Swan - advice please (1 Viewer)

I'm struggling to get to grips with my first digital camera that I can do more with than just point and click.

It's a Fuji S5500 with 10x optical zoom (at max quality the digital zoom doesn't come into play). This swan is a fairly typical example. It isn't the best shot I took in terms of the way the swan was holding its neck but the majority were much less clearly focussed - I do end up deleting a lot of "waste". I took it on full zoom (no tripod, although I do have one and am starting to use it). The first shot is it unadulterated and the second cropped and the swan "lassoed" and "sharpened more" on paint shop pro studio. Both are obviously resized to 800 to upload here.

I had the camera set on maximum quality, shutter priority, Exposure bias F/0.9, Brightness F/15.2, exposure time 1/125 second, f number 7, Lens aperture F7.0, Max aperture F/2.8, Shutter speed 1/128 second, focal length 57 mm, ISO 64. It says here!

Most of these technicalities are still some way above my head...

Any help very gratefully received.

Many thanks,

HB

Hindolbittern said:

I'm struggling to get to grips with my first digital camera that I can do more with than just point and click.

It's a Fuji S5500 with 10x optical zoom (at max quality the digital zoom doesn't come into play). This swan is a fairly typical example. It isn't the best shot I took in terms of the way the swan was holding its neck but the majority were much less clearly focussed - I do end up deleting a lot of "waste". I took it on full zoom (no tripod, although I do have one and am starting to use it). The first shot is it unadulterated and the second cropped and the swan "lassoed" and "sharpened more" on paint shop pro studio. Both are obviously resized to 800 to upload here.

I had the camera set on maximum quality, shutter priority, Exposure bias F/0.9, Brightness F/15.2, exposure time 1/125 second, f number 7, Lens aperture F7.0, Max aperture F/2.8, Shutter speed 1/128 second, focal length 57 mm, ISO 64. It says here!

Most of these technicalities are still some way above my head...

Any help very gratefully received.

Many thanks,

HB

Click to expand...

Hi HIndelbittern
Welcome to the world of digital photography.
I have to say that given the camera you are using you have done an excellent job with the swan. What exactly is it that you cant get to grips with? The exposure is good as is the focus and the lighting is beautiful. With the type of camera that you have, you have to be aware that it does have its limitations (more so than with an slr) but you should be very pleased with this photo.
One important thing to remember when photographing birds is to try and get your shutterspeed up as high as you can. There are two ways you can achieve this. You can either increase your iso (film speed) yours is 64, increase it to at least 100 and see how that affects your shutterspeed. On some cameras the higher the iso the grainier the photo becomes so you will have to experiment with this. You can also lower your aperture, the lower the f number the more light is let into your camera and this will increase your shutterspeed also. You need to experiment with this too though because if your bird is far away with the background close it you will find focusing better with a higher f number.
My best advise to you really though is to experiment and practice all you can. Learn from any source you can about how your camera nd photogrpahy works. The more informed you are the more consistent quality you will achieve in your photos.

psilo said:

Hi HIndelbittern
My best advise to you really though is to experiment and practice all you can. Learn from any source you can about how your camera nd photogrpahy works. The more informed you are the more consistent quality you will achieve in your photos.

Click to expand...

Hi, Philo,

Thanks - you have been very kind about the swan! You've hit the nail on the head by saying the more informed I am the more consistent the quality will be. What I'm not on top of is understanding the technicalities and therefore I'm just not in control of what I'm doing. At the moment I'm getting away with it by ramping things up and down almost (but not quite) randomly, rather than based on any informed strategy. What I'm achieving, such as it is, is 80% not being too shabby at recognising a lovely image when I spot one (kind of comes with the job!) and then 20% guesswork on the proper way to capture it. Although I am starting to glean a few bits, mostly by hanging around here and some very useful help from Mike Mules on a seperate thread too.

So specific suggestions such as changing the film speed and aperture and what it ultimately does to pictures were exactly what I'm after and are really handy to start piecing together all those darn' numbers. Thank you.

I suppose I really need a good inspiring basic book on the subject. The few I've seen on digital photgraphy in our local booksop tend to have far more pages on the post production (photoshopping etc) than the old fashioned nitty gritty of how to control the camera in the field. I do need to know more about paint shop, I'm just skimming the surface really, but I really need to understand the camera properly first I reckon.

Any book suggestions? I don't solely photograph birds, I love landscape and macro too.

Thanks again,

HB

Hi HB I have those shots from my finepix 5000 exposed the same way.My mute stays about 75-100 yards from my shooting window. Some days the light is better.Otherwise I'd say your getting the most from the cam.
Sam

Hi HB
Yes photography can be very frustrating when you first start out as you see opportunities missed because you dont know how to do something. Your camera i am guessing is like the minolta dimage z1 I used to have, so the dial terms used are different to an slr. This means that some of the technical jargon you see in a book may be confusing. However, you get there though the settings you need will still be the same.
Are you using automatic at the moment?
On your camera there are two main semi automatic settings : aperture priority and shutter priority as well as the various other functions which i wont go into now. Look in your manual at how to set these. Your aperture priority means you control the aperture selected and the camera automatically selects the shutter speed and vice versa on shutter priority.
My own personal view, when starting out with bird photography is to use shutter priority first. As I said before for good, well focused photos you need a good fast shutterspeed. Anything below 1/125 a second is very hit and miss so aim to get a shutterspeed above this and ideally the higher the better. As your shutterspeed increases watch what the camera does with the aperture. Notice how the f numbers increase or decrease depending on the speed. This is so that once you get a bit more proficient you can select aperture priority with a bit more confidence. Aperture is a bit more difficult for the beginner to understand so i think shutter speed and its effect on the rest of the settings is a good place to start.

Your iso or film speed affects the amount of light that enters the camera. The higher the iso the faster the shutter speed you can select. In very expensive cameras much higher isos can be selected and still give limited noise. However on your camera you need to be very careful here, Start with an iso of between 100-200 and see how this affects the graininess of your photos. Also do n ot overuse your digital zoom. Accept that your camera maybe doesnt always have the reach you want. Do not try to compensate by using the zoom as you will find, especially when cropping that results will be disappointing.

Sorry I dont have any book suggestions to give you. Everything I have ever done is either self taught or learnt either from here or from a very good friend of mine who is also a very good photographer. You will not be lost for advice here though as Im sure there are plenty of people who will be more than willing to help you.

regards

Annette

ps... just seen sams post and I agree with him. I think your swan photo was as good as you could expect from the camera well done.

There’s a BF thread here with book recommendations :
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=19341&highlight=photography+book

I personally found the articles here quite helpful :
http://www.megapixel.net/html/articles.php

At maximum zoom on your camera might be worth using more like 1/500 sec to reduce likelihood of blurred pictures from “camera shake”. At maximum zoom also have to be extra diligent to try to get focus spot on. The “noise” you get from using higher ISO numbers on your camera is nicely illustrated here :
http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews_fuji_finepix_s5500_6.php