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Wedding tog tries his hand at shooting birds
I think the title says it all. I don't shoot wildlife, however I had a bit of a gap in my weekend so decided I would go and try something completely different from the norm. This is down at Bournville lake which is only about 3 mins drive from where I am at the moment.
I struggled hugely with exposure, as there were trees causing large amounts of shade then strong sunlight. I played with manual and also Av with exposure comp..... nothing was ideal but I got some shots I'm pretty happy with.
I plan to have another bash so would appreciate any thoughts to help me improve next time. Oh and I know these are mainly gulls so not exciting, however there were lots and it let me practise tracking them in flight. I most enjoyed trying to capture the chases that took place when one of the birds had food, and also the first photo here which is where a larger gull came along and was promptly chased away.
There are more on my blog if you are interested.
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7 Not sure what is going on here but made a good splash!
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I struggled hugely with exposure, as there were trees causing large amounts of shade then strong sunlight. I played with manual and also Av with exposure comp..... nothing was ideal but I got some shots I'm pretty happy with.
I plan to have another bash so would appreciate any thoughts to help me improve next time. Oh and I know these are mainly gulls so not exciting, however there were lots and it let me practise tracking them in flight. I most enjoyed trying to capture the chases that took place when one of the birds had food, and also the first photo here which is where a larger gull came along and was promptly chased away.
There are more on my blog if you are interested.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7 Not sure what is going on here but made a good splash!
8
9
10
11
I'm here to learn so please feel free to give me constructive criticism to help me become the photographer I desire to be.
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Comments
http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
I've always said, if you can get detail in white birds or black birds the rest is easy.
The thing we begin to realize over time is the challenge is not only the photography but finding the unusual. The hunt. It reminds me of a sport. Requiring quick thinking, sharp concentration and anticipation. We have to know our target like an athlete knows his competition. It's a whole lot tougher than sports photography where you have time for light settings, and knowing exactly where to shoot. I like it because it's challenging, and has surprises. And of course the sport I used to play was outdoors, [beach volleyball] so I love the outdoors/peace thing.[,,don't have to deal with humans, lol]
Looking at your exif, one thing, you might try an aperture around f6.3 if your shutterspeed is above 1/3000, [yours was around 1/6000, at 2.8-which you don't need that high a shutterspeed]because you will get a little more focal area in the bird, so overall a little more detail.
Enjoy! You did great!
Linda, I was running the wider aperture not for shutter speed but because the background wasn't the best in quite a few shots as it was messy and pretty close to the subjects, so was trying to lose it as much as I could.
I'm here to learn so please feel free to give me constructive criticism to help me become the photographer I desire to be.