One from today. A lot more OOF then in focus.
It was fun and I did learn a lot.
40D
ISO 800
f/5
1/1000s 100-400 @200
+2/3
HH
Cropped from original
Had to clone out the jessies.
Everyone did HH except one fellow had a Bushawk Shoulder mount and he said his rate of keepers was a lot higher. Most everyone had more out of focus than in. My 40D was the poor boy in the crowd and it took a long time for the buffer to download. The Nikon 200-400 weighs about 7 lbs as I found out!
Another tip they gave me was to use your focusing eye through the shutter and keep your other eye open and it would help with the tracking. They said it was actually very hard to do. (Couldn't do it!) They also recommended that since I was a beginner that I keep on all AF points. Everyone else used the central sensor. I think Ray used APS-C ( I think that was it) for his Nikon setting. Did get some nice portraits and very few good flight shots which I will post later.
Hope this gives people some more info. You had to be really fast on the shutter!!! I think this may be a goshawk maybe someone can fill me in:) I can't remember!
Thanks everyone for all your tips it really did help a lot!
Last edited by Jackie Schuknecht; 12-06-2008 at 09:39 PM.
Lady Jackie,
I like the flight capture, I like the raised wings. you do have good details and good color rendition. The background oof elements do not bother me. My suggestion is to crop into a pano to lock in the focus and attention to the bird. take off just a tad from the top, and 1/4 from the bottom. boost saturation just a hair and the same with the contrast. see how it looks to you. you did very well...proud of you...keep them coming...:):cool:
Way to go Jackie! Looks like it turned out to be a good day shooting. I'll let the bird experts chime in on the technical stuff. If it were me, with all the camera specs I'd put today's temperature. It was so cold for me that camera shake would have been an issue. Congrats!!
Jackie-excellent! I like the wings up ,you have nice details all around .Like Gus' suggestion about the pano crop-Thanks for sharing all you learned -can''t wait for your next post!
Thanks Richard, yes it was cold today, around minus -10C. Anyways nice meeting you and I'm glad you get to go back to Florida and thaw out!!! You did get a good taste of Toronto weather !!!!
Yup, 200-400 f4 is 7.2 lbs light. 300f2.8 is about 1 lb lighter. Canon's 100-400 is more like Nikon's 80-400 f4.5-5.6
By the way, what exactly does "use the central sensor" mean? I still quite not sure what they mean when people say they use "the central sensor only? In Nikon, there're three AF-area modes to select in addition to choosing whether to shoot in continuous focus or single servo, and they are:
1. Single point - AF
2. Dynamic area - AF
3. Auto area - AF.
Which one is it when people say "use the central sensor only"?
If "1" is chosen, will the camera still tracks the subject? If so, then how does it different from choosing "2"?
Anyone?
Last edited by Desmond Chan; 12-06-2008 at 11:32 PM.
Hi Jackie - Lovely shot - well done :) no nits here.
Desmond - you can still choose the actual sensor you wish to use - I think they are referring to using the centre sensor rather than using the selector on the back of the camera to move the sensor around in the view finder.
Way to go. Your bird is a male Northern Goshawk. One of the real beauties in the hawk from my point of view. They are very aggressive and fast woodland predators (accipiter).
Thanks for sharing the info. And how hard it was. That's good to know so I won't give up on bif images.
Cheers
Gail
Hi Jackie. That's very, very impressive indeed. It looks like he was moving pretty quick and I know just how temperamental the 40D can be for BIF shots. Great job.
Thanks for all the nice comments everyone. I have some more to post in the coming days.
Desmond I think Lance was right just the center sensor activated, also I the metering
mode was set to center-weighted in Ray's camera. I am sure we will be going out again and will try to find the answer to your post. Not too familiar with Nikon's.
Hawk
