camera settings for static birds

d5200user

New member
Hello Nikonites, I am hoping that any experienced photographers could help me with a problem. Please.
I am just a hobbyist but i would like to make nice photos whenever i can do so.
I recently started learning how to capture birds in flight using shutter priority. I like birds.
I have not tried to photograph static birds until today. However, my camera was still set for birds in flight.
Thus, i blew the shot. see below:

kleiber.jpg

the contrast is awful. I do not know what to set in the camera to make this a beautiful photo.
Could someone please tell me how to get this photo correct?
i know where to find the bird and i'll go back tomorrow. it is nesting and i will have more chances for photos.
I have a Nikon D5200 with a 70-300mm lens.

Thanks.
 

d5200user

New member
I've all ready mentioned that the camera was set for birds in flight using shutter priotity. birds inflight require different settings than static birds. I was photographing Mallards when the tree climber came around. the settings do not matter here, the shot is blown.

for arguments sake, shutter speed is 1000, iso is 800, aperture 5, center weight metering.

we are not supposed to be looking at exif data for this image which is clearly blown.

i would prefer that a pro look at the shot, not the photo, and say "for that scene, i would've set the camera ..."

i'm thinking aperture priority set to lowest, which is 4.5 for my lens.
perhaps iso-200 and shutter speed 1/25, 1/80 or 1/125?

basically, how would YOU get this shot?

i can be within 5 feet of the tree, the bird would be around 10 feet away from me. the sky would show behind the tree a bit. in this situation, what would you do to get the shot?
 

J-see

Senior Member
I don't know what a pro will say but for me static birds have no real fixed settings since the light usually forces me towards a certain shutter.

Aperture I use what is sharpest on my lens if that provides enough DoF for the shot. That depends on what sized bird I'm shooting at which distance. The shutter speed is the highest I can get away with for the light available. The longer the lens, the higher my shutter will be. If you have VR, it allows you to move shutter stops to aperture or lower the ISO.

The shot doesn't have distance or light info so none can really tell what you should have used.
 

Kendall_

Senior Member
My advice would be

1. If your going to ask for help, don't be an ass about it.

2. If asking for help and someone needs some info, EXIF in this case, give it to them. We have no idea if you shot that in direct sun with a fast shutter or in really low light with a slow one.

3. Play with your camera, I only got mine in February and my photos have skyrocketed in quality due to just playing with it.

Good luck
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
I've all ready mentioned that the camera was set for birds in flight using shutter priotity. birds inflight require different settings than static birds. I was photographing Mallards when the tree climber came around. the settings do not matter here, the shot is blown.

You attract more flies with honey than vinegar to include answers. When asking for help I would suggest a little humility since you're the one looking for answers. And because you don't know what you're doing you don't understand the relevance to the information being asked.

Have a good day.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Hello Nikonites, I am hoping that any experienced photographers could help me with a problem. Please.
I am just a hobbyist but i would like to make nice photos whenever i can do so.
I recently started learning how to capture birds in flight using shutter priority. I like birds.
I have not tried to photograph static birds until today. However, my camera was still set for birds in flight.
Thus, i blew the shot. see below:

View attachment 152322

the contrast is awful. I do not know what to set in the camera to make this a beautiful photo.
Could someone please tell me how to get this photo correct?
i know where to find the bird and i'll go back tomorrow. it is nesting and i will have more chances for photos.
I have a Nikon D5200 with a 70-300mm lens.

Thanks.

How do you get it correct? Either shoot it on an overcast day and worry about making the sky blue later, or put a giant reflector opposite the sun so you can light the shadowy area on the bird.

That, or actually consider the fact that you're not done with a photo when you image pops up on the LCD in the back.

So, if you're looking for a serious answer from a serious photographer who has shot a serious amount of birds, read on.

Question: Are you shooting RAW? If not, that's problem #1. Shoot RAW with wildlife, because lighting conditions are often very contrasted and you'll want real light information instead of having to mess with just what you have. The rest of the information will help you even if you're shooting JPEG, but not nearly as much.

I shoot birds all the time with a Sigma 150-500mm. I know the lens has a sweet spot for clarity at f8 to f11, which is a bit of a bitch when you have to shoot at 1/640s just to make sure you're not getting blurred shots. I don't like to think too much, so my camera (D7100) stays on Manual mode with auto ISO turned on (max ISO either 2400 on sunny days or 6400 on cloudy), shutter goes back and forth between 1/800 to 1/1250 depending on what I'm shooting, and aperture is on f8 on cloudy days and f9 or f11 if I can get away with it. I am admittedly a lazy photographer and I don't like to have to think too much when I'm birding, so that's the way I shoot it, which is essentially Shutter Priority but altering ISO instead of aperture. So, your settings are fine for what you shot (though I suspect that f5 may be minimum for your focal length which could lead to softness, though that's not your main problem here).

So, what did you shoot? A back-lit portrait of a Red-breasted Nuthatch, apparently. I say it that way because shooting birds is no different than shooting anything else - you need to know about the lighting conditions. I was snarky before about how to fix it, but seriously, on a cloudy day your shadows wouldn't have been as hard, and with a reflector you would have eliminated them. That's what a portrait photographer would have tried to do. But as a wildlife photographer you can't rely on manipulating your light in advance, so you need to fix it after the fact, and you do that in your "darkroom". Ansel Adams was a great photographer, but he was a better printer, and he manipulated the light in those classic shots while exposing the print to bring details out of shadows and dodge in details hidden in the bright spots. You need to do that too.

You haven't given me much to work with here as it's a low res jpeg, but in about 60 seconds I went from your shot to this...

kleiber.jpg


Given a full-res RAW file there is a ton you can do. I'm currently doing a "Big Month" competition trying to photograph as many species as possible in April. I'm challenging myself to do all my shots from my deck, which is SSE facing, so I am almost always shooting into the sun until the late afternoon, where I have to deal with shadows from trees and branches as the sun lowers in the sky. Every bird I shoot needs to be processed, either because it's half in the shadows, backlit, or just dull looking because it's in the shadows. Shooting up and everything is always backlit.

Here's a Red-tailed Hawk the flew over, as it came out of the camera...

20150402-D71_8098-2.jpg


Decent capture, but dull, full of shadows, and sort of lifeless.

Here's the same shop editing only in Lightroom, which would be equivalent to Adobe Camera RAW. Nothing special, no gradient or brush adjustments...

20150402-D71_8098.jpg


If it were a better shot I would have sent it to Photoshop and tweaked away, but this was good enough for what I need and a hell of a lot better than the straight out of camera shot.


Photography isn't magic, and presets on cameras don't get you any closer. You've got a serious camera, you need a serious understanding of what it can do. Frankly, if you want to just point and shoot then get yourself one of those, because they generally give you a better result right away. Each type of photography demands study. No magic bullets, no secret formulas. That's what I love about it. And it's what pisses off a lot of people who buy DSLR's and think that's what they were missing.
 
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BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I've all ready mentioned that the camera was set for birds in flight using shutter priotity. birds inflight require different settings than static birds. I was photographing Mallards when the tree climber came around. the settings do not matter here, the shot is blown.

for arguments sake, shutter speed is 1000, iso is 800, aperture 5, center weight metering.

we are not supposed to be looking at exif data for this image which is clearly blown.

i would prefer that a pro look at the shot, not the photo, and say "for that scene, i would've set the camera ..."

i'm thinking aperture priority set to lowest, which is 4.5 for my lens.
perhaps iso-200 and shutter speed 1/25, 1/80 or 1/125?

basically, how would YOU get this shot?

i can be within 5 feet of the tree, the bird would be around 10 feet away from me. the sky would show behind the tree a bit. in this situation, what would you do to get the shot?

And for the record, EXIF data is exactly what any "pro" would want to know when asked to review a shot. The rest is all experience and learning how to deal with light. You can't take a low contrast photo in high contrast lighting. Like I said, no magic bullets. No combination of camera settings would have given you what you think you would get from this shot. It's a solid capture that just needs to be processed properly. The only thing that might fix it automatically is some combination of Active D-lighting and a custom camera profile, but if you walked away from my last post thinking "holy crap, I have to do all that?!" then good luck figuring out how to get that to work consistently well in JPEG mode (it won't help you with RAW).

One thing you might want to try is going to spot metering for small birds in particular. In this case it would have blown out your background, but the nuthatch would have been fine. Like I said, you can't tone down high contrast in the camera, and I'd rather have a dark image where I can recover light information than one with blown out highlights that will stay white no matter what.
 
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d5200user

New member
for the hawk: i would've used sp at 1/2500s, max iso 1600, spot metering. I always snag air shots easily with good contrast.

for the Eurasian Nuthatch (Kleiber, id est, climber), i will try the following:
1/800-1/1250s, max iso 1250, spot.
otherwise, i'll use the auto and macro which always snag the shot for me even with a cheap compact digital camera.

l8er.
 

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
for the hawk: i would've used sp at 1/2500s, max iso 1600, spot metering. I always snag air shots easily with good contrast.

for the Eurasian Nuthatch (Kleiber, id est, climber), i will try the following:
1/800-1/1250s, max iso 1250, spot.
otherwise, i'll use the auto and macro which always snag the shot for me even with a cheap compact digital camera.

l8er.

Okay, well, why don't you just ignore the paragraphs of good information you have gotten, insult an excellent photographer who was really trying to help you, then do whatever the hell you want to anyway.

Oh, wait, that's just what you did.

The problem with the Nuthatch picture is strong side and back lighting and a lack of good post processing. You can learn from this or just keep trying "settings" until you exhaust yourself.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
As already mentioned, it's back-lit and spot metering would have helped. The settings (besides metering) are not the problem. The issue is approach of the photographer. Shots like this are essentially doomed before they are taken, you will only save poor lighting with great post processing and the results generally won't impress.
 

Kendall_

Senior Member
I now try to shoot birds with the sun either straight on my side or behind me. I use to shoot with it anywhere but it never worked out for me.
 

d5200user

New member
well, ladies and gents, i got the shots and i am proud of my work. the shots are amazing!

however, i remember reading about aperture priority. i tried it on ap but some shots were well exposed and others were as dark as yesterday. By the way, i always use spot metering. Spot metering can be bad if you target the wrong "spot." i must've hit the wrong spot and really blew the shot. Again, i had the camera set for flight. I have yet to learn how to photograph static birds.

anyway, i played with the settings several times and i got the most amazing shots. i am happy. but i noticed that both d5200 and coolpix had the same problem tring the light the scene. I suppose that a shadowy scene requires some bit of light. I say this because the sunlight hit the Kleiber a few times and my shots are great. When the bird moved deeper into the shadows, the shots were again underexposed. I learned a lesson today. At least i can begin to get great shots of static birds too.

i also got a great shot of a female Mallard flying five feet in front of me. perfect blur/bokeh. the shot looks like it belongs in a magazine. i am so happy today. all is well.

for some reason, i struggle to use aperture priority. I will have to play some more settings in this mode.

I'm off to admire my shots...
 
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