On saturday I was invited to a birding shoot in Southern Thailand with 3 other keen birders. The first location was amazing and we saw many many different kinds of small birds (I mean really small like the size of your thumb small). I was shooting with my Nikon D500 and Nikon 600mm f4 and both sitting on a sturdy tripod with a Wimberley gimbal head.
The hide was about 3 to 6 meters from the various perches.
It was a hot sunny day (bloody hot in the hide) but even with the sun out I guess the canopy blocked a lot of that light out because even at f4 I was struggling to stay below ISO1000 (my auto ISO was set at 100/3200 at 1/400 (im shooting at ~900mm) and a lot of my shots were at 3200......especially later in the day.
One of the other guys was using a Canon cropped sensor camera and a 100/600mm lens with a flash mounted on the camera. When I asked him why he was using flash he said to keep the ISO below 400. I don't own an on camera flash so that option wasn't available for me.
So my question to the gang is this;
1/. Should I go out and buy a flash
2/. Next time use my off camera flash with a big umbrella
3/. Increase the ISO and painstakingly try and clean up the digital noise
I had an amazing two days and cant wait to do it again
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Below is a before and after shot that I took yesterday shot at F5 1/200 ISO 3200
The hide was about 3 to 6 meters from the various perches.
It was a hot sunny day (bloody hot in the hide) but even with the sun out I guess the canopy blocked a lot of that light out because even at f4 I was struggling to stay below ISO1000 (my auto ISO was set at 100/3200 at 1/400 (im shooting at ~900mm) and a lot of my shots were at 3200......especially later in the day.
One of the other guys was using a Canon cropped sensor camera and a 100/600mm lens with a flash mounted on the camera. When I asked him why he was using flash he said to keep the ISO below 400. I don't own an on camera flash so that option wasn't available for me.
So my question to the gang is this;
1/. Should I go out and buy a flash
2/. Next time use my off camera flash with a big umbrella
3/. Increase the ISO and painstakingly try and clean up the digital noise
I had an amazing two days and cant wait to do it again
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Below is a before and after shot that I took yesterday shot at F5 1/200 ISO 3200
