Birds with the 400mm lens

snapapple

I've been practicing with my long lens. This is a less expensive type Tamron 200-400mm 5.6. I usually just set it wide open to get the fastest shutter speed that I can. ISO set to 200. Compared to the expensive lenses the bokeh is very busy looking. I took this first shot from inside my house looking out at the birds on the deck rail. There are hills in the distance with a couple of white houses. That's what makes the white spots mixed with blue and green. The purple is some of the more brown looking brush on the hills. Kind of interesting, but maybe too interesting for a background.


I used a layer of gausian blur on the background and cropped out this one little guy.


Here's another one with the gausian blur added to the background.
I focused on the bird on the left, the other one was a little farther away. There must have been a very short depth of field here because the bird on the right seems a bit soft. I'm not sure.


This is another one with that lens. I pulled it in a bit to get the whole birdbath. The background is a bit busy, but that's what was there and I couldn't move around being stuck inside the house. Handheld, no time to get the tripod. Have to strike while the iron is hot. Just wanted to try it out. If they all came out blurry, then I'd know that it's "take the time to get the tripod" or there will be no picture at all.


And, one last one of a hummingbird.


Please feel free to say what you think. These were not meant to be works of art by any means, but I do need to learn how to use this lens to best advantage. Any pointers are welcome.

Steve Cavigliano

Ya done good Snappy

Most of these shots look like the lighting was pretty harsh. Nothing you can do about that other than shooting during less harsh hours. I would suggest playing around at ISO400 and 800 so you check out using narrower apertures and or/faster speeds. Not that you need real fast speeds for sitting birds, or narrower apertures for small birds that don't fill much of the VF. But it's nice to have the choice For birds in flight, or hummers, that extra speed comes in handy. For larger birds that are close, narrower apertures can help get the whole bird in focus.

FWIW, I try to shoot at ISO800 most of the time with my Bigma. It gives me the ability to get a deeper DOF and I get really fast speeds. So handholding this 800mm FOV lens is never an issue : Unless I have to heavily crop a shot, the ISO800 noise isn't bothersome in the least.

Steve

ginger_55

The bird feeder is "cool", Snappy! I like it.

I think the birds are a tad over exposed. And like Steve said it was tricky lighting, nothing to be done about it, but I would have underexposed a bit.
To get the highlights all in and let the other go to H and back.

Also, 200 is kind of a low ISO for birds. I like to start at 400 on good strong lighting. So I am with Steve to play with 800, then you can go back down to 400 some times, but 200 is really pretty low. You want to keep that shutter speed up in the 1000s if possible, or I do. Even if I don't shake, the birds move and blur.

Love the bird feeder! And the bird, and the water, is the bird doing that water?

Cool shot!

ginger

snapapple

Thanks Steve

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Ya done good Snappy

Most of these shots look like the lighting was pretty harsh. Nothing you can do about that other than shooting during less harsh hours. I would suggest playing around at ISO400 and 800 so you check out using narrower apertures and or/faster speeds. Not that you need real fast speeds for sitting birds, or narrower apertures for small birds that don't fill much of the VF. But it's nice to have the choice For birds in flight, or hummers, that extra speed comes in handy. For larger birds that are close, narrower apertures can help get the whole bird in focus.

FWIW, I try to shoot at ISO800 most of the time with my Bigma. It gives me the ability to get a deeper DOF and I get really fast speeds. So handholding this 800mm FOV lens is never an issue : Unless I have to heavily crop a shot, the ISO800 noise isn't bothersome in the least.

Steve

Thanks for the great tips, Steve. I was not sure at all what ISO to use here. The shots of the birds on the rail were taken in the afternoon. I didn't realize I should go so high on the ISO with that much light. That deck rail actually was at an angle to me, but I rotated the shot to make it level across the bottom. I'm going to try that again at 400 or 800 to see if all the birds come out in focus.

snapapple

Thanks Ginger

ginger_55 wrote:

The bird feeder is "cool", Snappy! I like it.

I think the birds are a tad over exposed. And like Steve said it was tricky lighting, nothing to be done about it, but I would have underexposed a bit.
To get the highlights all in and let the other go to H and back.

Also, 200 is kind of a low ISO for birds. I like to start at 400 on good strong lighting. So I am with Steve to play with 800, then you can go back down to 400 some times, but 200 is really pretty low. You want to keep that shutter speed up in the 1000s if possible, or I do. Even if I don't shake, the birds move and blur.

Love the bird feeder! And the bird, and the water, is the bird doing that water?

Cool shot!

ginger

Ginger,
Thanks for your input here. I will definitely try the higher ISOs. The shots of the birds in the birdbath were taken in the morning. There were four birds taking turns in the water and then flying up to the tree to dry off. I ran to get the camera, thus no time for the tripod. I fired off a ton of shots, machine gun style. In this particular shot there is one bird splashing in the water and one sitting on the edge in front of the splashing. It was the best focused shot I think. Probably if I had used the higher ISO, as you and Steve both suggest, I would have gotten better focus on the multiple subjects. We're having some thundershowers today, caused by a tropical storm coming up from Baja California. Maybe the light will be good when the birds come to eat. I'll keep my on that birdbath too.

Thanks again both Steve and Ginger. I really appreciate the help.

problemchild

Im not so sure you want to stick with that lens. It looks extremely washed out and flat. I would look at the canon 400 (do you have a canon cam?)

Here are 2 from the canon 400's (400-5.6 and 400-2.8)

from the 400-2.8



from the 400 5.6

Harryb

problemchild wrote:

Im not so sure you want to stick with that lens. It looks extremely washed out and flat. I would look at the canon 400 (do you have a canon cam?)

Here are 2 from the canon 400's (400-5.6 and 400-2.8)

from the 400-2.8

from the 400 5.6

The results look pretty good for shooting in harsh light and for someone trying to get the feel of a lens.

I'm sure that the $6400 2.8 and the $1099 5.6 Canon primes are better lenses than the $400 Tamron zoom. They better be for the prices they are fetching but not everyone wants or is able to spend those $ on glass.