My first picture on BPN, 2 starting geese. Date 14 march 2010.
Camera: Pentax K20D
Telelens: Sigma 120-400
Shutterspeed:1/400
Aperture:9.0
ISO:320
Focal length:400 mm.
Comments are welcome!
This one is more pleasing than your post just above. (I had responded to that one before I saw this one.) The subjects are sharper here but still show motion blur. You might expect to have some blur in the wings, but this is more than most viewers would want. You could probably get away with a wider aperture and might try a higher ISO in addition. I would probably want a shutter speed of 1/1500 or more here.
Cropping the image a little from the bottom, and from the left to eliminate the half splash, would place more emphasis on the geese and put them in a more pleasing location in the frame.
Hello Diane, thanks for your reply!
In fact, I saw your reply to this thread for the first time a couple of days ago, I'am sorry for not reacting sooner.
Your suggestions for the wider apperture (> or =7.1), higher ISO (< or =800) and faster SS can be realized with the camera (Pentax K20D) I used taking this picture.
Wrt the SS, I think I' ve got the settings made for still images, so a very fast SS is not necessary then.
When it happens then, that a couple of geese are taking off, the settings cannot instantly be changed.
So the strategy I follow now is setting the SS for motion pictures, SS<1/1000 second.
With my new camera, the Sony DSC HX300 I can get in problems when following this strategy, especially in poor light conditions.
Because the widest apperture is 6.3, in combination with SS=1/1000 or less, a much higher ISO (3200 or so) is necessary, and a very noisy picture is the result.
Shooting birds in flight is challenging and unfortunately requires rather expensive gear to get top-notch results -- the best autofocus and lowest-noise sensors are needed. But a lot is to be learned, and much satisfaction gained, from learning what we can do with the equipment we have, and pursuing those shots.
Starting geese
Posting Permissions
