Here is another one from yesterday morning -- just as it came out of the camera. This Mallard was preening for a long time in and out of the water. So I got lots of pictures, with plenty of time to prepare for each. Obviously I did not prepare well. It is a delete, but I post it for advice. As you see, the wing movement is not stopped and much of the fellow is not sharp. Please offer criticism and advice as to what camera settings would have been better than those I used -- increase ISO to push the shutter speed up, or what? Or what else? Etc.?
Good job in not clipping the wing tips for "out of the camera".
If you are using center focus (I recommend) around the head, then I believe f/5.6 should work OK. You did not say, but sometimes using multiple focus points, especially with the subject moving (such as flapping wings, or moving varied background) can momentarily confuse the focus. It does look like the base water to be the sharpest area.
The wing blur can be useful to suggest movement. To stop most of the blur would mean increasing your shutter speed ... say at least 1/1000 and up. But I don't know if your D70 will start getting too much noise above 400 ISO. It does look like a fairly bright scene, so I do believe playing around with the settings to increase shutter speed should work well.
Hi Wendell,
I like the capture, and the framing of the duck with the wide spread flapping wings...a few things to consider...I would increase the ISO to 500 and shoot using shutter priority, depending on the amount or degree of blur that you want, also might want to crop the dark area in the top and just leave the background one uniform color, also a tad more space on both sides giving Mr. Duck more flapping space...good show...:cool:
Hi wendell - looser framing for sure - the wing tips may be just in, another thing to remember -- th ecloser you are to the action - the fatser the shutter speed needs to be to freeze the action - and vice versa.
Assignment--SOC--Stretching
