Taken early afternoon (1:40pm) near the end of the jetty at Barnegat Light, NJ. I tried to get the sun coming from the right so it would be in the bird's face. Due to the center column on my tripod, I was unable to get any lower without handholding and as quick as Sanderlings are, I really wanted to stay with the tripod. In oroder to get just this one in the image, I had to clone out another out-of-focus Sandering from the right side of the image and cropped a lttle more than I really wanted to. The resulting image is about 75% of the original.
I would have liked the bird to be facing a little more towards me rather than towards the ocean, but it just wouldn't cooperate.
PP in LR4 to set levels and sharpened, then to PS CS5 to clone the bird out and doe the final crop.
D7000@500mm, iso200, f/9, 1/250, -1/3ev, aperatue priority, metering was center-weighted average
Hi Colin. Sanderlings do move awfully quickly! Personally, I find that hand-holding under these conditions (a quick moving, zig zagging, target) is much preferrable, not only since you can get lower, but a tripod makes very fast targeting much more difficult (for me at least). The only advantage of a tripod (other than you don't have the weight of the lens to deal with) is to compensate for camera shake. I would suggest at least 1/1250 sec, up to 1/2000sec, to counteract motion blur of the sanderling, and this is fast enough to easily compensate for camera shake.
Even illmination of the subject is what you should be striving for, which usually requires the sun to be at your back and relatively low on the horizon (later afternoon or morning) or, as I prefer, shooting under overcast or cloudy skys, when the position of the sun is not nearly as important.
As far as techs go; 1) I would have upped the shutter-speed considerably, as I mentioned.
2) F/9 is overkill, you could have gotten by with something like f 6.3.
3) I think one of the most important aspects of avian photography is becoming proficient shooting higher ISOs, such as ISO800-3200. ISO 200 is fine with a tripod and a completely stationary target, but when the subject is moving quickly, assuming you've already determind an appropriate f stop (DOF), the high shutter-speeds you'll need require increasingly higher ISOs.
regards~Bill
Good sharpness, Colin. Bill has covered most everything below but I would add that shooting with this sun angle on a white bird is tough, producing a contrasty situation (handled well here). Get the sun behind you when you can. Also, a better head angle toward you would have improved this much, IMO. As for ISO, I don't own a D7000 but from what I have seen posted here by others, I am sure you could be shooting much higher ISO's with good results!
Bill/Dan, Thank you for you comments. I understand the lighting concerns and the preference for early morning, late afternoon, ovecrcast, etc. In this case i had a limited amount of time there, so I had no choice but to take the early afternoon, harsh light and make the best of it. Part of the reason for not laying and in the sand and handholding was that the area I was in was wet and I wasn't dressed to get wet, so I opted to use the tripod.
The only question I have abut you comments is about the apperature I used. Could you expand on the f/9 being overkill, I'n not sure I really understand why a larger apperature would have been preferable.
Colin, I think the bulk has already been covered (I do like the image, though).
I think what Bill was suggesting (and I try to do) is that if you had opened your aperture and increased your ISO to at least 400, you could have significantly increased your SS and that would have made handholding possible. I'm not familiar with the D7000, but most of the current breed of DSLRs do fine at ISO 400 (and often higher) as long as the image is well exposed. I don't think I ever use anything lower than ISO 400 anymore when I shoot wildlife.
Last edited by Ian Cassell; 12-15-2012 at 08:07 PM.
Ian is correct in that you could have decreased the aperture to be able to increase the SS. Generally (but not always) you only need a sufficient depth of field to insure the entire subject is in focus, and a greater than needed DOF means the shutter-speed needs to be lowered and/or ISO needs to be increased more than necessary.
This chart http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html will give you an idea of what apertures are needed for a particular DOF, though in the field you'll be making educated guesses.
The more you practice, the more you'll get a feel for what you need. A Sandering is relatively small, so I'd guess 2-3 inch DOF is appropriate, you were maybe 30-40 feet away from size of subject in the frame and cropping? My guess;f/6.3. Anyway, play with the chart. On the other hand, if the sanderling was close to full frame, much closer, F/9 might not create enough DOF. regards~Bill
Sanderling
