The Alligator Farm on Wednesday

kgarrett11

I went to the Alligator Farm on Wednesday and met up with Harry. He gave me some really good tips. Now I just have to learn how to use them. Harry, my "birds in flight" still are not very good. I will have to practice, practice, practice. Ok, so here are some of the ones that I picked out. PLEASE, let me know what you think and how I can improve them.

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


#7


#8


#9


#10


#11


#12


And the one that didn't fly.

#13

ShepsMom

Nice shots, especially love #10!! And OUCH on that gator shot.

kgarrett11

ShepsMom wrote:

Nice shots, especially love #10!! And OUCH on that gator shot.

Thanks, there was a woman there that was complaining that she doesn't like to see things like the gator eating a bird. I told her that it was just the way nature works. I should have asked her if she had ever seen the "Lion King" (the circle of life).

Harryb

Good shots Keith, the BIF shots (especially the spoonbills) are improving. Good work and it was a pleasure to meet you and shoot with you.

As for improving them the best way is practice, practice, practice. Youare clsoe enough to the farm for a return visit. Go back one day and shoot nothing but flight shots. I would work on your exposures for flight shots, learn to understand how the lighting at various angles will affect the shot and your expsoure settings.

I have a friend, Frank Wilson (Flew is his handle at the Nikon Cafe) who is the master of the flight shots. He got expert on them by working on them for a year where he did around 100,000 flight shots.

kgarrett11

Harryb wrote:

Good shots Keith, the BIF shots (especially the spoonbills) are improving. Good work and it was a pleasure to meet you and shoot with you.

As for improving them the best way is practice, practice, practice. Youare clsoe enough to the farm for a return visit. Go back one day and shoot nothing but flight shots. I would work on your exposures for flight shots, learn to understand how the lighting at various angles will affect the shot and your expsoure settings.

I have a friend, Frank Wilson (Flew is his handle at the Nikon Cafe) who is the master of the flight shots. He got expert on them by working on them for a year where he did around 100,000 flight shots.

Thanks Harry, it was great meeting and shooting with you. About an hour ago I told a guy here at work that I will go back down and try using my 18-200 and see how that works.

Harryb

kgarrett11 wrote:

Thanks Harry, it was great meeting and shooting with you. About an hour ago I told a guy here at work that I will go back down and try using my 18-200 and see how that works.

When you go back I would recommend working on nailing the exposure. Here's what you do. Shoot for 40 minutes and then stop! Go into the Gromek theatre on top of the boardwalk or the open theatre at the other end of the boardwalk. Both places are dark and cool. The you should chimp your shots for th next 20 minutes. Check your histograms and blinkies. See what exposure settings worked and which ones didn't. Then with this new knowledge go out and shoot for another 40 minutes and the stop and do the chimping routine again.

You should be able to start nailing your exposures to within a third of a stop. Right now you're missing the exposure in your shots with a definite tendency to under-expose.

It takes time but you will get it. You have to understand the lighting in the scenes you are shooting. For example, you remember the big tree at the northern end of the boardwalk where the wood storks were nesting. When we were shooting in the direction of the tree the light was coming from right behind us and we needed an EV adjustment of -1.0 to -1.3 when shooting the white egrets and wood storks. Now if you tried to shoot a bird flying into that tree ( with the light behind us) at those same settings (-1.0 and -1.3) you ended up with an underexposed shot because your subject was backlit and you would need a much smaller EV adjustment if any at all.

kgarrett11

Harryb wrote:

When you go back I would recommend working on nailing the exposure. Here's what you do. Shoot for 40 minutes and then stop! Go into the Gromek theatre on top of the boardwalk or the open theatre at the other end of the boardwalk. Both places are dark and cool. The you should chimp your shots for th next 20 minutes. Check your histograms and blinkies. See what exposure settings worked and which ones didn't. Then with this new knowledge go out and shoot for another 40 minutes and the stop and do the chimping routine again.

You should be able to start nailing your exposures to within a third of a stop. Right now you're missing the exposure in your shots with a definite tendency to under-expose.

It takes time but you will get it. You have to understand the lighting in the scenes you are shooting. For example, you remember the big tree at the northern end of the boardwalk where the wood storks were nesting. When we were shooting in the direction of the tree the light was coming from right behind us and we needed an EV adjustment of -1.0 to -1.3 when shooting the white egrets and wood storks. Now if you tried to shoot a bird flying into that tree ( with the light behind us) at those same settings (-1.0 and -1.3) you ended up with an underexposed shot because your subject was backlit and you would need a much smaller EV adjustment if any at all.

Thanks Harry, I'll give it a try. I try to keep an eye on the histogram but here is a novice question. What is a blinkie?

gaylenick

Keith,

I enjoyed shooting with you on Wednesday. And, when Harry is around you always learn something. Harry metioned Gomek's little theater. Usually, when I am at the Alligator Farm I spend as much time in there as I do on the boardwalk. One of these days, I will be able to look at the histogram and make exposure decisions. Right now, not so.
I am glad I was not there for the gator eating the egret. I have seen it before and it is not pretty.
I like your shots of the Woodstorks and Spoonbills, for some reason I never come home with many shots of either.

Gayle

Harryb

kgarrett11 wrote:

Thanks Harry, I'll give it a try. I try to keep an eye on the histogram but here is a novice question. What is a blinkie?

The blinkies are the flashing areas when you have your review set to highlights. Any area where the highlights are blown will blink hence the term blinkies. I usually have my cameras set to the 3 color histogram display with highlights chosen so I can see how each color channel is doing and get blinkies ofr the blown highlights.

These give you a better idea of what's being blown than just a simple histogram review. For example if you are shooting a snowy egret against a light sky you may get a a spike on the right of the histogram. Now what's causing that spike? If its the egret you would want to adjust your exposure, if its a portion of the sky you probably would be OK if the egret is exposed properly. The "blinkies" would show you what part of the scene is blown.

LCD

Great post. Both enjoyable and informative.

I especially like 2,4,10 & 11. 13 was sure unlucky for somebody!

Thanks to both you and Harry!

kgarrett11

Harryb wrote:

The blinkies are the flashing areas when you have your review set to highlights. Any area where the highlights are blown will blink hence the term blinkies. I usually have my cameras set to the 3 color histogram display with highlights chosen so I can see how each color channel is doing and get blinkies ofr the blown highlights.

These give you a better idea of what's being blown than just a simple histogram review. For example if you are shooting a snowy egret against a light sky you may get a a spike on the right of the histogram. Now what's causing that spike? If its the egret you would want to adjust your exposure, if its a portion of the sky you probably would be OK if the egret is exposed properly. The "blinkies" would show you what part of the scene is blown.

Thanks Harry, I will check it out and see if I can understand what I am looking at.

kgarrett11

gaylenick wrote:

Keith,

I enjoyed shooting with you on Wednesday. And, when Harry is around you always learn something. Harry metioned Gomek's little theater. Usually, when I am at the Alligator Farm I spend as much time in there as I do on the boardwalk. One of these days, I will be able to look at the histogram and make exposure decisions. Right now, not so.
I am glad I was not there for the gator eating the egret. I have seen it before and it is not pretty.
I like your shots of the Woodstorks and Spoonbills, for some reason I never come home with many shots of either.

Gayle

Thanks Gayle. Yea I have learned a lot from Harry. Now I have to learn how to apply the knowledge.

kgarrett11

LCD wrote:

Great post. Both enjoyable and informative.

I especially like 2,4,10 & 11. 13 was sure unlucky for somebody!

Thanks to both you and Harry!

Thanks LCD. My personal favorite was the "Itialian" Spoonbill "Ya look'n at me?"