04 July 2012

Australian Nankeen Kestrel #2

Now when I go to the beach in search of the elusive closer-to-the-shore whales, I'm also on the lookout for this wonderful kestrel














This series of photos were each taken using my Sony DSC-H1 compact camera, hand-held, with tele-converter lens to the max, and settings Aperature Priority f4.5, ISO-100, 1/1000 sec.

For this camera, I can adjust up to, f8, ISO-400, and 1/1000 only.

Question: for those of you familiar with the exposure-triangle (puzzle to me).   Since I'm still sporting my "L's" with manual settings,  my challenge is to get it right some day and not resort to all automatic settings only.

Perhaps if ISO had been set higher or the f-stop lower?  What should I be concentrating on most when trying to get a sharp, all-over image, for those in-flight photos? 

Late edit: By sharp 'all-over' image I meant: taking the final photograph as my example, sharper definition on all wings parts too, i.e. the whole of bird sharper.

I'd like to think I can conquer this equasion and just get it right in my head; well more so, get it right in my camera;  and I'd really appreciate your feedback.  Am sure those of you who do use manual settings, will possibly note something obvious hopefully, and in the meantime, I'll just keep experimenting and hoping, for that sweet-shot next time round.

Sharing with World Bird Wednesday

53 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

this little kestrel is adorable! you got some great flight shots!

Brian King said...

These are wonderful photos, Carole! Love the flight shots! Really nice job. For freezing action like flying birds, you want to concentrate on the shutter speed first. I'm not familiar with your camera so I don't know its controls. Depending on the settings you have available, increasing the ISO can give you a higher shutter speed for flight shots.

Unknown said...

Stunning series!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

Adam Jones said...

Great Kestrel shots.

mick said...

Great photos and the first in-flight one is especially beautiful. re your camera - I'm still learning too but it's a fun process!

eileeninmd said...

Awesome shots of the Kestrel. I am always amazed at flight shots, your are wonderful. Have a great day!

HansHB said...

Splendid serie of photos, so lovely to see this. I have'nt seen this kind of bird before!

Karen @ Pieces of Contentment said...

Brilliant photos Carole. I'm still learning camera settings too.

CameraCruise said...

Wonderful shots of the Kestrel.

fjällripan said...

Fantastic photos of the kestrel!! /Susanne

Dianne said...

Your top capture is amazing Carole ... Birds in flight are difficult to shoot at the best of times but I think youve nailed it.
There's an Australian online photography video dealing with this subject which another blogger had told me about ... If I can find it I'll pass it on

Jeanne said...

For stopping this bird in flight ( which you have done perfectly) you want a high shutter speed, and for good depth of field, the higher the number of the f stop, the greater that depth of field ( and the less light you let in) Lower number of f stops maintains focus just on your subject, with the front and the back of the scene blurred. Your main focus though is the shutter speed.... when it is fast, and your f stop number is high also.... you might have to have a higher ISO, which lets in more light to compensate for other things letting in not much light. For not getting this though Carole, you have captured this awesome bird perfectly. To recap on that
1) LOW F STOP LETS IN MORE LIGHT ( AND THE REVERSE)
2) THE HIGHER THE NUMBER OF THE ISO, THE MORE LIGHT COMES IN ( AND THE REVERSE)
3) THE LOWER THE F STOP NUMBER, THE MORE LIGHT YOU ARE LETTING IN ETC.

Is that any help??

Horst in Edmonton said...

With cameras, what you must remember is the lower the ISO the higher the quality of the image. The higher you go on the ISO the grain will get larger. Now with the F-stops, again the higher the number, the depth of field is greater. So if you are at F-2.0 you will have very shallow depth of field, now if you go to F-16 or F-22 you will have a very wide depth of field or lots of sharpness in your image. Now it looks like you have a sharp image, but the main thing you should focus on is the eyes which you did and it is a very nice image. Also what you may have a problem with is reciprocity failure when you get in the shutter speeds over a thousands of second. I hope that helps you. For the internet these photos are great, but if you start printing these images in large sizes is where you really can see your problems with high speed (high shutter speed) photography.

Dave said...

you nailed every one of those shots, great bird!
Dave

Nadege, said...

Amazing captures.

By increasing the ISO to 400, you could have closed the aperture down to f8 for greater depth of field, (more of bird in focus) and still kept to a reasonable shutter speed to capture the bird in flight. If you want to keep a shallow DOF (smaller f No)the shutter speed will be higher to allow you to capture sharper images handheld.
I hope this help.

Anonymous said...

Wunderschön deine Fotos .. begeistert bin wie klar und deutlich!

Lieben Gruss Elke

Carole M. said...

thank-you everyone for your comments and accolades! I also really appreciate the recommendations offered and am going to be keeping notes and working with them to see where they take me

Grandma Barb's This and That said...

You did a beautiful job of capturing this bird, Carole. Your photos are wonderful. I'm not sure I am ever going to be able to understand this.

Andee said...

Beautiful pictures. What a cool looking bird. I can't help you with your settings questions, but I'm so glad you asked because I hopefully picked up some helpful tips on my visit here.

Vores have said...

WAU....Beautiful series of pictures you show. Wishing you a good day :)

Linda said...

You did a great job of capturing this bird! All of the information you have been given is valuable, and it just takes time to get it all sorted out in your head. I have a "sports" mode on my Canon and my Sony cameras which I use if I am in a hurry to catch something and don't remember which way to go with the settings. It isn't always perfect, but when you don't have time to do much changing, that works great!

Joop Zand said...

Hi Carole

A big big big compliment for these FANTASTIC pictures.....so sharp and with lovely colors,.....your a great photographer.

greetings, Joop

Stewart M said...

That is a great set of images!

There is a lot of good advice in the comments here!

Cheers - Stewart M

Roy said...

Well Carole, I don't see how you could have bettered these shots. They are fantastic.
Dont try an get too complicated with photography, keep it as simple as possible. For birds and moving subjects, shoot using, A "Aperture' and set the lowest f number you can with the particular lens. The lower you set the f number on A the camera will give you the highest speed it can and stop the subject without any blur.

Carole M. said...

so, so lovely to have such gracious feedback and guidance with my photographic adventures. I hope you feel how much it is appreciated...

Pat said...

These are lovely shots!

Les fous du cap said...

Beautiful little kestrel ;-)
Céline & Philippe

Jan Castle said...

Looks perfect to me!!!!! If you need poster size pictures, maybe there are changes to be made???? It's all Greek to me...what you see is what you get with my photography as I started this particular hobby too late I life LOL!
Paper Hugs,
Jan

Julie said...

The suggestions are all spot on. But you might need to sort it all out, because the results will be quite different, even though ALL the advice is accurate.

What really matters is what you want to achieve. You said that you wanted was a 'sharp, all over image', and I ask you why? Why is this what you want? Your very first image is absolutely nailed, and yet not sharp all over. If it were sharp all over, an experienced photographer would simply assume you were on automatic! However, showing the DoF as you do, it at least looks as though you tweaked a setting here and there.

After I have seen my solicitor this morning, I will write you an email. You realise, of course, that you are ever so close to the switch-over to a manual image maker!!

Carole M. said...

been enjoying each of your comments and input; thank-you everyone!

Julie: I've left an update/edit to this post now, to specify more on my expectations with the in-flight photos.

Anonymous said...

Amazing shots!

Unknown said...

You should be very pleased & rightfully proud of these Carole!! As you know these birds are fast and not always cooperative! Well done!

Mary Howell Cromer said...

I think that you did an amazing job. I set my ISO on automatic, and I use all automatic settings, macro, sports setting is what I use for all flight images and if I could remember everything that everyone has noted here, I would give it a try. So much of our photography is done in an instant, or you loose the opportunity and the subject is gone. I take oodles of images and delete many. Yet, along the way, I also get pretty lucky~

Rajesh said...

Amazing shots of birds. It is very cute and lovely.

Lisa Gordon said...

Carole, I think these are great! This is not an easy task.
I won't add anything here because Jeanne and Horst have stated it perfectly.
Happy day to you!
xo.

Phil Slade said...

I can't improve on those suggestions Carole. Looks like you got some great shots to me. Wish we had your light levels though then I could use ISO100 instead of mostly ISO400 - more grainy.

Debbie said...

carole, i know zero about taking pictures. i point and shoot and i keep buying better lenes.

your images are beautiful. this shore bird look like it's in the hawk family. perhaps it is, i also know nothing about a kestrel!!

Liz said...

These are great shots, Carole! I would say you have it pretty much in the bag... just a bit of tweaking settings really (I would use a higher ISO for flight shots). You have managed to capture very clear shots with a low ISO and in my opinion (with limited knowledge) that is quite a feat!! So bravo. You are definitely on the right track :)

I'd love to capture flight shots like this!

EG CameraGirl said...

Wonderful photos and I love how helpful so many of the comments are! Bloggers are such nice people, aren't they?

Adrienne W said...

Oh my!
Move over Steve Parrish!
They are to-die-for shots Carole!
I have not been playing anywhere enough with my EOS :)

Bryan said...

Great pictures with that camera. I agree with Nadege, in the last photo you did not have enough depth of field to get the wingtips in focus. The eye and body are sharp so you had good focus and the wings aren't "streaked" so the blur is not from the motion.
You need fast shutter speed to stop the motion. 1/1000 sec should be good for most birds in flight. The larger the f-stop, the more of the subject will be in focus. There are tools online to tell you what the depth of field is. It is dependent on the focal length of the lens, the f-stop and the sensor size. Try http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html. Once these are set increase ISO until you have enough light.

Best of luck.

John @ Beans and I on the Loose said...

Thanks for the link to send me here and checking out these wonderful images. Since coming home I simply do not have time to check back into a weeks worth on every blog. It looks like you've already got the advice that I would have offered, not that I know what I am doing. Experiment. This seems to be the best teacher for me. Learn what does not work and do not repeat. Find out what does work and write it down, for if you are like me you'll forget. Then the only thing left is to remember what you did with your notes and review them before going into the field.

theconstantwalker said...

Amazing images Carole and what a lovely bird to watch.

Kranky Granny said...

You have a talent for getting the best bird shots. Regrettably I do not have the same talent. When I go get a great shot is happens by accident usually.

Spent some time scrolling down your blog and found it a delight to read.

Kelly said...

....these photos are fabulous. I think you're right on target. I love the flight shots and the second to last photo is stunning. I love the pose.

Friend of HK said...

Wow, these photos are so sharp! You are a very talented photographer.

Kenneth Cole Schneider said...

Those images of the little falcon are tack sharp. Simply beautiful!

Les fous du cap said...

Thank you Carole. We love your blog and your country really makes us dream ;-)
Céline & Philippe (France)

Amila Kanchana said...

Absolutely breath taking! Outstanding photography!

John Kooistra said...

Wow! You have captured the essence of the kestrel in flight! Now I want to learn how to use my camera manually! I've only used the auto setting on my Panasonic FZ100 and have had no success with flying birds.

Larry said...

Excellent shots of the Kestrel Carole! I would be thrilled to death with these! It looks like you got plenty of help with your settings question ;-)

Sharyl said...

To my untrained eye, these are nothing but perfection! Gasp-worthy! :-)

Birgitta said...

Wow! Stunning photos!