-300 telephoto lens on. I tend to take photos of gliders as I am a pilot and love to fly and spend my weekends over thecountryside in North Yorkshire in a glider. A lot of the pics I take of gliders are published in a bi - monthly gliding magazine. However, have recently taken up taking shots of birds. I took a few at the weekend and would be grateful if you could advise me, in extreme basics - of how to get a fast shutter to be able to stop the bird in flight and get a sharp image of the feathers. The pic I took was taken at a bird sanctaury (Fairburn Ings - near Castleford - West Yorks) and it was a dull morning yesterday. (how do I post pics??)
I just cannot seem to get it right and really need help in being told what settings to put the camera on to freeze the wings as am desperate to get that one shot I always wanted. If someone can point me in the right direction, I would be grateful.
I did take some of the moon, not brilliant at all, would like to have had more detail and sharper, but I need help!! Just cannot seem to get it right at the moment and its getting to me!
Any advice in basic language would really be appreciated and I look forward to hearing from you.
My best wishes - as always

Kev

Can I just be clear on one thing - I fly gliders as a hobby. I sit in them alone and hold my pilots licence. These things are full of technology, electronics, things that make noise and register thermals etc. But, in comparrison, they are simple as hell than to a camera. I need the idiots guide in my case.:bonk: I know there is an ISO setting on the camera, now what??????

Kev - lurkling under a rock and thanking Les325 again

Hi there.

I think the best thing to do is (a) read your camera manual and (b) get a good book on exposure and understand how it works (ie shutter speed, aperture and ISO). These three elements are all related.

You need to get enough light onto the sensor to properly expose the shot by getting the right combination of the three.

I suggest you also read the various forum threads in here and see what people have said about all of this before.

Basically
shutter speed - how long the shutter stays open (the longer it stays open the more light hits the sensor
Aperture - the size of the lens (ie the wider it is the more light hits it)
ISO - How sensitive the sensor is to light

In your case, with a bird flying you need a really fast shutter speed so you can capture the moment (ie a crisp image). That means not allot of light will be hitting the sensor so you need to compensate by a larger aperture and maybe a higher ISO (but thats a last resort) to allow the right amount of light to hit the sensor to properly expose.

Thats a very basic run through but there are guys on here much more experienced than I that will be able to assist more.

 

[ipswichboy]

What mode are you shooting in? I don't know the Sony but most of the entry level cameras have different modes including a sports one for faster shutter speeds. However, I would suggest going for shutter priority which will enable you to set the shutter speed and the camera will automatically set the aperture according to the amount of light available. If you're unable to achieve a quick enough shutter speed then you can start to up the ISO. Again I would suggest concentrating getting the shutter speed right before worrying about the noise if the ISO is high. Unfotunately i can't offer any advice on the shutter speed you should be aiming for as I don't really shoot wildlife but I'm guessing it's going to be 1/500th or quicker.

Les.

 

[Stratman]

As a very general rule of thumb, the minimum shutter speed should be the same as the lens length, so for a 200mm lens 1/200, for a 500mm lens 1/500 and so on. This would be for hand held shooting of static subjects. If there's movement involved then you'll need to go faster. Of course the fast shutter speeds will need a big iris opening, very possibly wider than your lens can provide, so the ISO setting will need to be increased to compensate. This is the equivalent of turning up the volume on a quiet audio signal, and will increase the noise in the picture.

One of the wonderful things about digital photography is it costs nothing to experiment.

 

[HoppyUK]

With respect to you Kev, I don't suppose you learned to fly a glider in five minutes

You can take regular snaps with just about any camera on auto mode because that is generally within the scope of the technology and it will pretty much do everything for you. At the other extreme, photographing birds is about as hard as it gets, because they're usually small, won't let you get close, and move pretty fast. Everything is against you.

The folks that do it well not only have a lot of very expensive gear, they know how to use it after years of practise. They are also blessed with tons of patience and great field craft.

Your first step is probably to build more knowledge by shooting more regular stuff, learning what the camera is up to and why, and then take it one step at a time. Read, shoot, ask questions, and shoot some more.

 

[tdodd]

Here are some recent BIF examples with EXIF intact. Since I set the camera controls manually the decisions that affected the results were all made by me, not guesswork by the camera. In my opinion it is the best way to go when shooting BIF.

Having good equipment helps. Knowing how to use it properly helps more. Research can get you so far, but there is no substitute for practical experience. There are skills involved which no book or forum can teach you. You just have to practice. I still need a lot more practice. Sometimes that practice pays off. Many times it doesn't. I have a lot more rejects than keepers when it comes to shooting BIF. Gulls usually make good target practice, as do ducks and geese.

 

[Jelster]

Following up on Tim's post above, get to understand your camera, what the controls do and how that influences the resulting image. Get yourself down to your local lake and start shooting the resident wildfowl, and then post some results. That way you can get constructive feedback.

However, as a starter, you really need to have your camera set up as follows:

Single point AF - then focus on the eye/face of the subject.
Spot metering - you need to meter off of the subject, not the area around it
Servo or continuous focus - so you can track the subject as it moves

I don't know how these are set up on a Sony, and if you are unsure what any of them mean, then go back to the manual and learn (not meant to sound rude but you do need to have a grip of the basics before getting into more complicated subjects).

Hope that helps, and post some images soon.

Steve

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