When I was in Patagonia last time, I was surprised by how many beautiful birds there are, and in many cases I was able to get quite close to them. I photographed this austral parrot on the grounds of one of the lodges my photo tour group used. These birds were all over the place! For this image, I hand held a 500mm lens plus a 1.4x teleconverter giving me 700mm of focal length. My settings were 1/320 (I should have used a faster shutter speed), f/8, 400 ISO. The general rule for telephoto lenses and shutter speeds is that the speed of the shutter should be the reciprocal of the focal length. In other words, if the lens is 700mm, the shutter speed should be 1/700 or faster to make sure the pictures are sharp. This picture is sharp, but I took a risk that I wouldn't take now. Next time I'll raise the ISO (because cameras today handle noise much better than in the past) to force the shutter speed to be faster.
9 Comments
Apr 20, 2017, 5:55:03 PM
Bryan - Sure, feel free to ask now. You can send it via my email address, which you have.
Apr 18, 2017, 5:57:09 PM
Jim - It would be a pleasure to have you in a workshop. I'd have lots of questions for you since you've lived in PNG for so long. I'll do a blog post with one of my shots from there. I was in PNG twice -- 1996 and 2005.
Apr 18, 2017, 5:15:20 PM
Bryan - I'm a missionary. Been here since '93. I live in Kandrian, a government station on the southwest coast of New Britain Island. Have kids near Nashville so I may try to catch one of your workshops next year when in the area.
Apr 17, 2017, 1:56:53 PM
Jim - Hi George, With IS stabilization you can get away with slower speeds. But long lenses magnify so much that the image, when seen through a super telephoto, seems to bob up and down simply because it's not possible to hold the big lens still. With a 500mm lens and IS, I won't go slower than 1/320. Having said that, if I can select 1/500, I feel much more confident with the faster speed that I'll end up with a sharp picture. If the subject is moving -- like a flying bird -- then IS is irrelevant. Only a fast speed will freeze the subject.
Apr 17, 2017, 1:49:19 PM
George Kistler - Does that same rule apply to image stabilized cameras?
Apr 15, 2017, 12:18:27 PM
Jim - Thanks very much, Janie. I'm glad you are enjoying the blogs.
Apr 15, 2017, 12:10:56 PM
Janie Greene - Too beautiful!!! thanks for sending me the beautiful bird...Janie Greene
Apr 15, 2017, 9:52:59 AM
Jim - I'm sure that's true, Bryan. What are you doing in PNG?
Apr 15, 2017, 1:13:55 AM
Bryan - I've noticed that birds are usually friendlier and more abundant where the locals' motto is not, "if it flies, it dies". I live in rural Papua New Guinea and the birds here tend to keep their distance as otherwise they end up soup. Thanks for your work.