With the Sigma long lens I would shoot at f5.6 or f8 at 1/500th for birds that are perched. If the birds are in flight, go to 1/1000th shutter speed. Use TAV mode for both with upper ISO limit of 6400. Shots at 6400 with K-1 are only slightly noisy. Don’t worry about exposure comp unless the situation is extraordinary, like a dark bird against a white sky. Then I would dial in a stop or two. But you can correct exposure in PhotoShop during conversion. Your image won’t know the difference. I usually find I have to do some adjustment in conversion: a little contrast boost, some pushing of shadows, some dialing back of highlights, and sometimes a slight white balance adjustment and slight saturation boost. Use your eye. Once converted, I adjust levels to get a nice black point and white point and apply some smart sharpen if the pic isn’t noisy, but only a minor amount. I sometimes have to dodge the eye a bit to get it to pop our from a dark feathered bird.
Your perched birds look pretty good but are sorely in need of some photoshop work. A levels adjustment for sure. > On Apr 6, 2017, at 4:41 AM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > > The pictures are utter crap, and I'd be interested to hear suggestions in > case I get another opportunity. Driving back to Newport from Yachats I saw > an interesting bird on the beach, pulled over at a park, took a couple of > shots with the bigma on the K-3, but it flew off. I wandered around a bit, > thought I found it, tried a couple more. Then tried some shots in Waldport > (no interesting birds) and up Beaver Creek, where Mom said there was an > Eagle's nest. Up Beaver Creek, I mostly saw some geese, but might have > gotten another shot or two of another eagle. > > http://www.flickriver.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157682171561896/ > > I was shooting against an overcast sky, which creates challenges. My shutter > speed was mostly around 1/320 aperture in the f/8 range. > Should I have leaned harder on the ISO to get more shutter speed or DoF? Or > are any shots in these conditions going to turn out crappy? > > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] (postbox on min4est) http://red4est.com/lrc > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
