outdoor photography

Bald Eagle Yesterday at Lake Jesup, a Bald Eagle flew very close to me.  I was looking for ducks, loons and grebes sitting in the water at at the time, so I had my camera set for birds sitting still on the water.  When shooting still birds, I normally select only the center focusing point and put the focusing mode on "One Shot."  When shooting birds in flight, I want all the focusing points active with the focusing mode on "AI Servo" to better track birds in flight. It's a little bit of a pain to switch between these two shooting modes.  If you try to shoot the bird in flight with "One Shot" and one focusing point, you're likely to get a lot of blurry photos. But if you try to change the focusing points and focusing mode, you're likely to miss the shot all together. There's a solution to this problem, though. You can use the Custom Modes.  Using custom modes, you just switch the dial on the camera to make all the changes.  I use C1 for ...

Bald Eagle Photographing birds in flight can be a challenge, and it's important to adjust for several factors quickly in order to maximize the number of photographs that are both sharp and properly exposed.  I normally shoot birds in Aperture Priority Mode , and usually I shoot wide open (at my widest aperture ), which on my lens is f/5.6.  I tend to break up how I approach shooting birds in flight in terms of four main factors. Color of the Bird Snowy Egret When shooting birds in flight, you need to take into consideration the color of the bird and use the appropriate exposure compensation to account for it. White feathers will become overexposed very easily in bright sunlight.  So if a bright bird is brightly lit, I'll under-expose by perhaps 2/3 stop .  If I'm shooting a bird with dark feathers, like an immature Bald Eagle, I'll over expose a little, especially if I need to get detail in the shadows under the wings. Position of the Sun Common Mer...

Swamp Sparrow (hand-held with AF, selected center focusing point) As far a focusing points go, the general rule is "the more the merrier."  And of course, there's good reason why.  The more focusing points your camera has, the more your camera can choose from to make sure you get your subject in focus.  However, your camera can't think for you.  It doesn't know what you want in and out of focus, and so there are some situations where the camera simply cannot decide on the focusing points you want.  If you've taken enough photos, you've seen it happen.  The camera focused on the leaf in front of the butterfly or on the grass behind your daughter blowing the seeds off a dandelion. Your camera will show you what focusing points it has chosen before you take the picture.  On my camera, the focusing points light up in the viewfinder, so I can check to make sure the camera is focusing on what I want.  Checking your focus before shooting is a...

Red-Shouldered Hawk (AI Focus AF) One Shot would work here until he decides to fly SLR cameras come equipped with four focusing modes, and all of them are very useful in different situations: One Shot (Canon)/AF-S (Nikon).  This is the standard focusing mode photographers use most of the time.  When you press the shutter half-way, the camera focuses one time and maintains that focus until you take a picture or take your finger off the shutter button.  This mode is perfect for stationary subjects or subjects that are moving but not closer or farther away from you. AI Servo (Canon)/AF-C (Nikon).   With this focusing mode, when you press the shutter half way, the camera focuses continuously on the subject.  It detects movement  in areas covered by the focus points (either all of them or the ones you've selected) and tries to maintain focus of that subject as it moves.  This is great for action and sports photography, especially when subjects ar...

Brookside Gardens Flower I used to live by the firm conviction that in any good photograph, something should be sharp.  In recent years, however, I've come to believe that this "rule" is actually rather arbitrary.  Why does anything in your image have  to be sharp in order for the photograph to be good?  I've come across many photographs that are only softly focused, if at all, that I must confess are extremely good photographs. Of course, I'm not issuing an invitation to be careless in your photography, and if a photograph comes out blurry, just call it "artistic."  But if photography is more than just documenting the presence of an object in space and time, then we need to leave room for all sorts of creativity, including de-focused or softly focused images.  These types of images often tend toward the abstract , but the emphasize the aspects of composition that shape our photographs--design, color, etc. The challenge in this type of photog...

In a previous post, we discussed three styles of composition  and the value of making use of all three.  Within that spectrum of composition styles you can use, photographers make selections concerning what they want in focus and out of focus.  This selection can have a significant influence on your composition: how much of your scene do you want in focus?  You may want everything in focus, only some aspects of it in focus, or you may even select to have all of your photograph out of focus, especially in abstract compositions. Consider the two photographs above.  Both photos were taken at basically the same time, with all the same camera settings.  The only change was in the point of focus.  But they are different compositions and different photos.  I took several like this, focusing on different parts of the same scene.  One day, I'm probably going to display three of them together. So when you come across a scene you like, don't just ...