Garden Bird Action. How ?

[Mac Row]

Hi Guy's, I have been shooting the wildlife in my back garden over Xmas and decided to move on to some action rather than still poses. I caught this House Sparrow landing but failed to get the desired sharpness and detail. Camera info as follows;-
Sony A200,70-300mm Lens + Tripod and remote button. Focal length 200 @ F9,Shutter 1/1000 sec,ISO 800,Expo Bias 0,Metering mode-Spot.
Shot on reasonably bright day at 11.17 am. Shot has been cropped only.
Are my settings wrong or do you think I possibly moved the camera/tripod in my haste to get the shot ?
All suggestions welcome,good or bad.

[gag24]

I was wandering why your ISO is so high? I think with that fast shutter speed you could be lower on the ISO. I don't think this is why the sharpness is off, it looks more like possible camera shake. I have found that I stuggle with these shots as well. I would like to read what someone who knows more about this thinks.

[Mac Row]

Thanks for the comment. I had tried different Iso from 100-800 and found 800 best also believing that with the high shutter speed the more sensitive the sensor would be in capturing detail. Just have to keep trying !

[Jim Poor]

You just missed the point of focus. It is a bit difficult to tell with the lack of other details in the frame, but if you look at some of the seed on the ground, you can see that your point of focus is well in front of the subject.

The fact that the image is severly under-exposed contributes to the soft appearance too. Not that it is sharp by any stretch, but if you bring up the exposure, the sharpness does improve a bit.

At 1/1000 and 200mm, camera shake is not a likely culprit.

[Mac Row]

Thanks Jim. Just the sort of informative comment I was looking for. A lot of the time its the simple thing thats missed. Many thanks.

[Bluenoser]

I concur with Jim, the exposure needs to be increased. I just find the snow is too blue.

One thing you can do is just take some photos of snow to get a feel for exposure. Take some on clear sunny days as well as overcast. Then you have an idea in your mind for a starting point.

I've had good success photographing snow by going 1.5 - 2 stops over exposed. Experimentation is the best solution though.

[Mac Row]

Thanks for the tip. We,ve plenty of snow to practise on!

[PrimeTime]

[QUOTE=Mac Row;817855]Hi Guy's, I have been shooting the wildlife in my back garden over Xmas and decided to move on to some action rather than still poses. I caught this House Sparrow landing but failed to get the desired sharpness and detail. Camera info as follows;-
Sony A200,70-300mm Lens + Tripod and remote button. Focal length 200 @ F9,Shutter 1/1000 sec,ISO 800,Expo Bias 0,Metering mode-Spot.
Shot on reasonably bright day at 11.17 am. Shot has been cropped only.
Are my settings wrong or do you think I possibly moved the camera/tripod in my haste to get the shot ?
All suggestions welcome,good or bad.


Hi mac. This photo has several issues with it.

First the white balance looks off. Very important with wildlife to have accurate colors. If your camera has a red blue green histogram feature, then turn it on and pay attention to it. If there is a color cast, it will tell you. For example in this photo it has a blueish cast to it, so the blue histogram would have been to the right of the red and green (your looking at the far right side of each histogram). If you see a strong color cast, you know to make a change in your white balance. You could also shoot in raw mode so you can make changes in post production.

Second the focus looks like it's off. With moving subjects, alservo focus drive will track and keep focusing as you pan and follow the subject. If your focus drive is in one shot, by the time you focus on the target, it has moved before you depress the shutter all the way.

Third, i think over cropping is an issue in this shot. To get really good detail, you can't overcrop. I have a simple rule that i go by----never crop more than 1/4 of the original image. If i need to crop any more than that, i'm not close enough and i need to find a way to get closer to the subject.

Fourth, this image is under exposed.
When you have an underexposed image and try to brighten it up in post, you will get alot of noise in the shadows and a flat looking image. Your spot metering is good for wildlife, but you need to understand what it's doing. When you spot meter off something(usually the subject) You're meter is telling the camera that that spot is med. grey. So if you meter off the sparrow and set the exposure to 0ev, you're telling the camera the bird is med gray (even though it is really about +1/3ev or +2/3ev) So since the bird is actually lighter than med grey, the camera makes the image darker untill the place you spot metered(the bird) is 0ev.

Try and get a feel for where to expose your subject------is the subject brighter or darker than med gray. If brighter set the exposure to +1/3 or +2/3 and then confirm your setting with the histogram. If the histogram is too far right then you need to back down a little.

Hope that makes sense.

Once again, if you look at your histogram, it will tell you when you're exposed properly. Expose it so the right side of the histogram is almost touching the right side. Don't let it go too far that it gets cut off or you will clip the highlights and loose that information.

Hope this helps.