December photos

https://picasaweb.google.com/SeilerBird/December?authuser=0&feat=directlink

I have been stuck in Phoenix with really lousy weather all month so I only have 15 photos this month. I have a tree right next to my RV that a pair of Anna's Hummingbirds call home. Hummers spend 80% of their life hovering and feeding and the other 20% resting sitting in the top of a tree or bush imitating a leaf (which is why almost all hummers have a green back). The cool thing about hummers is that they learn to recognize people. The first dozen times I tried to photograph them they would just fly away. But eventually they become used to me and I can approach them without them flying off. The hummer shots this month were taken with me at the minimum focus distance of my 500mm lens, 8 feet.

My favorite photo this month is the one of Cleopatra lying on the floor 180 degrees out of phase. It looks like someone put her body together wrong.

I should tell the story behind the shot of Cleo and the mouse. About three months ago I bought a 97 cent stuffed mouse at Walmart and brought it home to give to my kitty. I tossed it to her and she brought it back and dropped it at my feet and sat there waiting. So I tossed it again. She brought it right back. Ever since then I have to throw the mouse for her about a hundred times a day. She thinks she is a Golden Retriever. Too funny. And if I try and ignore her she gets as close to me as possible, paws at me and gives me the most mournful cry you have ever heard coming out of a kitten.

I am getting a brake job done tomorrow and then heading out for Florida and Disney World next week.

I always try to choose a favorite.  This month it's the house sparrow in Buckeye.  The hummingbirds are extraordinary, too.

Margi

Tom, Santa brought me a new lens for Christmas, the 100-400mm Canon Zoom one I was lusting after this summer in Alaska.  I've been playing around with it and all the different settings.

What did you use for your photos?  I love the one with the finch with the blurred branches, yet the finch was in focus.  Did you change your meter setting to center focus in order to get the blurred foreground?  Yes?  No?  ;D  If you don't want to reveal your technique, I respect that....no problem.

I plan to take a wildlife/landscape photo class this summer in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  It's real easy to put this lens on "Auto"; but I want to have fun with the manual settings.  I took several classes years ago; but I need a refresher.

Marsha~

Marsha/CA said:

Tom, Santa brought me a new lens for Christmas, the 100-400mm Canon Zoom one I was lusting after this summer in Alaska.  I've been playing around with it and all the different settings.

Click to expand...

Great choice Marsha. When I shot with a Canon 50D I had the 100-400. It is an awesome lens.

What did you use for your photos?  I love the one with the finch with the blurred branches, yet the finch was in focus.  Did you change your meter setting to center focus in order to get the blurred foreground?  Yes?  No?  ;D  If you don't want to reveal your technique, I respect that....no problem.

Click to expand...

Hey I am happy to share all of my secrets, since none of them are really secret. I am currently shooting with a Sony a55 and a Tamron 200-500.

The blurred foreground and background are because of something called "depth of field". DOF is the distance in front of the focus point and behind the focus point that is in focus. Everything else in that is not is the DOF will be out of focus.

There are three ways to change you DOF. If you use a large aperture it will have a very shallow DOF. To do this on your camera set the mode dial to "Av" which is called 'Aperture mode" (note - on cameras other than Canon it is usually just called "A"). Now you can control the aperture the camera uses. Rotate the dial to the largest setting, which would be f/4.5 to f/5.6 depending how far out you are zoomed. If you are zoomed out to 400 then it will be f/5.6. This is counter intuitive since f/16 and f/22 are the smallest openings. The largest openings will give you the shallowest DOF and the smallest opening give you the greatest DOF. Note that in the Finch shot my lens is wide open at f/6.3.

The second method used to control DOF is the focal length of the lens. At 100mm you will have a much greater DOF than at 400. If you get an 8mm fisheye like I have then just about everything from an inch away from the lens to infinity will be in focus, great for scenic shots.

The third method is the distance from the camera. The closer that you focus the shallower the DOF, further away increases DOF. This is why all macro shots have very little DOF. And it is why macro is so hard. When you get inches away from a bug it might be that the only thing in focus is the eyes.

So if you really want a very shallow DOF then get close to your subject, use a wide aperture and the longest lens you can. 

Understanding how to control DOF is one of the key items you should learn to become a better photographer. I would suggest getting a yardstick (remember those) and laying it down on a table and placing your camera at the 0 inch mark. Try changing settings and lenses and take a bunch of photos to see all this in action.

I plan to take a wildlife/landscape photo class this summer in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  It's real easy to put this lens on "Auto"; but I want to have fun with the manual settings.  I took several classes years ago; but I need a refresher.

Click to expand...

My current plans are to be in Yellowstone for 10 days in July and in the Tetons for 10 days in July. If we are there at the same time I will be happy to go out shooting with you and help you as much as I can.

Thanks for the info Tom, it's good to read how you get your shots.  I'm familiar with aperture and shutter speeds.  And am at the moment focusing  (pun on words  ;D ) my shooting on aperture setting.  I have to keep telling myself:  larger number longer DOf focus-smaller number closer DOF focus.

The second method used to control DOF is the focal length of the lens. At 100mm you will have a much greater DOF than at 400

Click to expand...

Help me understand this, "greater DOF" in as more is in focus than if I moved out to the 400mm length?

Marsha/CA said:

Help me understand this, "greater DOF" in as more is in focus than if I moved out to the 400mm length?

Click to expand...

The DOF is the area in front of and behind the focus point. So a greater DOF has a longer area in front of and behind the focus point. Usually photographers don't use the zoom on a lens to change DOF. This is because when you are shooting with a telephoto framing the subject and composing the photo are of more importance than the DOF. And in general when you are using a long telephoto you are shooting an animal or a person and you want a shallow DOF so the subject stands out. And usually when you are using a long telephoto you are almost always at the maximum (largest) aperture which has the shallowest DOF anyway.

To tell the truth I never ever think about DOF when I am out shooting. I use my 200-500 for most of my shots of critters and I am usually as close to the critter as possible. So my DOF is usually right on. I rarely do scenic shots with my telephoto. If I want scenic shots I switch to a wide angle lens and they always have a large DOF.

Marsha - Take a look at this photo I stole from Steve. Stunning image. Notice that the eyes are in focus but the tip of the beak and the feathers on top of his head are out of focus. This tells you that the photo was taken with a long lens, at a relatively close distance with the aperture wide open. This brings me to my number one rule of photographing critters. If you don't have the eye, you don't have the shot. So always focus on the eye on any critter. Imagine how bad the shot would look if the tip of the beak was in focus instead of the eye. Imagine how bad the shot would look if you focused on the feathers on the top of the head instead of the eye.

That's a great example Tom.  I think I'm going to concentrate on setting the apertures and not on the telephoto length setting at the moment. I need to know what is effecting what.   

I have no trouble with all of this with my 18-55mm lens; but this telephoto 100-400 is a different beast that I need to get used to.

I'm attaching a couple of photos I took with everything on auto.  I can see where your rule of making sure the eye is in focus makes a big different in quality.  The first is of a Mountain Chickadee; the second a pair of male & female finches.

Thanks for your help.

Marsha

Forgot to mention, on my photos I think I am still too far away from the birds.

Marsha~

Marsha/CA said:

Forgot to mention, on my photos I think I am still too far away from the birds.

Click to expand...

Yes you are too far away from the birds but there is a problem that most little birds won't let you get close enough to have them fill the frame. This is where post processing (Photoshopping) becomes valuable. You could crop the image quite a bit to make the birds much larger. Most of the background is not necessary in that photo so it would look a lot better if it were cropped. You can crop it by opening the original up with Windows Paint or better yet Picasa and cut out the two birds and save the crop as a new image.

I'm not a photographer, but I'm really enjoying the conversation between you two.  It's very interesting to hear even a tiny bit of how you get such great shots.

Margi

Marsha,

Here is a site that offers a free 7 day trial where you can learn from an excellent presenter. Take at look at http://www.lynda.com and under authors, select Ben Long. I've been going through his entire photography video set and have learned a a lot. As I recall you don't need to sign up for the trial to view some of the different topics but to view all the sections you will need to sign up. I finally decided there was enough other subjects on this site to opt for a monthly membership, which you can cancel at any time. Give it a try, think you will agree Ben is a great presenter and knows his "stuff".

Bob

Bob has an excellent idea Marsha. I have used online tutorials in the past and found them extremely useful.

Another great idea is to learn the "rules of composition". They are not really rules, but suggestions for better looking photos. There are many books and many online discussions of the subject.

Marsha
I took the liberty of doing a quick crop of your chicadee.  Not quite to the rule of thirds, but leaving in the arc of the crook.  One issue with this image is focus.  I assume it was a handheld shot.  Use the tripod when you can, not always possible, but use it when you can. 

What photo course up here are you taking here at Yellowstone?  Yellowstone Association offers some great ones for sure!  I have one coming up in Feb with Tom Murphy. 

BTW, both Jim Dick and I use the 100-400, love the lens. 

Luke was advised to use the force, you are advised, use the tripod. 

Doesn't work too well for birds in flight.  Work up to that, and use your burst mode for shutter, follow the flight and shoot off about 6 at a time, the middle shots will usually be the best.

The focus problem exists because you are using all the focus points. Most DSLRs have between 9 and 20 focus points. When you point the camera at a scene it will focus on the closest object. That doesn't work when shooting animals with a telephoto. The best way is to choose the center point only and always put the critter in the middle. Then crop like Bill did for the final image.

Thanks guys for all the info.

Wb6kwt, I'll check out the online site as well.  That's a good idea; thanks for the link.

Bill, I cropped the MNT Chickadee here at home and it was a much better shot.  I knew about the thirds rule, learning that years ago with my Canon AE1 film camera.  There are a couple of seminars/classes in Yellowstone which I'm sure you are aware of.  One is affiliated with Yellowstone Institute.  The other looks like it is private.  There are probably others.  The private one is a 3 day hike in photo trip.  It's pretty pricey.  I'm not sure what I'll do yet nor when we'll be there.

Tom, I also cropped the finches, placing just one finch in the photo...btw, I did get a clear crisp focused eye.    I'm sure it could have been photographed much better, but it certainly looks better as a close up single bird rather than just the pair.

I have a tripod.  When I borrowed this lens on the Alaska trip, I had Tim's shoulder to balance on.  But I found the other day that I had a real problem with keeping it steady.  I also have several books.  However I have to tell you all, I love this lens.

I also thought about changing my metering to what I call "Center Metering".  Canon calls it "center-weight metering".  Like Tom mentioned I found when I used all the meter points, I get everything in focus which I didn't want.

Much fun and much to play with!!!!

Marsha~

Marsha/CA said:

I have a tripod.  When I borrowed this lens on the Alaska trip, I had Tim's shoulder to balance on. 

Click to expand...

I hate tripods. I rarely use one and most of the time it is for night shots or video. Rather than use a tripod I set my mode dial to S (Tv on a Canon) which is the shutter priority mode. I then set the shutter speed to 1/2000th of a second and shaking the camera becomes an impossibility. The reason I hate tripods is that they slow me down a whole lot. Following birds in flight with a normal tripod is almost impossible.

I also thought about changing my metering to what I call "Center Metering".  Canon calls it "center-weight metering".  Like Tom mentioned I found when I used all the meter points, I get everything in focus which I didn't want.

Click to expand...

Apples and oranges here. Metering refers to the exposure of a photo. You probably should not use "center metering", it is a setting only advanced users use. It can require some serious post processing.

What I am talking about is center dot focus. Focus and metering are totally different animals and easily confused by a newer photographer. If you focus using just the center dot you can be absolutely sure the animal that you want to be in focus will be in focus. If it is a large enough animal and you have the time then you place the center dot right on the critters eye and then click.

Here is one of my best tips for shooting wildlife. Every DSLR has a "burst mode". Kinda like a motor drive from film days. The burst rate is usually between 3 and 12 frames per second. I always have the burst mode turned on when shooting wildlife.

Do you remember the photo of the hummer sticking out his tongue? You don't really think I waited around until he stuck his tongue out and then pushed the shutter? Wouldn't have worked anyway. When I take a shot I usually hold the shutter down and take between 4 and 10 shots at a time.

If I am taking a photo of a person I can tell you how to pose, where to look and what to do and usually the person will do just as I ask. Wildlife will pretty much ignore all your requests. A portrait of a bird is cool, but it is usually a much better shot if the critter is doing something, anything. Scratching, spreading his wings, sticking out his tongue, starting to fly or whatever. By using burst mode I have my choice of many slightly different poses and occasionally I get lucky and get him with his tongue stuck out. BTW - when a hummer sticks out his tongue it is only out for a few milliseconds.

You're right Tom, I did call it metering when I meant focus points.  I found the Manual focus points and will set it to the center point.  I knew about burst mode and will use it.

Thanks again everyone!

Marsha~

BTW, I'm moving this to the "Photography" Section.  Lots of good information and it will all be in one location.

Marsha~