Wow...is this little fellow landing or taking off on a hard banking turn? Non the less, I like the captured action, you have good wing details and good color rendition and a nice head turn...well done Mr. Cashdollar...:cool:
Love the sharp eye, the strange flying pose and the feather details. The background seem busy so it takes some attention away from the bird, I might try to desaturate the background a bit.
Nice catch. Those guys are pretty quick. I'm a few days over due to calibrate this monitor but the colors look a little muted here. Maybe a slight bump in saturation on the bird... agree with the busy background/desat suggestion.
The BG it it's habitat and I did not want to destroy it. In this case, it is too much a part of the picture as opposed to one or two branches that could be tweaked; it is all one subject matter in this image,..IMO. I love the tail fan as he tried to land in the bushes.
Bob, male Cardinals need to be desat to keep the colors in tack (usually -11 on my MacBook) in CS4 the reds are in balance. Anymore and the reds would clip on my setup. Trying to get the red hue correct on a male cardinal can be a challange, I will continue to work on it going forward.
Great feedback, keep it coming.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 12-08-2009 at 09:19 AM.
Jeff, is that shutter speed correct? It's hard to stop the action with those little guys with anything less than 1/2500. Also, it seems that 1/500 at ISO 400 would have resulted in overexposure at f/5.6. Just curious.
They can be stopped with less that 2500 for sure. I will double check the EXIF data but anytime your shutter is 1/FL on a telephoto you should be at least in the game. I have stopped action like this with less that 1/1000 plenty. Better on a tripod with flash, if you notice the tips are still blurred a bit.
Great question, thanks for asking.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 12-09-2009 at 11:05 PM.
Not sure we're talking about the same thing, Jeff. Stopping the action would be a function of shutter speed, not focal length, so 1/FL wouldn't matter? I'm aware of the 1/fl for camera shake though.
Thanks for replying. I've just found that 1/2500 is the sweet spot for me. I couldn't get anything sharp even at 1/1600.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'd think there'd be variables involved in whether a particular shutter speed would freeze action or not. Focal length, would not be one of those variables. The speed of the motion you're trying to stop would be. Freezing the wings of a bird with a slow, methodical flap... a GBH or Great Egret perhaps... coud be done at a much slower shutter speed than that of a fast mover, like a hummingbird. The shutter speed needed to freeze an athelete running is much slower than needed to freeze a race car flying down the straight-away. When shooting people on a dance floor, or a bride & groom walking back up the aisle, I can freeze motion at around 1/60 or so. (People aren't fast movers). To freeze the wings of a BIF something much faster is going to be required.
Another thing that can play a role is flash. If one exposes in such a way that they eliminate, or greatly reduce the effect of ambient on the exposure... lighting via flash... the short burst of light from the flash will freeze the motion (Think strobe light aimed on dancers as an example). However if the flash is used as fill with ambient effecting exposure then blurring will occur because the exposre will continue before and after the flash burst. I recently watched an episode of Wild Photo Adventures (Doug Gardner) on photographing hummers. In one of the set-ups they showed using a pair of flashes and exposing so ambient wasn't a factor. The flash burst did a better job of freezing the wing movement tham what they were getting using a fast shutter speed with ambient exposure. In the dance floor example, using off-camera flash, if I want to show motion I only need to "drag the shutter" a bit... allowing ambient to effect my exposure even though I'm firing off-camera flash. With off-camera flash I usually have to get around 1/30 or slower to get the blur (humans are slow animals). At faster speeds the flash freezes motion and the ambient has little or no effect on exposure thus not recording the motion.
I can't see aperature playing a huge role in freezing motion. Though I suppose a shallow DOF could give the impression of motion blur even when there wasn't any.
Last edited by Bob Decker; 12-10-2009 at 08:09 AM.
1/FL is a Shutter Speed argument used by moderators on this site and photographer everywhere. It has nothing to do with focal length, it is based on the shutter speed being at least equal to the max focal length to get best chance at sharp images. The assumption is, best chance to get detail in images and/or freeze action, faster shutter speeds aid in freezing action. Hope this helps. We are probably saying close to the same thing and I respect your opinions very much. Great questions and love Bob's flash narrative- the drag the shutter stuff was really neat.
Bob, good stuff on flash. The camera will record what is can see. If it can only record what you're illuminating with flash then probably no blur. If the ambient light is only a stop or 2 below flash then blur is very likely. To completely freeze action you need to overpower ambient. I have seen Hummers pictures taken with multi strobe setups (at dusk - not direct sunlight) with still wings at 1/300 shutter speeds. Which shows that stopping the action is not always a function of shutter speed given certain flash condition - my head is starting to hurt (smile).
Send me a PM if you want and we can talk some more - Happy Holidays.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 12-10-2009 at 06:27 PM.
Hi Jeff, I agree with this post more than the last one.
We are talking about two different methods of getting sharp images:
1. Sharpness with a still subject. If hand holding, this is achieved by using the 1/FL as a thumb-rule to set shutter speed. We also account for IS and high resolution sensors....etc.....if applicable.
2. Sharpness with a moving subject. This is achieved by using a shutter speed commiserate with the subject's motion. So if you liked your results of the Cardinal at 1/500 sec, that would be your ideal shutter speed for that subject if you were shooting with a 400mm or a 40mm.
Focal length matters in the first but not in the second, unless you're in that lower range where camera shake could be a factor and you're not using a tripod to counteract it.
Happy Holidays to you too.
I hope to get a good Cardinal shot one day, hasn't happened yet.
I have to concur with Colin on the 1/FL guideline. It is about preventing camera shake when hand-holding. It is taught in all types of photography; portraiture, landscape, photojournalism, nature, etc. When you use a mono-pod or tripod things change a bit. With support you can go a bit below 1/FL... sometimes significantly so. Image stabilization is a game changer also. The 1/FL guideline can somewhat apply to stop-motion photography if the photographer is panning the moving object, or if the subject's movement is slow enough to be frozen by a shutter speed of 1/FL. Avian photography isn't my area of experise, the bulk of my experience lies in shooting people and events... but the basic technical aspects are the same regardless of the discipline.
FWIW: Personallly, I think a pretty nice cardnial shot started this thread off. ;)
Also, IMHO, I hate to see discussions go to PM. A lot of folks are lurkers and may have the same questions they want/need answered. But that's just the opinion of someone that's spent way too much time in way too many forums over the years. ;)
Gotta run. It's overcast, not raining and I have the morning off... "here birdie, birdie, birdie..."
Last edited by Bob Decker; 12-11-2009 at 07:55 AM.
Cardinal Fast Fly-By
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