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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Flight shot assessment please (1 Viewer)

G

gordon g

Well-known member
These three were taken at Bempton yesterday - a very windy day at the cliff edge, with lots of turbulence. The birds were whipping around at some speed, but because of the turbulence were usually having several goes to get in on fairly regular approaches. Once I'd spotted these, it was easier to pick a bird up some distance out and track it in.
The tracking may have been a challenge, but the lighting was fortunately quite even for these shots - bright overcast, reducing contrast and exposure problems.
Technical stuff: Apeture priority, no compensation, AI focus, handheld sigma 50-500 at 500mm on 1DsII. No gloves (big mistake!).
POst-processing: the puffin was heading at some speed out of the top of the frame, so that has been cropped to even things up as much as possible, otherwise all have had the minimum - RAW conversion to 8bit TIFF, resize, sharpen, save as jpeg.
All comments and critiscism welcomed.http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/141856/limit/recent
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/141855/limit/recent
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/141854/limit/recent
It was a fairly productive day, so will post more in the gallery as I get the time.:flyaway:
 
All have their qualities but favs are 3rd in first post and 2nd in 2nd post. Fantastic exposures and pretty sharp considering the subject matte! 3rd in 2nd post is very unusual.
 
Thanks again for all the coments. Here are some more from that Bempton trip.
The puffin I'm happy with, but the gannet I think could have been framed a little more centrally - perhaps a crop would do it, but at the expense of the feeling of space around the bird. The highlights are very nearly gone in places too. (Mental note - remember EV- on these birds!). The razorbill shot was a bit of a fluke really - almost reflexive, I'm surprised it's as in focus as it is!
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/142103/limit/recent
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/142105/limit/recent
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/142104/limit/recent
Please continue to comment and critiscise.
 
Gordon I think those are stunning photos.

How is it possible to get such sharp images hand holding and shooting with 500 mm at 1/400 without image stabilization?
Amazing Beautiful.

Orca
 
Thanks Orca.
How so sharp? I think the honest answer is that in part it's down to technology. The 1DsII has very quick autofocus, and the bigma has HSM - these together give me a big advantage. However, I do find tracking a bird much easier handheld than using a tripod. The balance of my combo is good, and I hold the lens with my left hand wedged between the tripod attatchment and body just at the balance point. My right hand holds the body, and the eyepiece never leaves my eye. Elbows are tucked in tight to my body to stabalise the camera, and feet planted. Where I can, I will lean on something solid as well. I then track the bird moving from the waist. I also find that making some dummy runs, just keeping the bird in the viewfinder, before taking the shot helps practice the movement. This works well at places such as seacliffs, where there are regular flight paths, but obviously wouldnt be applicable everywhere.
Whenever I've tried panning on a tripod, either the camera or me ends up in the dirt!
 
Ok, last post with photos from this Bempton trip - before I bore everyone rigid. Looking through the gallery, most flight shots seem to be landscape orientation, but I've posted 2 here that seem to me to work better in portrait format. (Both have been cropped to that shape - I find it much easier to track with the camera the right way up!). I just like the final puffin's pose.
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/142221/ppuser/28570
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/142222/ppuser/28570
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/142223/ppuser/28570
Many thanks for all the kind comments and advice. I hope you have enjoyed these photos as much as I did taking them. Time for me to get out to take some more!
 
Orca,
I think Gordon is pulling the wool over your eyes |:d| though maybe not intentionally.
I too was impressed with the shots and wondered the same question as to handholding the "Bigma", I checked the EXIF info on most of Gordons shots and only found one that fell below the recomended shutter speed for avoiding camera shake, which in this case is 1/500th as the camera is a full frame sensor, many of Gordons shots were well above that speed.
Gordons explanation and his technique for handholding is still good though, even using a reasonable shutter speed is pointless with poor handling.

Gordon,
Excelent images, last time I was at Bempton it was late in the day horribly overcast and everything shot with my "Bigma" went straight in the bin|=(|
 
Some nice shots there. My only hint would be to try and see what is in the background before you take photo. For eg the Guillemot taking off is good but would have been better if there wasnt an out of focus bird behind its tail.I was there a couple of weeks ago for the first time what a great place.I took this one of a herring gull on an updraft.
 

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impotentspider said:
Orca,
I think Gordon is pulling the wool over your eyes |:d| though maybe not intentionally.
I too was impressed with the shots and wondered the same question as to handholding the "Bigma", I checked the EXIF info on most of Gordons shots and only found one that fell below the recomended shutter speed for avoiding camera shake, which in this case is 1/500th as the camera is a full frame sensor, many of Gordons shots were well above that speed.
Gordons explanation and his technique for handholding is still good though, even using a reasonable shutter speed is pointless with poor handling.

Gordon,
Excelent images, last time I was at Bempton it was late in the day horribly overcast and everything shot with my "Bigma" went straight in the bin|=(|
Click to expand...

Yes - I'd taken it as read that you need as fast a shutter speed as you can get, so sorry if I misled anyone. For a static subject though, I would feel quite confident of getting reasonable sharpness (for say a 9*6 print, or even A4 with a bit of luck) at 1/250th using my technique for handholding (the additional bit for static subjects is to time your exposure for the end of a slow exhalation, which slows your pulse and helps stabilise your torso by increasing abdominal tension).
From memory, I think the majority were shot at ISO 400, which is quite high for a bright day, and gave me some leaway to stop down a little (f8 - 10 for most of them from memory), also improving the chances of a sharp image by improving the depth of field.
The other thing to bear in mind is that these are a selection of the best from about 250 images - there were plenty of blurry blobs and wonky horizons.
 
Pluvius said:
Some nice shots there. My only hint would be to try and see what is in the background before you take photo. For eg the Guillemot taking off is good but would have been better if there wasnt an out of focus bird behind its tail.I was there a couple of weeks ago for the first time what a great place.I took this one of a herring gull on an updraft.
Click to expand...

That's a lovely shot Pluvius :t:
I agree that the background can make or break the image, and ideally an uncluttered, nicely out of focus one would be best. I actually binned probably the sharpest puffin shot of the day - a couple of shots later in the sequence that I took the head-on one I posted from, because there was a blurry kittiwake right behind half of the bird :)-C ). The problem I had was that in such congested airspace it was hard to pick shooting angles with reliably empty air around the bird in shot - there was a certain ammount of luck as well as judgement!;)
 
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