Help with birds

I was so excited to get home and have a look at my shots of 2 osprey pairs today but my results weren't great.

I'm not sure where I went wrong and am looking for help. If I was way off in my setting choices I'd appreciate any critical opinions so I can learn and try again. I'm trying the new way of uploading for me so I hope the exif data is available to those who can see that. I've been thinking and thinking this evening and my thought was I shouldn't have been on matrix metering and maybe should have done single point?

These are jpegs made from my original Raw files with no editing of any kind (read super ugly)
Using D7000 with 70-300mm VR single point focus, and matrix metering for all

iso 200 270mm 0ev f/8 1/1000


Iso 200 185mm 0ev f/8 1/1000


iso 200 165mm 0ev f/8 1/1000


Iso 200 70mm 0ev f/8 1/1000


iso 200 280mm 0ev f/8 1/800

Oh wow just realized all these shots I chose used the same settings but I was switching around and tried f10 and f13 with slower shutters but with results not much better. Some shots were better poses though so I'd already played and adjusted and others were worse so deleted them right away.

OK, The exif data is readable.

Camera Maker: NIKON CORPORATION
Camera Model: NIKON D7000
Image Date: 2013-06-07 16:16:26 (no TZ)
Focal Length: 270.0mm
Aperture: f/8.0
Exposure Time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)
ISO equiv: 200
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: Manual
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: QuickTime 7.7.1


I think you can do a little post processing and get a lot out of them.

I will post my edited ones in my 365 post but they seem VERY dark and when I lift the shadows they look faded. Ok glad exif data is available wasn't sure so typed it out

form first glance I'd say your shutter speed was too high. Perhaps you metered for the sky and not the bird.

To me it simply looks like the subject matter was rather poor. Grey overcast day, with wildlife lacking any colour or vibrance. You were also were unable to get close enough to show the real detail of the birds. I don't think any camera setting were ever gonna make these great shots. Don't mean this in a rude way at all.. but you can't polish a turd! (even though i watched a myth buster episode the other day that proved that to be wrong!)

Thanx to those who took the time and interest to try to help.
​Travelled out there again and this time had a bluer sky so used my CPOL and so shutter was lowered and background was nicer. I think maybe I need to do more looking at my focus options rather than single point but yes it seems these birds are for the most part sadly beyond my 70-300mm range. As for birds colouring I don't live in the tropics, I live in the north and these are wild birds not in living in a zoo or park. That osprey nest could easily fit 2 or more adults comfortably.

snaphappy said:

Thanx to those who took the time and interest to try to help.
​Travelled out there again and this time had a bluer sky so used my CPOL and so shutter was lowered and background was nicer. I think maybe I need to do more looking at my focus options rather than single point but yes it seems these birds are for the most part sadly beyond my 70-300mm range. As for birds colouring I don't live in the tropics, I live in the north and these are wild birds not in living in a zoo or park. That osprey nest could easily fit 2 or more adults comfortably.
View attachment 40573View attachment 40574View attachment 40575

Click to expand...

Looks like you have gotten the answer because these look pretty good.

Different settings work better for some people than others but I will give you the settings that I use a lot and seem to work for me. When I am photographing birds and wildlife most of the time I shoot aperture priority and my camera is set to F5.6. At most distances this will give me all the depth of field I need. As i shoot closer subjects I increase my F stop to maybe F7 or F8 because if you are zooming in on a subject that is relatively close your depth of field drops to just about nothing. In cases where I need to stop some faster action I will shoot on shutter priority and choose a suitable speed to get the shot I am after. Remember that even when you are shooting a bird in flight that you are panning with the subject and only need enough shutter speed to stop the motion of the wings because you are moving at the same speed as the bird which make it just about the same as if it were sitting still, it's only the wing you need to stop.

Most of the time I use matrix metering but if I do a preview on the rear LCD screen and it is not giving me what I want I might change to spot metering. As far as focusing I use single point focus 99.9% of the time no matter what subject I am shooting. Shooting single point on a moving subject takes a little practice to get use to but I just do not like my camera deciding what the point of focus is going to be. I also have my camera set up to show me where the point of focus was on the LCD screen when reviewing my picture and this lets me know emidiatly if the subject is in focus or not.

Remember that this works well for me but may not work for you. If you ask 25 people how they shoot subjects you just may get 25 different answers. This is a learning process and you just have to try different techniques and see what works the best for you.