Heron

[LadyG]

Yesterday I decided to visit the local reservoir, over at Upper Boddington. I've been there before but not really for the birds. I've learned one thing - the 40-150f4 isn't long enough but hey ho, it's the most I can carry now so it is what it is. I did use digital teleconverter but preferred to work on the RAW versions and crop - both of these are about 50% crops. I'd used auto ISO - possibly should have set it manually because it came in at 6400, and 1/2500.





Any advice very gratefully received!

[sapper]

Good shots. I use auto iso, set shutter speed to a high one, 1/250th minimum when using the 150-400. Develoope in Lightroom classic, then Topaz denies and Topaz sharpen. But these are very decent shots of this heron.

[LadyG]

Thank you. I have dabbled with Topaz but haven't bought it - think I might need at least a graphics card update first because I couldn't even download the ON1 presets earlier this month.

I'd used 1/2500 rather than 1/250 (that'll teach me...) and yes, auto ISO. I usually prefer shooting events rather than birds but that's not been possible for a while. Getting slowly better.

[blackfox]

Super wrong settings and still good shots ..shows how versatile the system is

[BDennis]

Well, you got some nice shots of the heron!

With the 1/2500s shutter speed there really is no right or wrong answer - it depends what you’re after I’d say. With the flight shot you froze the wing beat so it looks good on the downbeat almost touching the water with the reflection mirroring it. Sometimes you might want a bit of blur on the wing tips to show movement which I find works at about 1/1000s with swans. Some birds flap the wings madly and with some like the heron it is a slow beat so you can get away with 1/1000s or slower. For the birds on the ground you can go for around 1/250s but if they’re feeding like Redshanks the head is moving so it would be blurred for a lot of shots. So if the Heron was catching fish 1/2500s would be a good plan as you’d freeze it - but a burst of shots is needed to get the gulping down of something!

For birds I tend to use the M Manual mode, set the aperture wide open and use Auto ISO and prioritise the shutter speed for the situation, I usually set it to around 1/1250 initially. I use SH2 on the OM-1 with 5 shot bursts and C-AF with the bird tracking. For high ISO shots I put the raw files through DxO.

Bill

[LadyG]

Thank you for the advice, very much appreciated. As I said, people are more my thing than birds but until I'm well enough to mix with people I'm having to walk as much as I can to build up strength and stamina again.