Birds Gelled up do

[-ST-]

Female/Immature Red-breasted Merganser in the rain
I always get a chuckle out of the 'do'.

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 582.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3
• 1/2000 sec
• ISO 4000

 

[Gaz]

haha. wet birds look absolutely miserable. - Kookaburra - who is laughing now!

• ILCE-7M4
• FE 24-240mm F3.5-6.3 OSS
• 240.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3000001907367
• 1/60 sec
• ISO 160

 

[-ST-]

An adult Red-breasted Merganser having a moment.

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3
• 1/500 sec
• ISO 200

 

[-ST-]

Red-breasted Mergansers

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3
• 1/500 sec
• ISO 500

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3
• 1/500 sec
• ISO 500

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

Nice images ST

 

[-ST-]

Thanks for taking an interest, Ray.

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

Thanks for taking an interest, Ray.

Hi ST I have a question which may help you.....your image of the red breastfed merganser shows a shutter speed of 1/500 and a lens focal length of 600mm......the image is fine but on my tablet the red eye seems a little soft.

We're you using shutter priority or manual mode, did you have autofocus on and was the shutter speed limited accordingly and did you have bird ai on.....

I am just interested, and am not criticising you image which I think is fine...

 

[-ST-]

Hi, Ray.

Hi ST I have a question which may help you.....your image of the red breastfed merganser shows a shutter speed of 1/500 and a lens focal length of 600mm......the image is fine but on my tablet the red eye seems a little soft.

Yes, the red eye is a bit soft. I think the main reason is we're looking at a 214% crop, or the autofocus missed the eye (more on that later). I'd welcome your suggestions.

I looked at the several other shots I took of this bird, and they are similar. It was fairly dark in the early morning, and the sky was overcast.

We're you using shutter priority or manual mode,

Shutter priority

did you have autofocus on

Autofocus on, however, I went into Imaging Edge and found that the focus was on the neck. I think with the poor lighting; the autofocus couldn't find the eye. All of my shots of the bird were like this.

and was the shutter speed limited accordingly

Not sure what you mean here

and did you have bird ai on.....

I'm sure my intention was to have bird ai on, but I can't be sure.
I have one of the custom buttons programmed to switch between human/animal/bird, and when I wear gloves, I accidentally hit this button - too often. I've been thinking of disabling it and relying on the Function menu instead.

When I'm on that part of the beach, I have the camera set as per Mark Galer's recommended Action Settings.


However, when I want to take a single shot of a slower-moving subject (like the Merganzer), I use custom memory recall (on the AEL button) with these settings
Shutter Priority: 1/500 sec
Drive Mode: Single Shooting
Focus Mode: Continuous AF
AF: On

I am just interested, and am not criticising you image which I think is fine...

Thank you. It was good to think about this in detail.

 

[iamdlewis]

I don't understand aperture priority for action settings. Based on the subject you are targeting or the style of shot (panning) the most important setting is shutter speed, so why would you control shutter speed through your settings of aperture and ISO? Maybe aperture for action makes sense if you are using an F2.8 or maybe an F4 but if your largest aperture is 5.6 or 6.3 it just makes no sense. If you have the 200-600G using aperture priority at 600mm you'll 99% of the time be at F6.3 regardless of the subject which means you are then using ISO to control your shutter speed, this makes no sense especially considering the noise reduction tools available.

 

[-ST-]

Hi, David.

I don't understand aperture priority for action settings. Based on the subject you are targeting or the style of shot (panning) the most important setting is shutter speed, so why would you control shutter speed through your settings of aperture and ISO?

Using Mark Galer's Action settings, ISO Min Shutter Speed setting is 1/2000 second, so it will never drop below that.
In Aperture priority mode, I can quickly stop down if I want more depth of field.

Maybe aperture for action makes sense if you are using an F2.8 or maybe an F4 but if your largest aperture is 5.6 or 6.3 it just makes no sense.

I switch between the FE 200–600 mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS and FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II
I have the Action settings programmed to the dial setting number 2. I use that for both lenses.

If you have the 200-600G using aperture priority at 600mm you'll 99% of the time be at F6.3 regardless of the subject which means you are then using ISO to control your shutter speed, this makes no sense especially considering the noise reduction tools available.

With the ISO Min Shutter Speed setting at 1/2000 second, if I keep the aperture constant, the shutter speed increases in bright light.
If I want to increase the shutter speed, I have the ISO Min Shutter Speed assigned to C1, and I can get to that very quickly (or use shutter priority).

More about that here:

ISO Auto Min. SS - Sony's Best Custom Setting

See why I think the ISO AUTO Minimum Shutter Speed or 'ISO Auto Min. SS' is Sony Alpha's most useful custom setting. I discuss why shooting in Aperture prior...

youtu.be

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

The problem is if the iso ultimately needs to move outside the set limits in accordance with lighting conditions it will do so so at the expense of the shutter speed.

 

[iamdlewis]

Hi, David.

Using Mark Galer's Action settings, ISO Min Shutter Speed setting is 1/2000 second, so it will never drop below that.
In Aperture priority mode, I can quickly stop down if I want more depth of field.


I switch between the FE 200–600 mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS and FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II
I have the Action settings programmed to the dial setting number 2. I use that for both lenses.

With the ISO Min Shutter Speed setting at 1/2000 second, if I keep the aperture constant, the shutter speed increases in bright light.
If I want to increase the shutter speed, I have the ISO Min Shutter Speed assigned to C1, and I can get to that very quickly (or use shutter priority).

More about that here:

ISO Auto Min. SS - Sony's Best Custom Setting

See why I think the ISO AUTO Minimum Shutter Speed or 'ISO Auto Min. SS' is Sony Alpha's most useful custom setting. I discuss why shooting in Aperture prior...

youtu.be

Mark's settings has the triangle valued at 1) Aperture 2) ISO and 3) Shutter Speed with them all being a close equal. This was fine in the pre A7iii and denoising software days when ISO 4000 was unusable. With the modern sensors (and again denoising software) for action you want the triangle valued at 1) Shutter Speed, 2) Aperture and in a distant 3) ISO.
Go and look at the action shots you have taken and figure out what percentage are at maximum aperture. You are going to find out that the vast majority of them are at maximum (I looked at 15 you posted here and they were all at maximum). This tells you that aperture really isn't something that you deal with and you are making other adjustments to get the shutter speed you want, so shutter speed should be your priority. What would then be better is to be in Shutter Speed priority, figure out what you want as a floor for your ISO (I use 500 for action) and have the Aperture at the maximum or stepped down some for default (I wouldn't have this below F4).
As you get more experience you are going to discover there are times that being slower than 1/2000th makes sense. Such as Eagles/Ospreys surveying an area or the bird just landed and it probably isn't going to be there long enough to make multiple changes. You can also end up in areas in which you are bouncing your Shutter Speeds from 1/1250 to 1/4000 because there are such a mix of birds.

 

[Gaz]

Mark Galer uses Aperture Priority for Action so that he can use auto ISO minimum SS setting.

That way, the aperture can be set wide open and the ISO adjusts skywards to try and obtain you’re desired SS.

If the required iso exceeds your set range, then it will lower SS to ensure you get a shot in.

With Shutter Priority you can’t use ISO like that, thus, you will be forced to use the higher shutter speed, and under expose the shot. Am I wrong?

 

[iamdlewis]

With Shutter Priority you can still set an ISO range and you set the floor, my case 500. If the area is bright enough that my shutter speed + aperture will allow for an ISO below 500 the aperture is stepped down. Since I found that 95%+ of the time I was at maximum aperture it didn't make sense to try and fiddle with ISO to get the shutter speed I wanted when it was easier to just set the shutter speed to what made sense for the subject. Lots of my shooting takes place along creeks in which light levels can vary significantly across 15 meters and I don't want to have something metered for a bright area in which I have the correct shutter speed then have the speed crash as the subject moves into shadows.

Several versions ago of Topaz DeNoise showed that with an A9 I couldn't tell the difference between an action shot with an ISO of 200 and one of 800 after using denoise. So it doesn't make sense to use aperture priority to give ISO more weight than shutter speed when stopping the action is more important than noise level. Given that both the sensors and denoise software have improved since I've owned an A9 it doesn't make sense to give ISO as much weight as shutter speed or aperture.

Aperture priority settings care heavily that the image is properly exposed where as shutter speed cares more about getting the subject stopped. This isn't action but it makes my point, this is the same shot just in post exposure was raised 2 stops, shadows 100% and processed through denoise, it still isn't great but you aren't going to have action shots this under exposed:

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS (SEL100400GM)
• 400.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 1/320 sec
• ISO 8000

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS (SEL100400GM)
• 400.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 1/320 sec
• ISO 8000

 

[-ST-]

Hi, David.

Thank you for this and your subsequent message.

Mark's settings has the triangle valued at 1) Aperture 2) ISO and 3) Shutter Speed with them all being a close equal. This was fine in the pre A7iii and denoising software days when ISO 4000 was unusable. With the modern sensors (and again denoising software) for action you want the triangle valued at 1) Shutter Speed, 2) Aperture and in a distant 3) ISO.
Go and look at the action shots you have taken and figure out what percentage are at maximum aperture. You are going to find out that the vast majority of them are at maximum (I looked at 15 you posted here and they were all at maximum).

I saw the first message before I went out this morning and thought a lot about how I've been doing things (over-reliance on the Galer approach?) Unfortunately, there were very few opportunities to try out different settings for birds in flight today.

This tells you that aperture really isn't something that you deal with and you are making other adjustments to get the shutter speed you want, so shutter speed should be your priority. What would then be better is to be in Shutter Speed priority, figure out what you want as a floor for your ISO (I use 500 for action) and have the Aperture at the maximum or stepped down some for default (I wouldn't have this below F4).

I have the aperture wide open because it's been really dark and gloomy in the early mornings - for the past several weeks (typical for this region).

As you get more experience you are going to discover there are times that being slower than 1/2000th makes sense. Such as Eagles/Ospreys surveying an area or the bird just landed and it probably isn't going to be there long enough to make multiple changes. You can also end up in areas in which you are bouncing your Shutter Speeds from 1/1250 to 1/4000 because there are such a mix of birds.

For larger birds or subjects that have stopped moving quickly, I use custom memory recall (on the AEL button) with these settings:
Shutter Priority: 1/500 sec
Drive Mode: Single Shooting
Focus Mode: Continuous AF
AF: On
The main reason for this approach is I can override the Drive Mode from Hi to Single Shooting without having to use the dial on the top of the A1 (fiddly to do in a hurry, especially when wearing gloves). It was 2 degrees when I hit the beach this morning.

Anyway, I'm going to set up one of the memory settings for Shutter Priority and other action-related settings and see how that works over the next little while.

Thank you.

 

[-ST-]

The problem is if the iso ultimately needs to move outside the set limits in accordance with lighting conditions it will do so so at the expense of the shutter speed.

Hi, Ray.

I thought about your comment this morning as I was tromping around. I realized that I haven't run into this issue because my ISO auto upper limit is so high that it has never forced the shutter speed to slow down. But having given that more consideration, I may as well use shutter priority. I've been happy to see the Aperture priority increase the shutter speed when there was too much light, but it may not be an advantage over having the Shutter priority stop-down the Aperture when it's bright.

 

[-ST-]

Hi, Ray.

Hi ST I have a question which may help you.....your image of the red breastfed merganser shows a shutter speed of 1/500 and a lens focal length of 600mm......the image is fine but on my tablet the red eye seems a little soft.

I spent some more time with Imaging Edge looking at some of my other photos - particularly those of Merganzers. It's too bad Imaging Edge doesn't report if you were set to human/animal/bird for autofocus.

I remembered reading something about the 200-600 with the A1 - autofocus issues so last night, to be on the safe side, I saved my settings and reinitialized the A1. Then I reloaded my settings.

Today, I looked for Merganzers, in hopes of being able to do a before/after comparison, but there was not one to be found. But on other birds like Loons, I could see the bird eye autofocus seemed to be working well. I haven't reviewed today's shots yet, but things looked good in the viewfinder.