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7D ISO values (1 Viewer)

nick scarle

nick scarle

Leo
I'm going to Ghana for a few days birding this weekend.
My primary interest is seeing/watching birds and wildlife but I do enjoy getting a few record shots as well.
I'm expecting it to be quite gloomy in the forest so my question is what ISO values should I aim to be using to get reasonable results. I have a Canon 7D and 100-400 zoom.

Thanks in advance
Nick
 
Nick,

Its all about balancing the ISO, shutter speed and aperture - easy to state but difficult in practice in the environment you may encounter. You can use AUTO ISO (sorry I have never used it)otherwise you have to keep your wits about you and keep checking your exposure - test before you see your bird of a lifetime. You may also want to take a flash and flsh extender (eg Better beamer). Sorry for not being much help but good luck and enjoy
 
If it is a 7dmk2, I would leave ISO at about 1000 in deep tropical forest and spin round to 2000 at a push; whatever you need to get about 100/s shutter speed. I tend to use ISO1000 or less and take a huge series of a stationary bird - at least one should be sharp!

cheers, alan
 
what about auto-ISO on Canon?
doesn't it work well?

to freeze action you need to prioritize faster shutter speeds,
and you might need to go up in ISO,
otherwise, as low ISO as possible,
but not slower shutter speed than IS in the lens can handle,
also, slight movements of the subject can cause blurry photos
when shutter speeds are too slow.
 
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Vespobuteo said:
what about auto-ISO on Canon?
doesn't it work well?

to freeze action you need to prioritize faster shutter speeds,
and you might need to go up in ISO,
otherwise, as low ISO as possible,
but not slower shutter speed than IS in the lens can handle,
also, slight movements of the subject can cause blurry photos
when shutter speeds are too slow.
Click to expand...


An important point this. All the IS in the world won't help if your shutter speed is too slow and the bird isn't stuffed.

The brambling is at 1/160 sec, ISO 640; the squirrel 1/100 sec, ISO 1000 and the greenfinch is 1/320 sec, ISO 800. All were in forest shade in late February a couple of years ago when there were no leaves on the trees. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and use a high ISO and put up with the resultant noise if you're going to get any kind of shot. These were all taken with the 7D and a non-IS 400mm/5.6 lens.

I've just come back from India, where for a lot of the time I was shooting in forest with an IS lens, a 7DII and a shutter speed fixed at 1/640 with Auto ISO. It was common for the ISO to set itself to 4000, 5000 or even higher in the shade.

EDIT. I'm still sorting, filing and deleting shots from the trip at the moment so the paradise flycatcher is a shot chosen almost at random. It's in forest shade with strong afternoon sunshine (4pm) overhead. Common conditions, but the light is even poorer in the early morning before the birds go for their siesta. Shutter was set at 1/640, the auto ISO chose 6400. You just have to live with the noise and treat it in PP. IS lens (Sigma 150-600 Sport).

These are probably similar conditions to those Nick will experience in Ghana.
 

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Nick - I have a 7D mk1 and same lens as yours and would say that forest photography is always challenging. My record shots include images up to iso 3200 and shutter speed still much slower than I would like but the results are often at the barely keepers, as record shots. Grain is heavy.

I will always push the camera to the limits of what I can take and occasionally I get images that fit my category of Record shots that act as a memory jogger rather than an image that would ever get posted or printed.

I've been with people who have same set up as me who have used some fill-in flash with a basic flash extender. They keep more shots but I've not always been convinced that the images resemble subjects caught in the headlights.
 
Barred Wobbler said:
An important point this. All the IS in the world won't help if your shutter speed is too slow and the bird isn't stuffed.

The brambling is at 1/160 sec, ISO 640; the squirrel 1/100 sec, ISO 1000 and the greenfinch is 1/320 sec, ISO 800. All were in forest shade in late February a couple of years ago when there were no leaves on the trees. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and use a high ISO and put up with the resultant noise if you're going to get any kind of shot. These were all taken with the 7D and a non-IS 400mm/5.6 lens.

I've just come back from India, where for a lot of the time I was shooting in forest with an IS lens, a 7DII and a shutter speed fixed at 1/640 with Auto ISO. It was common for the ISO to set itself to 4000, 5000 or even higher in the shade.

EDIT. I'm still sorting, filing and deleting shots from the trip at the moment so the paradise flycatcher is a shot chosen almost at random. It's in forest shade with strong afternoon sunshine (4pm) overhead. Common conditions, but the light is even poorer in the early morning before the birds go for their siesta. Shutter was set at 1/640, the auto ISO chose 6400. You just have to live with the noise and treat it in PP. IS lens (Sigma 150-600 Sport).

These are probably similar conditions to those Nick will experience in Ghana.
Click to expand...

your photos illustrate very well the challenges when photographing birds/animals,

for documentation purposes or freezing movement flash can be useful but
the artificial look of the photos is seldom pleasing
 
take a look at Carlos's images via website & Flicker. A really nice collection of images taken in Southern Brazil and someone I would recommend for guiding. I've been out with Carlos and he has same camera lens as myself but uses a flash boom on his camera to throw him more light. The birds can look artificial however in some cases which is why I've not pursued flash photography myself.

http://www.carduelis.bio.br/testimonials.html
 
Thankyou everyone for your replies.
I will certainly experiment with auto ISO for a fixed shutter speed and see where that gets me.
I agree that flash does often give an artificial look to the photos and I avoid it whenever I can.
It will be interesting to see just how far the ISO can be pushed and still acieve acceptable results.
I will post a follow up with, hopefully, some images to chew over.

Nick
 
I took this in shade under a bush with the 7D and non-IS lens while sitting in a car. Keeping a sensible shutter speed meant I had to push the ISO way above what I'd like. ISO 1250, 1/800 sec.
 

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nick scarle said:
Thankyou everyone for your replies.
I will certainly experiment with auto ISO for a fixed shutter speed and see where that gets me.
I agree that flash does often give an artificial look to the photos and I avoid it whenever I can.
It will be interesting to see just how far the ISO can be pushed and still acieve acceptable results.
I will post a follow up with, hopefully, some images to chew over.

Nick
Click to expand...

In Ghana wet forests (Kakum, Ankasa etc) I think you will find the auto ISO will be up in the high 1000s for the suggested shutter speeds. Have a try but I think that doing it the other way, ie settling for a lower shutter speed, and taking lots of images, is IME, the best way to get a few decent shots. It doesn't "feel right" as nobody likes to take a lot of poor images! Good luck, which ever approach you use.

cheers, alan
 
nick scarle said:
Thankyou everyone for your replies.
I will certainly experiment with auto ISO for a fixed shutter speed and see where that gets me.
I agree that flash does often give an artificial look to the photos and I avoid it whenever I can.
It will be interesting to see just how far the ISO can be pushed and still acieve acceptable results.
I will post a follow up with, hopefully, some images to chew over.

Nick
Click to expand...

google glenn bartley,a canadian photographer who uses flash in tropics with excellent results IMO

Good luck and enjoy
 
lewis20126 said:
In Ghana wet forests (Kakum, Ankasa etc) I think you will find the auto ISO will be up in the high 1000s for the suggested shutter speeds. Have a try but I think that doing it the other way, ie settling for a lower shutter speed, and taking lots of images, is IME, the best way to get a few decent shots. It doesn't "feel right" as nobody likes to take a lot of poor images! Good luck, which ever approach you use.

cheers, alan
Click to expand...

you have a valid point there,
(some) pro photographers tend to take A LOT more photos than amateurs...
 
I have a 7d and would endorse the use of auto ISO with the camera set at an appropriate shutter speed in Tv mode.
You can get perfectly acceptable record shots at 6400 with this camera provided that you set the camera to overexpose the image ( look up ETTR on Google ). It sounds counter-intuitive but you get better results with a higher ISO setting overexposed than with a lower ISO and a correct or underexposed image. You do need to do some processing on the image. Have a look at Teamspeed on the forum POTN.
Best wishes
Steve
 
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