Seeking Suggestions Today

Bilsen

Hi all,

I'm looking for suggestions for a rare opportunity I'll have tomorrow. I'll be shooting some wolves at a sanctuary where I volunteer.

I shoot a Canon S5 IS. I'm trying to avoid blown highlights on the Artcic Grays (who are white), and get some really sharp images with good composition at various focal lengths. Unlike most times, there will be no intermediate fencing so the usual AF issues won't be there.

C'mon people, help me do justice to these gorgeous animals and avoid disasters like this:



Thanks in advance. I'll keep checking right through tomorrow AM.

SloYerRoll

Answering these questions will help paint a better picture for ppl to help you out.

What mode do you plan to shoot in? Are you adverse to full manual? (besides AF)
What glass do have at your disposal?
What does the weather forecast say your shoot time will look like?
Can you use strobes? Or will that spook them?

Bilsen

Slo,

Thanks for the suggestions.

I shoot in P, Av, Tv and M modes with the emphasis on P and Av. I do not mind manual mode at all.

I shoot the Canon S5 IS so that's the lens at 6.o - 42.0 focal length (36 - 402mm equiv.). Even without fences I expect to be shooting at around half tele so about 200-250mm equivalent.

The forecast is "partly cloudy" so I expect to set WB myself but metering for the Arctic wolves can be a pain. I do not go higher than ISO 200.

I will be using a 430EX for flash and no, it doesn't disturb the wolves.

Thanks again.

SloYerRoll

Sounds like your set up for success!

Disclaimer:
I'm a huge advocate of manual. It helps me edit one image to perfection then use those edits across the rest of the images. This way I don't have to be too concerned w/ perfect exposure, WB etc..

I'd use a tripod or monopod at those focal lengths.

I'd shoot in full manual. It will only take a few shots to get everything dialed in and your set for the shoot.

Remember the rule of thumb about telephoto lens'. Make sure your shutter speed is at or greater than the focal length. So If your shooting at 250mm you want your shutter speed to be greater than 1/250. Your better off backing out your focal length and keeping your shutter speed high, then crop in during post than have a blurry shot from hand held.

Partly cloudy skies are awesome for shooting. Normally I don't use strobes in an environment like this since the sky is the biggest softbox out there and I like how it looks. Sometimes you need to add extra light though, so if you are using lighting, you will need to color balance ambient to around 8000K. Use a blue gel for this. The amount of cloud cover can dictate Kelvin color temperatures. So you will need to adjust accordingly when selecting gels. Just make sure it's in the blue family. If your shooting w/o lighting gear, just adjust WB for shade. I personally don't make this adjustment and leave my camera on manual WB and just adjust my images globally in post.

If you can't keep your shutter speed and aperture low enough for a good exposure. Don't hesitate to use your strobe (I'd set this in manual as well so your exposures don't vary from shot to shot). Don't use it to light the wolf. Rather us it to add to the existing light (aka fill flash).
Have fun shooting your wolf!

Regards,
-Jon

Bilsen

Thanks so much for the suggestions, John.

You've got me thinking Manual or Av mode (4.5, 5.0, 5.6), spot metered on the wolf with a +1 or so EV comp. WB will depend on the sky.

Any comments on these settings?

Grainbelt

I have the same camera. I'm a n00b, but some other things I've noticed are

Autofocus is a lot faster set at continuous than shot only. You didn't state whether you'd be shooting action or not, but it does help with speed.

Rather than relying on AV mode and EV comp, I'd shoot in manual and use both the exposure indicator and the live histogram as a guide. AV mode does silly things with shutter speed form time to time.

Probably too late unless you have it, but I find the lens adapter helps alot with stability when handheld. I also use a monopod with a ball head when I'm out in the woods, between that and IS I can shoot at nearly full telephoto with good results.

SloYerRoll

JohnGalt_ny wrote:

Thanks so much for the suggestions, John.

You've got me thinking Manual or Av mode (4.5, 5.0, 5.6), spot metered on the wolf with a +1 or so EV comp. WB will depend on the sky.

Any comments on these settings?

I''m guessing your glass starts at f4 or 4.5 so I'd try to stay above the f5.6+ area (f8+ is optimal). When you open glass up all the way, your pictures aren't as sharp as they could be. Remember, if your shooting RAW, you can compensate exposure in post, you can't un-blur a blurry shot (you can fake sharpness, but it's a ROYAL PITA).

A good rule of thumb for aperture is:
4 or 4.5 glass, don't stop any lower than 8
1.4 -2.0 glass, don't stop any lower than 4.5
These aren't rules to live by. But if you want tack sharp shots in these conditions. This will help make sure you walk away w/ some winners.

Spot metering the wolf is definitely the way to go. Make sure you post some shots when you get back!

Jon

Icebear

Hold on here . . .
You've got a really nice point and shoot camera with a pretty decent image stabilization system. I think Jon missed the fact that you're shooting with an S3 IS. That's a pretty smart camera, and I think you can hand hold waaayyy slower than conventional wisdom would suggest for non-IS lenses. I think the lens is f 2.8 to begin with. You'll be shooting in JPEG - shoot super fine. Take advantage of the intelligence of that camera.

SloYerRoll

good catch. I did miss the IS part.
I just looked up the S3. That's a pretty sweet camera! I'd be paranoid about that rotating LCD, but I'm pretty rough on gear.

I'm still from a different school of thought in regards to letting your camera doing the thinking though. If the animal is moving at all. All the IS/VR in the world won't give you a sharp shot at slow shutter speeds. I'm sure the background will look really nice. It would be a shame to have a really cool shot of the animal moving or jumping totally blown since your shutter speed was 1/30 or something.

I hold to the fact that I'm smarter than my camera. It may think faster, but I don't want my camera making decisions for me when it's time to shoot. I've learned the hard way to always double check settings since I've botched up some shots due to wrong settings. That's life though. I'd also rather be able to make global changes to shots in post than have to nit over every shot since my camera changed settings from shot to shot.

There are photogs out there that take much better pictures than I and their camera never leaves Auto. I'm just sharing what I've learned and what works best for me. My hope is that anyone reading my posts will get something out of it. Even if it's finding out how they don't want to take pictures.

Cheers,
-Jon

Bilsen

Thank you all so much.

I'm taking notes and I'll check back again tomorrow AM. If I do get anything worthwhile I'll set it up here.

Will report back tomorrow night.

jfriend

JohnGalt_ny wrote:

Hi all,

I'm looking for suggestions for a rare opportunity I'll have tomorrow. I'll be shooting some wolves at a sanctuary where I volunteer.

I shoot a Canon S5 IS. I'm trying to avoid blown highlights on the Artcic Grays (who are white), and get some really sharp images with good composition at various focal lengths. Unlike most times, there will be no intermediate fencing so the usual AF issues won't be there.

C'mon people, help me do justice to these gorgeous animals and avoid disasters like this:

Thanks in advance. I'll keep checking right through tomorrow AM.

The sure fire way to avoid missing the exposure is to spot meter off the wolves in manual mode and then dial in some +EV. Your hunch to start with +1 is probably pretty close for the sample subject you posted, but check the histogram several times to look for blown highlights. When you're working with a high-key subject where most of the important stuff is in the right half of the histogram, it's no problem if you underexpose slightly and fix it in post processing. But, as it sounds like you know, if you blow the highlight detail, there's no recourse in post processing. If your camera has it, use the flashing highlight warning and study the right edge of the histogram to get dialed in. Then, if you have consistent lighting, you can probably shoot for awhile with that single manually set exposure setting.

The one other thing that can blow a whole shoot and you might not be able to tell from the view on the LCD is shooting with too slow a shutter speed, either because of zoom and handholding or because of subject motion so make sure you don't have too slow a shutter speed. Remember IS and stability (like a tripod/monopod) will help you with camera shake, but neither will help with subject motion. Don't be afraid to raise the ISO a bit if you have to get a safe shutter speed. If you're on the border and aren't sure, then take some shots both ways.

Bilsen

Thanks jfriend and everyone else. I'm off to the shoot. I'll try everything and see what happrns.

Grainbelt

How did it go?

Bilsen

Grainbelt and all,

Cold as hell but bright & Sunny. Shot 1/2 in M and 1/2 in Av, bracketed -1/+1. Shots about 500 frames (counting the bracketed 3s) and I'm still going through them but looks like there will be a good one or two. I even see a couple with Apache metered correctly so a HUGE thank you to all who made suggetsions.

It was really interesting watching the 3 pros who were there with glass that cost more than my first car.

Here are some early results:











Thanks again. I'll put a few more in Wildlife when I get them done.