Post by kenpossum on May 3, 2012 12:32:53 GMT -8
This post is tied to the swallow pics I posted in the Out of Town section called Swallowing Yellow Lake. It will take a few installments to complete, as I am still in the process of processing at the pics I took there on Tuesday. All were of swallows and of the 400 I took in an hour, 300 were keepers. The rest were duplicates, but almost all turned out, About 10% were out of focus as my camera's abilities were stretched to its limits.
My location was Yellow Lake, a beautiful lake on Hwy 3A about 13.5km west of the Okanagan Falls - Penticton intersection. It should be called Green Lake as that is the normal colour. All of the swallows were taken on the fly and there were no nests or branches used by these flightly little birds. They were absorbed in catching the numerous flies hovering over the water.
1. Lens selection. I first started with a Nikon 300mm with a 1.4 teleconverter but soon found out the teleconverter had to go. Just the initial job of tracking a moving swallow was too difficult at 420mm focal length was too difficult, and removing the tele allowed for a faster shutter speed. Any lens in the 200-300mm range works well at this location. Any shorter would result in more digital zooming which would result in greater noise and more pixelation.
2. The name of the game is SPEED and FOCUS. You have to work with aperture, shutter speed and ISO to achieve a stop action image. I had to consider the following.
a. ISO Most of my pics were taken in cloudy conditions so I initially set my ISO to 400. That is the max ISO I am comfortable with considering that the swallow would need to be digitally enlarged increasing noise. Later on, the sky conditions lightened allowing me to lower the ISO to 320.
b. Aperture Again, the first pics were taken under cloudy conditions, so I had to use f/5.6. I shoot birds on manual setting only. Later when the sky lightened, I set my aperture at f/6.5 and later 8.0 to achieve greater depth of field.
c. Shutter speed Again, the sky conditions determined the speed, and my first shots were taken at 1/500 sec. This would be ok for those shots where the swallow was hovering, or coming towards me.
However, when the bird was passing perpendicular to me (across my view), I required a higher shutter speed of 1/750 to 1/000 sec
And when it tucked its wings in to be an aerodynamic missile, a shutter speed of 1/1600 to 1/2000 sec was required. To achieve this, my settings were f/5.6 and ISO 400. Fortunately, The sun also cooperated at times allowing for the faster shutter speeds.
3. FOCUS For most of my bird photography I use the center point focus mode. This enables me to direct the focus mechanism directly on the bird, rather then the surrounding branches etc. For some slower birds in flight, I can widen the centre spot making it easier to track and capture.
Swallows present a more difficult challenge as they just move to fast. Often, I just can't follow the bird fast enough for the centre spot to stay on track. Fortunately, I have another focus option. My Nikon has a multi-point focus option that seeks any object it can find in a low contrast field of view, lock on it, predict where it is going to be in the next fraction of a second and focus on that point. You just need the bird in the frame rather at the centre of the frame.
For this to happen, you need a plain background that won't confuse the focus points. Two good options - a clear sky or an even mass of water. Yellow Lake provided a perfect water background.
The focus sensors were able to seek and lock onto the swallow as there was no other subject to focus on. The swallow is tiny in the image but the image below was digitally enlarged and reframed.
4. Backgrounds We are all aware of good and poor sky backgrounds. We are often disappointed in the 'lack of zip' of white skies behind our birds, and feel great when there are deep blues instead. The same is true of water backgrounds. Reflections of trees and bushes bring so much bedazzle to what would otherwise be a so-so image. That is one reason I love to work at Sardis Park in Chilliwack, and Mill Lake in Abbotsford. Great water colours. Yellow Lake on Hwy 97 just west of Okanagan Falls always seems to provide an excellent background, as is evident by this series of swallow images. The water resembles green marble. and greatly enhances the images of the swallows.
5. Framing Most of my images need to be reframed in post-processing. I am always aware that a bird (or any subject) usually looks better in an image if placed off to one side. There are exceptions ie. reflections and other creative photo-art images, but the Rule of Thirds often prevails. Normally, the bird should be placed looking into the frame, but not always. If you study the paintings of Robert Bateman you will notice that he often positions his subject leaving the frame. Why? There are good reasons, but I will leave that to you to discover.
(to be continued)
My location was Yellow Lake, a beautiful lake on Hwy 3A about 13.5km west of the Okanagan Falls - Penticton intersection. It should be called Green Lake as that is the normal colour. All of the swallows were taken on the fly and there were no nests or branches used by these flightly little birds. They were absorbed in catching the numerous flies hovering over the water.
1. Lens selection. I first started with a Nikon 300mm with a 1.4 teleconverter but soon found out the teleconverter had to go. Just the initial job of tracking a moving swallow was too difficult at 420mm focal length was too difficult, and removing the tele allowed for a faster shutter speed. Any lens in the 200-300mm range works well at this location. Any shorter would result in more digital zooming which would result in greater noise and more pixelation.
2. The name of the game is SPEED and FOCUS. You have to work with aperture, shutter speed and ISO to achieve a stop action image. I had to consider the following.
a. ISO Most of my pics were taken in cloudy conditions so I initially set my ISO to 400. That is the max ISO I am comfortable with considering that the swallow would need to be digitally enlarged increasing noise. Later on, the sky conditions lightened allowing me to lower the ISO to 320.
b. Aperture Again, the first pics were taken under cloudy conditions, so I had to use f/5.6. I shoot birds on manual setting only. Later when the sky lightened, I set my aperture at f/6.5 and later 8.0 to achieve greater depth of field.
c. Shutter speed Again, the sky conditions determined the speed, and my first shots were taken at 1/500 sec. This would be ok for those shots where the swallow was hovering, or coming towards me.
However, when the bird was passing perpendicular to me (across my view), I required a higher shutter speed of 1/750 to 1/000 sec
And when it tucked its wings in to be an aerodynamic missile, a shutter speed of 1/1600 to 1/2000 sec was required. To achieve this, my settings were f/5.6 and ISO 400. Fortunately, The sun also cooperated at times allowing for the faster shutter speeds.
3. FOCUS For most of my bird photography I use the center point focus mode. This enables me to direct the focus mechanism directly on the bird, rather then the surrounding branches etc. For some slower birds in flight, I can widen the centre spot making it easier to track and capture.
Swallows present a more difficult challenge as they just move to fast. Often, I just can't follow the bird fast enough for the centre spot to stay on track. Fortunately, I have another focus option. My Nikon has a multi-point focus option that seeks any object it can find in a low contrast field of view, lock on it, predict where it is going to be in the next fraction of a second and focus on that point. You just need the bird in the frame rather at the centre of the frame.
For this to happen, you need a plain background that won't confuse the focus points. Two good options - a clear sky or an even mass of water. Yellow Lake provided a perfect water background.
The focus sensors were able to seek and lock onto the swallow as there was no other subject to focus on. The swallow is tiny in the image but the image below was digitally enlarged and reframed.
4. Backgrounds We are all aware of good and poor sky backgrounds. We are often disappointed in the 'lack of zip' of white skies behind our birds, and feel great when there are deep blues instead. The same is true of water backgrounds. Reflections of trees and bushes bring so much bedazzle to what would otherwise be a so-so image. That is one reason I love to work at Sardis Park in Chilliwack, and Mill Lake in Abbotsford. Great water colours. Yellow Lake on Hwy 97 just west of Okanagan Falls always seems to provide an excellent background, as is evident by this series of swallow images. The water resembles green marble. and greatly enhances the images of the swallows.
5. Framing Most of my images need to be reframed in post-processing. I am always aware that a bird (or any subject) usually looks better in an image if placed off to one side. There are exceptions ie. reflections and other creative photo-art images, but the Rule of Thirds often prevails. Normally, the bird should be placed looking into the frame, but not always. If you study the paintings of Robert Bateman you will notice that he often positions his subject leaving the frame. Why? There are good reasons, but I will leave that to you to discover.
(to be continued)
