April & May 23 Newsletters

I am combining the April & May newsletters, simply because April had passed before I really knew that it was here. So, apologies for that.

I seem to mainly be taking shots of birds at the moment, Skylarks and Swallows while taking the dogs for a walk each day and various other birds on the one day that I managed to get out with the camera in April. I did manage to get along to Stirling at the beginning of this month to take some shots of historic architecture, more about that later.

This shot is a wonderful example of what you can capture if you have your camera with you and your settings already in place. My average settings for wildlife are Shutter 1/1000, Aperture f4, ISO 1000 using a 90mm prime/fixed lens. I set up the camera before starting to walk with the dogs and usually leave them as they are for the whole walk. These settings are fast enough to capture a fast moving bird like this skylark and bright enough to cope with a normal cloudy day. I will always set the camera focus area on tracking and use autofocus. As you can see, there is a little bit of noise/grain in the image. I could have taken this out, but I felt that made the image look artificial and therefor, wrong.

This image was taken at the RSPB Sanctuary on Loch Leven. The Greylag Geese were posing nicely and I was able to take my time and use a tripod. I adjusted my ISO to 500 to avoid noise, my Aperture to f6.3 for a greater depth of field and left my shutter speed at 1/1000.

Above there are two very different images of swallows. The top one was taken using my normal wildlife settings, but the lower one required a fairly substantial change; my shutter was much faster at 1/2500, aperture f7.1 and ISO remained at 1000 as the day was fairly bright. I tried to capture the swallows at a shutter speed of 1/1000, but the were too fast and the blurred. The aperture went to f7.1 because there needed to be a much greater DoF to get the two birds into the frame and still be in focus. While taking the upper shot, I just walked up and took the shot. I had seen the swallows landing and the were not moving, so it was an easy shot. The lower shot was much more of a challenge. I had to study the flight patterns of many swallows. They were coming over a building and flying out over the fields before returning, which was when I was able to capture them. It probably took about 30 or 40 minutes till I was able to pick out the pattern of these two birds. Once I had the pattern, I was able to track them as they returned and get the shot. Although that sound simple, this is one of 30 shots, to get it right. Great fun though.

As I said earlier, I went to Stirling to take some architectural shots. When I left the house the weather was really good for the shots that I wanted, bright sun, which, later in the day, would give me some really good reflections. By the time I got to Stirling it was raining and not looking good at all. Instead of packing up and going home, I decided to read a book and see if the rain would stop. It did.

The image above and the following two images are what came from being patient. I did make one stupid mistake, which I will not do again. I left my camera bag in the car and only took my camera and one lens. This meant that, due to my filters being in the bag, when I tried to take a long exposure of the unexpected reflection that had appeared, I couldn't achieve a slow enough shutter speed to make the water smooth and so the reflection is not as clear as it could be. I could also have got some really good shots of gulls flying below me with my longer lens. The moral, always be prepared to deal with the unexpected by taking your ****** bag with you.

My setting for the above images were vastly different from those for the other images. Shutter 1/80, Aperture f7.1 and ISO 100. The lens was a 24-70mm at 25mm to give me a wide angle.

Other than getting the above images over the last month, I have entered a few competitions, not winning, but getting a commended for one image and merited for another. This is encouraging and makes me want to continue to improve, not just because winning would be nice, but also for my own satisfaction by taking better photographs.

My message, as usual is, get with your camera as often as possible, walking the dog, going to the shops even going to and from work, especially if you travel by train or bus. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, experiment, just take the shot and if it is wrong, change your settings and try again.

My courses will get you away from Auto and allow you to use your camera the way it is meant to be used, with you controlling how your images turn out.