Techniques - Metering

One of the comments we had early on was for some technique tips on metering, or more correctly shooting mode.

For most of my work these days, I tend to use M Mode. All the images on the Short Eared Owl post were taken in M mode, and I will tell you how I did it a little further on. When I started off my wildlife photography, it was either Av or Tv mode, depending on the speed of the subject. Control of the depth of field is probably the most overarching variable to control. We often prefer to just isolate our subject, blur out the background so all concentration is on the subject and we are not distracted by busy and cluttered backgrounds. However, this is something that we should be looking closely at when taking the image. Often with Birds in flight, I wait before I press the shutter button so the subject is in the right part of the scene, rather than just snap away.

However, there are other times, such as with the Armilleria fungus in this post, I actually wanted to get a good sense of the environment of the forest to put the subject in place.

Anyway, before I get too distracted by depth of field, lets concentrate on shooting mode With Av mode, we control the aperture, setting the depth field at whatever subject distance and focal length we are using. The camera then sets the required shutter speeds, based on whatever ISO and metering pattern you have selected. We will cover the metering mode (spot, matrix, partial etc) and the different options at a later date, as this is worthy of a separate posting.

Now Av is fine as long as your subject is in a reasonably consistent background. So what if your subject, lets say a Red Kite is one minute against a bright sky and the next against the dark tones of trees . If you are in one of the auto or semi auto modes, your exposure is going to be all over the place. Yet, the light may not have changed on the subject, and that is what we want the exposure for. In Av mode, we might have been at + 1 1/2 stops to counter the bright sky, which is going to be clearly very wrong for when the subject dips below the tree line.

To counter this, I shoot in M mode - but how do I set the three variables f ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Simple - meter from a suitable mid tone, grass is a good place to start. For the Owls, I metered from the foreground grass, took a shot, checked the histogram and that was that. Using the ISO to ensure that the shutter speeds was in the right sort of range, the aperture set for the depth of field I wanted, and the shutter speed fast enough to make sure I had a fighting chance of a sharp image.

Once the exposure set, then I can forget it and just get shooting, and wherever the bird goes, it will be correctly exposed won't it? Well not quite - you do have to keep an eye on the light levels. So when the sun is popping in and out of the clouds, you do need to adjust the exposure to ensure a consistent exposure. But you will be surprised how sensitive you get to the changes in light, and it will become instinctive you to dial in the extra light you need.

So there you go, if you haven't tried it, give it a go, let us know how you get on

Martin

From the archives - Fungi

I thought I would share some 'out of season images with you all this week. The Autumn is one of the great seasons for wildlife photographers with fabulous golden light of late afternoons and early mornings, lots of bird migration and for those of us who like some close up work then there are the opportunities for fungi as well.

The 2006 'season' was fantastic with a bumper year that seemed to last for ages, whereas the last two years have been pretty challenging. I am fortunate in that I have a great wood near me with varied coniferous and deciduous habitat.

Fungi compared to other wildlife subjects are actually really easy if you think about it, as they are not going to get up and run away from you, so you as the photographer have the opportunity to control everything. The most difficult part is finding your subjects, but once you have then the results are all down to you.

I took this just over two years ago with my old Canon 1Dmk2N and 100mmf2.8 macro. I have shown a phone pic I took of the set up, using a couple of reflectors and a diffuser to hold back the strong sunlight. Tripod mounted, of course with remote release and manually focussed as all of my fungi shots are.

The latest 'Live View' facilities on the current breed of Canon and Nikon cameras has transformed macro photography for me now. I use the Live View, in conjunction with the histogram information to verify the exposure using M Mode, and then zoom in with the 5X magnification, depress the DOF preview button and then scroll around the main part of the subject to ensure that the subject has exactly the right components sharp. This technique really has taken out a lot of inaccuracies associated with looking through the viewfinder, particularly if the camera is at ground level.

I have only found one drawback using this technique and that is battery life. Using the screen does drain the battery much faster than conventional shooting as you would expect. That said, current battery life on the 1D mk3 is excellent and I am sure it is also on the latest Nikon offerings too.

When setting out to find fungi, early damp mornings have proven to be the most successful although you will have to watch out for the dog walkers, and make sure that you don't scare them if you suddenly get up as they are approaching you, unless you have a warped sense of humour. Another consideration is to make sure that you have permission to access the land you are photographing on.

There are some great resources on the 'net, one of the better ones is Roger's Mushrooms. I have had species confirmed by Roger Phillips - a really helpful guy. I can also thoroughly recommend his great book - see ad below.

This family group of Mycena was takenwith my old Canon 5D and 100mmf2.8 macro.

And finally, this was taken in the October last year, using the 1Dmk3, using the Live View technique. The species is Armilleria Ostoyae or Brown Honey Fungus, and was the species that Roger helped to confirm.

So something a little different from our blogs to date. Many thanks to those who have commented and continue to support the blog. If there are any subjects you want to see covered, then give us a shout on here

Martin

Trip Reports - Short Eared Owls

Well after my post of 14th December, when we were getting used to this blogger system, I have been back to the Short Eared Owl site on a number of occasions. Mostly in terrible light, but with occasional glimpses of sunlight.

I have seen either three or four birds on each occasion, hunting across a couple of fields. The location is pretty good photographically with one field shooting up hill, usually with the light behind, with some long dried grass in the foreground like this. Shot with Canon 1Dmk3, 500 f4 L + 1.4EFTC, ISO 1000


The lower field is usually either with side lighting or shooting directly into the late evening sun, although this has been quite rare on my trips. The site is about 45 minutes south of Stratford upon Avon, in the Cotswolds and I tend to find I leave here in stunning photo light only for it to clag in on me when I am about three miles from the site. Sods Law - but you have to be there to get the image. Armchair wildlife photography doesn't work!!

But on the occasions when the light does show, you can get images like this if you are prepared to shoot into the light. This time at ISO 800.

Natures sepia tone!!

A friend, Graham Goddard wanted to visist the site so we went down on New Years Day, having avoided hangovers with Graham setting out from home at about 6am that day!!. After a fairly fruitless morning at WWT Slimbridge, we went up onto the Cotswolds to see the most amazing haw frost covering the landscape. Unfortunatey, the sky was still very grey but the scenary was fabulous. We observed some great sights - large flock 150+ of Golden Plover, four SEO's on show, a hare on the drive up, three Buzzards, a kestrel talon locking and falling with one of the Owls, a couple of Snipe flying through and a Peregrine falcon through twice, and Graham also tells me a Barn Owl about five minutes after I left when I gave up shooting as it was virtually dark by then.

But I was pleased to get this image at extreme range, at ISO1600 and the 2 x converter, at f10 with camera on bean bag on dry stone wall.

A small splash of colour on a monochrome scene



Click on the images to enlarge.

All images were shot in M mode, metering from neutral scenes and I use the 'expose to the right' methodology. Both of these will be subjects that we will cover in later blog posts - so keep watching.

Martin