Fujifilm HS50 EXR has arrived ! (1 Viewer)

[Gordon W]

Cracking shot Gordon although if I may suggest set your S-Mode to these:

1/1000s or higher depending on how sunny is the sun
Auto ISO400
RAW+JPEG (LSize)
NR & Sharpness both to -2
Continuous shot mode (3fps)

Set your C-Mode to static and semi-static critters on land.

Sounds like a plan. C-mode isn't working for me anyway. I'm obviously not doing something right, but I set things and then next time I turn the camera on, they've reverted. Also, it appears the only mode option is 'P' and turning the Control Dial doesn't change anything. Apparently some settings disable it in P-mode. Much too complicated to remember all the situations where this works with that and that doesn't work with this. So, I agree, S-mode will probably be easier to deal with. I'll give it a try.

 

[Joms]

Sounds like a plan. C-mode isn't working for me anyway. I'm obviously not doing something right, but I set things and then next time I turn the camera on, they've reverted. Also, it appears the only mode option is 'P' and turning the Control Dial doesn't change anything. Apparently some settings disable it in P-mode. Much too complicated to remember all the situations where this works with that and that doesn't work with this. So, I agree, S-mode will probably be easier to deal with. I'll give it a try.

1/1000s or higher depending on how sunny is the sun
Auto ISO400
RAW+JPEG (LSize)
NR & Sharpness both to -2
Continuous shot mode (3fps)
DR = Auto (Important) If you are shooting in MSize then DR doesn't matter but in LSize, if you set it to DR400, ISO will always be ISO400.

 

[kennethwfd]

how about trying M mode which will allow you to set both shutter speed and aperture. You use the exposure compensation button to toggle between the two options. I've now set burst rate to maximum (16fps) to catch fast motion such as BIF which I think this camera will be excellent for. Can't wait for the first brood of swallows to leave the nest because they invariably spend a few weeks perching from time to time while their parents feed them.

Just experimented through an open window, 1/2000 sec + F5.6 + ISO 200 seems to give the right exposure in sunlight

 

[earleybird]

really love the Duck , great detail and the frozen water droplets are excellent. Well done that fellow.

Its an entirely personal view but I think the image might benefit from slightly less cropping but then I can't see the original image so there might be a reason

. I think it needs more space to the left and above the beak as it looks rather cramped.

it might look ok to include the other duck in the image to improve the general composition. ?

Lovely Duck anyway

Amazing sharpness on the Robin ! you must be well chuffed at that shot

 

[kennethwfd]

I am regarding the robin. What happened with the duck, was I composed my shot, then I think something else took off causing her to move forward, hence the tightness to the frount. could add more height and clone some more foreground ( don't know how to do it, but someone on this forum did it on a starling pic which I offered for critique and attracted the same comment for the same reason )

I'm finding this camera really great to capture action shots. One of my first ones was of an egret in the action of opening its beak to release and swallow its catch, sadly the shot was very overexposed leading to total blow out of the bird's white plumage

 

[kennethwfd]

one from today. two pigeons having a scrap

 

[Joms]

one from today. two pigeons having a scrap

Looks good... I have caught PIF (Pigeons-In-Flight) too

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joms_birding/8656159705/in/photostream

Exif data

Camera Fujifilm FinePix HS50EXR
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1600)
Aperture f/4.5
Focal Length 27 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

 

[kennethwfd]

pleased with this as the two birds were fighting and thus totally unpredictable.

Moorhen. not the best composition or background but sharpest of the bunch

 

[Keith Dickinson]

Joms, that is a fantastic shot, to have so many birds like that is unbelievable

Kenneth, I like the definition on the moorhen's plumage that you have managed to capture.

As I have been confined to barracks, overcast and wet today, I've been playing with images in both Lightroom and Silkypix, and I am coming to the conclusion that to get the best out of RAW with the HS50 you need to use the Silkypix software.
I found that when altering the exposure by a large amount +/- 1.00 or more the image from SP was much better than that from LR.
Noise reduction seemed better with SP as well, although I haven't taken that many pictures yet at low light levels.
The colour was also better with the SP software, to my eyes anyway and I should warn you that I failed the med for the RAF on colour recognition.
Looks like I'm really going to have to change my ways and knuckle down to learning the whole of SP.

 

[Joms]

Joms, that is a fantastic shot, to have so many birds like that is unbelievable

Kenneth, I like the definition on the moorhen's plumage that you have managed to capture.

As I have been confined to barracks, overcast and wet today, I've been playing with images in both Lightroom and Silkypix, and I am coming to the conclusion that to get the best out of RAW with the HS50 you need to use the Silkypix software.
I found that when altering the exposure by a large amount +/- 1.00 or more the image from SP was much better than that from LR.
Noise reduction seemed better with SP as well, although I haven't taken that many pictures yet at low light levels.
The colour was also better with the SP software, to my eyes anyway and I should warn you that I failed the med for the RAF on colour recognition.
Looks like I'm really going to have to change my ways and knuckle down to learning the whole of SP.

Thanks. HS5O is amazing to have locked on the focus on those pigeons. If it may help, I can share my SP config file so you can try and compare it with your own config.

 

[elkcub]

The HS50 arrived a few days ago, but its been frustrating to say the least. Although it's nice and sunny here in Northern California the wind has been 20-25 mph, making "still shots" an ambitious undertaking. Anyway, here are some of my first shots. They were all cropped and slightly enhanced using iPhoto. No award winners here, but at least there are recognizable images.

Needless to say, I'm going to need your help.

Ed

1. California Towhee; back yard. ~30'
2. Western Greebe; Shoreline Nature Preserve.
3. Anna's Hummingbird fem; ~50' Shoreline
4. Canada Goose in flight; Shoreline
5. Canada Geese and chicks; Shoreline

 

[Gordon W]

The HS50 arrived a few days ago, but its been frustrating to say the least. Although it's nice and sunny here in Northern California the wind has been 20-25 mph, making "still shots" an ambitious undertaking. Anyway, here are some of my first shots. They were all cropped and slightly enhanced using iPhoto. No award winners here, but at least there are recognizable images.

Excellent start, Ed. Wow, those Canada Geese are everywhere!

 

[Gordon W]

This is one of a pair I saw at sunset this evening.

Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator)
Photographed along the Rideau Canal Waterway at Kilmarnock, Ontario, Canada.
FUJIFILM FinePix HS50EXR
1/280s f/5.6 at 185.0mm iso100

 

[kennethwfd]

The HS50 arrived a few days ago, but its been frustrating to say the least. Although it's nice and sunny here in Northern California the wind has been 20-25 mph, making "still shots" an ambitious undertaking. Anyway, here are some of my first shots. They were all cropped and slightly enhanced using iPhoto. No award winners here, but at least there are recognizable images.

Needless to say, I'm going to need your help.

Ed

1. California Towhee; back yard. ~30'
2. Western Greebe; Shoreline Nature Preserve.
3. Anna's Hummingbird fem; ~50' Shoreline
4. Canada Goose in flight; Shoreline
5. Canada Geese and chicks; Shoreline

Ok, here are my thoughts. Firstly, there has been almost constant cold winds from the east in the UK, I haven't seen any evidence of chicks been hatched here.

composition 1-3 OK, I would have deleted no 4, bird flying away, wingtip missing, no 5 give the leading bird space at the frount, would look better with the entire shadow of the bird.

Cropping - try not to, try and get close and fill the frame. The camera which is capable of giving a detailed image of a small object at a distance does not exist.

with my moorhen pic, I sat on a bench and waited for the bird to come within range. someone had put down birdseed nearby so it was likely that if I waited, something would come within range

camera settings. are you changing the AF point from the centre as in no 1 the cable looks in better focus than the bird? No 3 the best in focus.

ISO settings. Low as possible. As you increase ISO speed, so do you increase noise.

Shutter speed Fast. Even with "advanced anti blur" shooting at 1000mm is still demanding to avoid camera shake

Camera handling. I pretend IS and advanced anti blur does not exist and concentrate on correct handling to avoid shake.

I think some have been influenced by the hype surrounding this camera, that it is oh so easy to simply point it at a bird and get great results

hope this helps

 

[earleybird]

The HS50 arrived a few days ago, here are some of my first shots.

Needless to say, I'm going to need your help.

Ed

1. California Towhee; back yard. ~30'
2. Western Greebe; Shoreline Nature Preserve.
3. Anna's Hummingbird fem; ~50' Shoreline
4. Canada Goose in flight; Shoreline
5. Canada Geese and chicks; Shoreline

welcome to the thread Ed .

it looks like with such strong sunlight giving strong contrasts (light and dark ) you have some of the most challenging photographic natural light of any of us. The first thing that I would say is try to avoid taking pictures in the middle of the day (ie geese and ducklings shot ) because the contrast will be too harsh . Try to shoot early morning and late evening ie 'The Golden Hour' or when the sun goes behind the clouds etc

I would recommend that you use A Aperture mode for bird photography and set your aperture according to how much of your picture you want in focus ie DOF depth of field .

The larger the number (f/11 f/16 etc) the more of the picture is going to be in focus which is great for landscapes but not generally what you want for bird shots unless they are environmental shots. I would aim for around f/5.6 but take some test shots with various f-numbers to see what the effect it has on how much is in sharp focus in your images.

Hand held shots ,( particularly at or near max zoom ),try and aim for min 1/250 shutter speed and juggle the ISO and f-number to achieve it, to freeze the action .



Apologies if I'm teaching my GM to suck eggs ... looking forward to seeing some more images from sunny Calif:t:

 

[kennethwfd]

didn't think I was going to get anything worth posting today, until I spotted a couple of Jackdaws on the roof opposite

 

[earleybird]

nice Jackdaw ! looks like he is sunning himself .Love the roof detail , moss algae etc

We have a pair trying to build a nest in next doors chimney . I'll try and get a shot when I can.

Is it a Jpeg image or RAW? what exif do you have for that shot ?

 

[kennethwfd]

D-range 100
colour std
Tone std
sharpness hard
metering pattern
FL 1000mm
Mode A priority
resolution JPEG fine. I'm finding that recording a burst sequence RAW is very slow

seen an online review of HS50 which marks it down due to "softness at max zoom". I'm repeating myself to say that I think despite the camera's ability, shooting handheld at 1000mm is not as easy as it initially sounds,and probably what may look ok on the camera's LCD may not look so good on a computer screen

 

[elkcub]

Ok, here are my thoughts. Firstly, there has been almost constant cold winds from the east in the UK, I haven't seen any evidence of chicks been hatched here.

composition 1-3 OK, I would have deleted no 4, bird flying away, wingtip missing, no 5 give the leading bird space at the frount, would look better with the entire shadow of the bird.

Cropping - try not to, try and get close and fill the frame. The camera which is capable of giving a detailed image of a small object at a distance does not exist.

with my moorhen pic, I sat on a bench and waited for the bird to come within range. someone had put down birdseed nearby so it was likely that if I waited, something would come within range

camera settings. are you changing the AF point from the centre as in no 1 the cable looks in better focus than the bird? No 3 the best in focus.

ISO settings. Low as possible. As you increase ISO speed, so do you increase noise.

Shutter speed Fast. Even with "advanced anti blur" shooting at 1000mm is still demanding to avoid camera shake

Camera handling. I pretend IS and advanced anti blur does not exist and concentrate on correct handling to avoid shake.

I think some have been influenced by the hype surrounding this camera, that it is oh so easy to simply point it at a bird and get great results

hope this helps

Many thanks for the excellent comments. I might have mentioned that #4 (bird flying away) was included just because it was the first BIF ... however poor. You're right the AF was inadvertently changed in #1, and your camera setup suggestions will be a good place to start.

I've got a hand strap on order, which hopefully will help me stabilize the camera and reduce shake. I really haven't had a chance to practice hand tremble suppression, but I can do it quite well with binoculars of various types. So there's hope.

Ed

 

[elkcub]

welcome to the thread Ed .

it looks like with such strong sunlight giving strong contrasts (light and dark ) you have some of the most challenging photographic natural light of any of us. The first thing that I would say is try to avoid taking pictures in the middle of the day (ie geese and ducklings shot ) because the contrast will be too harsh . Try to shoot early morning and late evening ie 'The Golden Hour' or when the sun goes behind the clouds etc

I would recommend that you use A Aperture mode for bird photography and set your aperture according to how much of your picture you want in focus ie DOF depth of field .

The larger the number (f/11 f/16 etc) the more of the picture is going to be in focus which is great for landscapes but not generally what you want for bird shots unless they are environmental shots. I would aim for around f/5.6 but take some test shots with various f-numbers to see what the effect it has on how much is in sharp focus in your images.

Hand held shots ,( particularly at or near max zoom ),try and aim for min 1/250 shutter speed and juggle the ISO and f-number to achieve it, to freeze the action .



Apologies if I'm teaching my GM to suck eggs ... looking forward to seeing some more images from sunny Calif:t:

No apologies necessary, EB. Old grandpa here is taking all this to heart. :smoke:

Most of your comments would have been applicable even in the days of b/w, so it's comforting to know that the basics remain the same.

What hasn't remained the same, however, is the complexity of the camera, ... which can be a bit daunting.

Anyway, this gives me a direction to improve future postings.

Many thanks,
Ed