I am trying to figure out whether I am a hopeless photographer, or just clueless. Over the last several years I have shot thousands of eagle shots at Conewingo and Blackwater and have an extremely poor keeper rate. I am shooting a 50D with either a 400 5.6 or a 100-400 and using either the majority of my shots are slightly out of focus with poor color and detail. I usually shot AV and on a sunny day like yesterday am shooting at 400 ISO with between +1.3 to +1.6 and f6.3. Speeds were generally over 1/1000th of a second. Center weight metering.
I look and see the fantastic detail and color of many FM posters and am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong. Both lenses have been micro adjusted and are capable of sharp images. I generally hand hold my lenses but even if that explains the a slight decrease in IQ it does not help the color/Lighting issue. How much of the IQ is associated with Post-Processing?
Any suggestions? What settings do you typically use when shooting eagles in flight?
I use a 50D and a 400mm f/5.6 and my settings are wide open, AV Mode, ISO 320 and depending on the age of the Eagle and the background I will adjust my EC accordingly. - EC for a cluttered BG and + EC against a blue sky.
I also shoot in RAW 100% of the time. I do very little post processing to my images in CS3.
I shoot in manual mode all the time and spot meter. I meter off the blue sky opposite the sun and overexpose 1/3 to 2/3. DO NOT pull the trigger if you can't see much of the birds lit up areas (generally the top of the bird, unless he banks away from you) or I guarantee you will be hitting delete at home. I have a 30D, which I believe has the same focus system as the 50D, hooked up to a 600 or 400 5.6 and I often get a ton of out of focus shots even when the bird completely fills the frame, I find the 30D to focus pretty slowly and clumsily.
You might want to try and stop down another 1/3 to try and get a little more DOF to help get the eye in focus.
Also don't depend on cropping your pictures later! You loose a lot of detail doing that. If all you're doing is posting online you can get away with it but it is still always plainly obvious to me when someone crops their shots 1/3 their original size. My rule of thumb is no more then a 50% crop and even then its got to be something pretty amazing for that. Generally I only crop for composure.
If the bird is fishing by the wing wall or right next to the island don't take the shot, it's just too far for anything good to come of it, even if you have a 600+1.4x tele and 1.6 crop camera. Try to keep your shots inside the buoy.
I can't guess at how many flight shots I've take but I can tell you I can count the good ones on my fingers and toes, KEEP AT IT!!
I had the 50D for almost a year (now got the 7D but the principles are the same) on my 400mm f/5.6. I shoot almost exclusively using Tv set at 1/1000 to 1/1600 at ISO400 and compensate up to +1 when it starts to get darker out. I've got my microadjust to +7 for the 400mm and use evaluative metering most of the time. I also use my monopod as a sort of brace (attached to the base of the 400mm) to keep the shaking (from to much coffee) to a minimum. I hope this helps. Also I shoot RAW and process every photograph. Not so much because they need heavy fixing, but more of a fine tuning. I hope this helps!
Post us a few pics, you have the right equipment. Are you shooting in RAW, or jpeg. Are you sure that your Micro Adjust was needed and done properly, that is a pretty tedious job as I understand it to correctly do.
In camera settings can be astray, may be good to clear settings and start over. Depending on how much frame fill you have with the eagles your + up settings could be too steep IMO and you are getting overexposure and losing detail and blowing out the whites??
Don't worry, we can all post a bad image or two or three or.........well I know I can! I do think showing us is going to be most helpful...................please
I always shoot RAW. Would it be more beneficial to post straight converted jpegs or cropped examples? I got rid of about 80% of my shots but I am not happy with even the best and would appreciate CC.
S Johnson wrote:
I always shoot RAW. Would it be more beneficial to post straight converted jpegs or cropped examples? I got rid of about 80% of my shots but I am not happy with even the best and would appreciate CC.
Higher shutterspeeds work for me. Unless you are perfectly panning the shot, try to get your shutterspeed up to 1/1600. Use higher ISO if you have to. Guaranteed more keepers. I find even a huge difference in 1/1200 and 1/1600.
I only had one chance to get this shot, it was raining, I was in a rocking boat, and very dark out. I managed 1/1600 w/ISO640, with a 1.4x teleconverter!...and lightening a little in PP. No way this would have happened in Av, probably would have metered around 1/400.
I'll be the first to say after seeing these images they need to be closer or you need more reach. And I agree about the lighting....overhead or side lighting is hard to get some detail in anything.
Also...what focus point are you using? If it's just the center most of these seem to be off center.
The time of day and the lighting conditions you are shooting in have a lot to do with the look of the photo, extremely bright/sunny times will always look more washed out than the early or late hours.
The first and third shots are the only ones I would find acceptably close. I went through a season of the exact same thing you are going through. Notice how tiny the sliver of light on the bird is in those two shots? It's going to mean passing up a lot of flyby's but you want to wait for the bird to be nearly covered in light other wise you're either going to have an all black bird with a properly exposed head or a blown out head and properly exposed body. I always try to get the exposure dead on for the head and then, if necessary (it isn't always) I'll darken the wings up a bit in PP.
PS: give manual mode a try! Once you get the hang of it you will find that your keeper rate skyrockets (at least for proper exposure).
I think you will find that in the right hands that #1 and #2 would process up pretty well. There isn't room for anymore + exposure without losing the whites. The time of day/overhead light was very harsh for this subject.
If you can shoot them closer to the water you will pick up the benefit of the water reflecting light up under them to fill the wings a bit.
Gosh and I thought these were going to be alot worse, heck you hang in there buddy as I think you are darn close to getting things to click nicely So importantly will be the light and distance to subject. It looks as if sharpness is there.
I have read all you guys comment, thanks a lot, I don't have 400mm but I have 200mm L F2.8, can I hook it to TC 2X to make that 400mm, I have 5D and 30D and love to shoot eagles at Conowingo , thanks for your helps to have some keeprs
So importantly will be the light and distance to subject. It looks as if sharpness is there.
