Shortbill Dowitcher

[Andrew Harrell]

For your C&C, an early-morning capture of a shorebird I hadn't photographed before. Pretty sure this is the Shortbill vs. the Longbill; apparently somewhat difficult at times to be 100% positive of ID.

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Sony a77, Tamron 150-600; 600mm @ f6.3, 1/500sec ISO 200

In LR CC, pretty aggressive crop, increased Exposure +.46, decreased Shadows , increased Highlights, decreased Whites, a touch of Clarity.

In Photoshop CC I removed a mud-clump from upper right via the Lasso tool and did a Content-Aware fill. Then ran through Nik DFine.

Diane, I know you say to get mid-tones into the middle of the Histogram, but this photo just felt warmer to me with mid-tones left a bit more. This is how I remembered the early morning. Am I crazy?


AP

[Glennie Passier]

Andrew, A lovely scene overall. I love the BG colours and the ripples throughout. Nice reflection too. The purist might tell you that the bird is facing away and not engaging with you. My biggest nit with this image that it looks soft to me. This may have come about by the agressvie crop? Where was you FP?

[Diane Miller]

Nice catch! No arguing with Maker's Choice. (Maker's Mark is pretty much a no argument, too.) But if it were mine, I'd go a tad lighter and adjust saturation and warmth as desired to keep the early light look.

I agree it is a bit soft, especially the water coming off the bill. A combo of SS, crop, focus accuracy and lens sharpness. (So many factors!) Focus may have been on the wing with the head a bit back of the plane.

Tripod? 1/500 is thin ice for 600mm, on the average.

[Andrew Harrell]

Diane, suspect you could be correct. I was playing with camera settings and had apparently bumped it from Manual to Manual+, which I think does a Auto ISO, which limited shutter speed. With the Focus process, was using Evaluative instead of Spot, and it may have selected the wing (as it tends to capture the closest item with contrast if I understand correctly how the sensor works). I've re-set my camera for my next outing back to Manual and Spot focus.

AP

[Diane Miller]

Evaluative and Spot are metering options; they don't affect focus. (Evaluative is the best in most cases.) It is true that if several focus points are active, the one on the closest point will generally be the one used. (But if that is a low contrast area, a different one might prevail.) But by "spot focus" maybe you mean using a single point instead of an array. That can be good, depending on the sophistication of the focus system.

For exposure I'd suggest starting with either Av or Tv for auto exposure. Tv is good if you need to limit the SS, Av to set a certain aperture. Then if the light is constant and you have a good exposure nailed down, switch to M mode and set both aperture and SS (and ISO, in either of the 3 cases).

I'm not familiar with the nomenclature of your focus options, but by analogy to Canon there is a mode that locks the focus and holds it -- no good for a subject moving toward you or away. And there is one that will follow the focus. That is the one that most nature shooters use, and should work just as well for a still subject. Holding the shutter button down halfway should give focus following until you press the shutter fully.

[Andrew Harrell]

Sony does call things different than Canon, but I think functionality-speaking they do the same things(s). There are both a "Spot Metering" option and a "Spot Focus" option, but you are right, "Evaluative" is for metering only. I think I meant to say "Wide", which is what Sony calls it when using all of the arrays.

I had just gotten a new e-book that really reviews all of the functionality in my camera, so I was trying out some of the suggested settings mentioned by the author. But, the settings are more for general photography, so I need to figure out the settings that help and the ones that don't. I'll translate your comments above and take some pics and see how I do with my focus, etc ....

Thanks for your patience with me. I know I still have a lot to learn about my camera and how to get the best from it.

AP