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

Settings for D7200 & Nikon 200-500 (1 Viewer)

Apodidae49

Well-known member
I’ve more or less figured out that Manual Mode with aperture at f5.6, shutter speed at 1/1250, single point AF and Auto ISO is the way to go for BIF so can I just leave those settings for all general bird photography with possible adjustments to shutter speed and/or aperture when photographing waterbirds from a hide or “sitters” in trees? Presumably I might want to close the aperture down a bit when photographing in amongst branches to avoid focussing on twigs and not birds?

I’ve got those settings programmed in on U1 so does anyone have a set of settings that might be usefully preset on U2?
 
What I usually do is a process like this:

  • If shooting JPEG, I set large mode, fine resolution, Vivid, +3 saturation, +3 sharpness. Turn off d-lighting. Distortion control on.
  • M mode
  • f/5.6 - 8, depending on expected depth of field
  • SS 1/500 - 1/2000, depending on expected motion.
  • I leave VR on most all the time.
  • Auto ISO at 64 (in your case likely 100 as the base ISO). Auto ISO will not go below the value you specify. There is also a max that is set in the menus. I set the max around 3200, or whatever I'm comfortable with.
  • Spot light meter.
  • AF-C with either 3D tracking or a smallish center group AF.
  • If there is a bright background (e.g. sand or sky), I set +2/3 to +1 1/3 EV exposure compensation. This will blow out the background a little, but the darker bird will be properly exposed. you need some experience to figure out what the right EC is for your background and bird.
  • If I will be switching between dark background and light background I will use a fixed ISO, assuming the subject stays in about the same lighting. I find a neutral white subject and find the right ISO, then bump it up +1/3 to +2/3 EV. This avoids the camera getting fooled by background changes. Another option is to use an EV lock button on the back.

For U2, I like to have a people setting. This would be a much lower SS (say 1/50 - 1/250), Standard or Portrait picture quality, +0 sharpess, +0 saturation, maybe +1 amber white balance, AF-S, matrix meter, Auto ISO.

If shooting raw, the JPEG settings for picture quality, saturation, sharpness, etc. do not matter.
 
What I usually do is a process like this:

  • If shooting JPEG, I set large mode, fine resolution, Vivid, +3 saturation, +3 sharpness. Turn off d-lighting. Distortion control on.
  • M mode
  • f/5.6 - 8, depending on expected depth of field
  • SS 1/500 - 1/2000, depending on expected motion.
  • I leave VR on most all the time.
  • Auto ISO at 64 (in your case likely 100 as the base ISO). Auto ISO will not go below the value you specify. There is also a max that is set in the menus. I set the max around 3200, or whatever I'm comfortable with.
  • Spot light meter.
  • AF-C with either 3D tracking or a smallish center group AF.
  • If there is a bright background (e.g. sand or sky), I set +2/3 to +1 1/3 EV exposure compensation. This will blow out the background a little, but the darker bird will be properly exposed. you need some experience to figure out what the right EC is for your background and bird.
  • If I will be switching between dark background and light background I will use a fixed ISO, assuming the subject stays in about the same lighting. I find a neutral white subject and find the right ISO, then bump it up +1/3 to +2/3 EV. This avoids the camera getting fooled by background changes. Another option is to use an EV lock button on the back.

For U2, I like to have a people setting. This would be a much lower SS (say 1/50 - 1/250), Standard or Portrait picture quality, +0 sharpess, +0 saturation, maybe +1 amber white balance, AF-S, matrix meter, Auto ISO.

If shooting raw, the JPEG settings for picture quality, saturation, sharpness, etc. do not matter.

Thanks, that’s helpful, I have two 64gb cards in the camera and record RAW on card 1 and jpeg on card 2. This is mainly so I can have a mess around with a few images on PhotoScape X which is my editing program of choice. I think the advice of using a small, central AF group is a good idea for BIF and then use Single Point for sitting birds or waterbirds and try to hit the Holy Grail of focussing on the eye.
 
Thanks, that’s helpful, I have two 64gb cards in the camera and record RAW on card 1 and jpeg on card 2. This is mainly so I can have a mess around with a few images on PhotoScape X which is my editing program of choice. I think the advice of using a small, central AF group is a good idea for BIF and then use Single Point for sitting birds or waterbirds and try to hit the Holy Grail of focussing on the eye.

I usually use 3d af (which is like single point) or small group as I can aim around foreground and background clutter.

For BIF against the sky (i.e. without background clutter), full frame 156-point (or whatever your camera is) sometimes works well for birds that are hard to track, like fast swallows. But if there's background clutter it usually does not work so well.

I'm usually not close enough to pick eye vs head vs upper chest. Sometimes, but usually it's big birds a long way away or small birds somewhat close.

Marc
 
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