We hope you enjoy the show everyone! As always thanks for watching and please let us know what you think of the show and what you'd like to see us cover in the future. Cheers! Glenn
Thanks Jan & Glenn. You may also want to consider using the RGB histogram rather than the Brightness/Luminance one. You can still be clipping reds and yellows (typically) with the Brightness histogram (sometimes significantly), but the Brightness histogram would show a perfectly exposed (ETTR) photo. This is why Reds can still be hard to control with the Brightness histogram. The overall image may be a bit darker when using the RGB, but you'll have more of true colors of the actual pixels to work with. I only use the RGB as it provides even greater exposure control. As always, judgement comes into play of what is acceptable to clip. Keep up the great work. Cheers, Scott
For future videos in this series, please discuss what settings you recommend for different scenarios and why. For instance, what shutter speed works best for birds in flight, versus a perched but twitchy songbird, versus a duck on land.
Thanks for clarification of the those confusing issues. It was a great help. Especially light bg noise risk is lesser and never noticed such fact. Yeah, true. It gives further exposure options. Thanks for the tips. Great.
Since the 5D4 semi manual mode is possible. Ie, set your shtter speed, apeture and exposure offset, and leave the iso on auto. I also use the approach on my R5. Eg, I am panning a bif, and the background changes from light to dark, or, from full sun to shade.... all the while, concentrating on maintaining eyefocus on a moving bird, or coaxing the af to stay on the birds eye with obstructions moving accross in front. No, I do not have a 2nd brain and 3rd hand to adjust iso during this pan - that is what the auto iso is for.
Thank you for sharing. While I am a fairly experienced wildlife photographer and even run occasional yours I have never met anyone I couldn’t learn something from. Being a 71 year old with some typical health issues I was basically locked away from other people during this pandemic and people like you guys became my shooting partners and most people need someone to bounce ideas or just confirm what what I already suspected. I also have a R5 and 600f4 11 and other zooms and it is nice to have other experienced people sharing what they learned. So best of luck in all that you do, and again thank you!
Thanks for doing this! I've been into bird photography for about a year and this seems like the perfect series to help me address things I've been getting wrong.
A nice exposure feature that Sony offers is "Zebras" for still photography. More accurate than a histogram, it allows adjustment of the exposure real time without having to take your eyes off the subject. Great for BIF. Having a histogram in the corner of the VF is nice but it requires taking your eye off the subject. Wish my R5 had Zebras!
@@djack4125 the Zebras are used for focussing on my R5 if I switch to manual focussing. Exposure for video is critical if shooting regular 8bit - there is no leeway. If shooting 10bit video, or, 12 bit raw video, then there is a lot more lattitude, but most peoprl shoot 8bit video. Exposure is less critical for 14 or 16 bit stills.
Clear, well explained and on point. Even though I know most of the stuff you mentioned it's always good to know that great photographers like you two are shooting the same way as I do. Great video guys!
I think a quite natural way to think of E compensation in aperture priority mode is as a shortcut to bias the camera decision for the shutter speed, so you just set your mind to manual mode momentarily. At the end, in this mode the compensation will change the shutter speed, and the buttons combination is sometimes the same than those to access the second variable in manual mode once ISO is locked.
Thank you for your review, I find with BIF in rapidly changing backgrounds the most challenging. I used to shoot with auto ISO, but have gone to manual mode for most of my shots and presetting to the subject and trusting the camera from there. Sometimes I complicate things too much by overthinking, but I have recently programed the control ring on my lens for exposure compensation when I do need to change on the fly. I still have work to do to develop muscle memory with it, but it seems to work quite well.
Very helpful series, keep it coming. What do you suggest are the best settings for photographing white and black ducks on water, such as the common eider. They are very difficulty to expose correctly. Either the whites are blown out or the blacks are under exposed. I'm shooting a R6 with the 100 - 500mm zoom or the 800 mm f11. Hope to capture eiders on the Quebec Gaspe this May.
Thanks for sharing this valuable video. I am learning with manual shooting. If suddenly shooting from dark to light then I feel that ISO let camera to do itself is more comfortable and better. It helps not too over exposure. If I shooting same area, specially in dark forest then I using ISO manually, it helps me a lot.
For birds in flight I use Shutter Speed with auto ISO and range limiter on the ISO (400 Base). I use a 400 base ISO for this because I found that with the denoise software there isn't much of a difference between 100 and 400. Over the last two weeks I have done a significant amount of shooting birds in flight in which the light on the birds change significantly in very short periods of time. I was shooting Swallows over a creek/river that flows basically North to South with woods and hills on both banks so the birds were flying between direct sunlight and deep shadows all the time.
@@GlennBartley I think it is that because of the 3 options it is the least important and the only one that can be adjusted in post. For me at least, for 'bird in tree' settings I make sure I have the aperture I want with a shutter speed that I know can hold steady. Also even though it was a long time ago I still have thoughts of the days of film in which you selected your ISO days/weeks/months earlier.
@@GlennBartley Also seems Jan put out a video tilted "Get NOISE FREE Images at ANY ISO | Noise Reduction & Edit | DXO Pure RAW vs Topaz DeNoise" so why worry about ISO?
Thanks for this! Jan, would you consider doing a follow-up video aimed at exposing and editing birds against a blue sky? I find that I struggle both in nailing exposure but also in editing - bringing out the color of the bird but also getting a natural and vibrant looking sky. What are your recommended editing tools/settings (exposure compensation, HSL etc.) to get it right?
I think on a blue sky the rules are the same. Expose to the right. Dont blow out the sky. Then in post you can recover some highlights and saturate the sky to your taste.
@@GlennBartley Thanks! What are your best tips for getting a good color on the sky? What I have found works best so far are the HSL blue and white channels
More than anything the angle you're shooting at is important with sky. You will have nice blue sky in one direction that is easy to keep in camera, and unpleasant white sky in most other directions, which is hard to control and often looks unpleasant, when you try to recover it
found this really interesting, thank you for putting this together. it was presented in a very friendly and informative way, i know understand a lot more about how my camera works and look forward to trying out these techniques. i look forward to your next video. thanks guys.
Manual with auto iso is how I shoot. I typically just leave the aperture at the widest setting and just change the shutter speed and exposure compensation to match the conditions. I'm thinking of getting the 800 f11 also which can't even change the aperture and I'll have the control ring change the exposure compensation since I change that more than shutter speed for stationary birds. For BIFs I just turn the mode dial to change my settings to +1 or so EC with 1/1000 or more shutter.
I found an interesting control using Auto ISO with the R5 (also, I can’t make myself switch from Manual). Pressing Set while rotating the front dial adjusts the EV. I’ve failed to ever see that mentioned… If shooting in Auto, you have to be able to compensate for what the camera thinks is the correct exposure! One more: In Auto ISO, rotating the rear dial will override Auto ISO to whatever setting you select for the next shot(s) and go back to Auto after a few idle seconds. For those of you shooting Auto ISO, this might alleviate some frustrations when the DIGIC processor is adjusting the ISO for you while shooting BIF and the exposure keeps changing on successive shots. The light source is the same on the birds in the sky and to keep from having everything look like a crow, the EV should be +1. This is why I shoot manual! Been there, done that using Av on my 5D4. Exposure is the bottom line…all we’re doing is capturing light!
I thought I had a pretty good knowledge of exposure, and I did. Still, there were valuable hints given. I liked the suggestion of checking for likely good exposure before the bird arrived. Plus, exposing for the light on the bird and shooting away as long as the light does not change. Very nice. Thank you.
Hi- Great overview/review. A question for you is- what is the difference in the level of noise when you use a lower ISO and increase exposure/shadows in post-processing, versus using a higher ISO when you shoot?
If you expose correctly the higher ISO should be cleaner, if the difference is a lot. If you slightly underexpose much lower iso would still look better potentially
Hi - my understanding is that the histogram is based on the jpeg exposure (even with a RAW image, as there is an embedded jpeg preview), and as such doesn't truly represent the dynamic range of a RAW image. Also it is possible to have a histogram that looks complete, but there may still be a peak that is too far to the right to show in the small in-viewfinder display, and only becomes visible if you lower the exposure. The main problem is photographing white birds, where it's very easy to blow out the highlights, so I prefer to underexpose a little more than may be ideal, to retain that information in the brightest areas. Gannets are a good example.
Hello Jan, this is about a different subject. If you photograph a couple of birds on a purch but they are not in the same distance level, how do you make both focused and sharp?
I mostly use manual mode with auto ISO, but that's partly due to my camera: the Sony a7rIV is very nearly ISO-invariant: the Input-Referred Read Noise is basically constant across two bands (100-250 ISO, and then 320-12800 ISO). And it's pretty close to flat for the Photographic Dynamic Range Shadow Improvement across ISO (less flat in the 100-250 band, but then quite flat from 320-12800). That means that changing the exposure in the camera has almost exactly the same effect on noise as changing the exposure in post (particularly for the 320-12800 ISO range). That in turn means that there's very little point to manual ISO beyond ISO 320 with this camera. Many other cameras don't have such ISO invariance. The Nikon Z9 is pretty good, with a cutover point at ISO 400. The Sony a1 also has an ISO 400 cutover, and is a bit flatter for IRRN than the Z9. Canon cameras have much more variance in IRRN and PDRSI, so they're better suited to full manual mode. That may be part of why your experience doesn't support auto ISO as well! Photons to Photos has good charts for these. You can select camera models and compare various aspects of their sensor, as long as you keep the sensor size the same it's reasonable. If not, remember that you have to multiply the ISO by the crop factor squared to get the equivalent brightness.
Great video, thanks. I can appreciate the fact that you pros opt for full manual control. However, me less gifted amateur, I like to rely on a bit of help by the camera. I absolutely don‘t understand the concept of aperture priority for bird photography. I actually almost always use exposure priority, particularly for birds in flight. If available light permits, I choose 1/2000 but never longer than 1/1000. with my EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L II plus EF 1.4 III I am at f/8 wide open, which I hardly feel to have enough light to stop further down. This is almost like a fixed aperture lens really. Therefore, aperture priority does not make any sense for me at all. I also let the camera choose the ISO, but I adjust to varying background bright-/darkness by manually correcting exposure. I always use +1 ⅔ when I capture a flying bird against the sky. So, I guess the lens actually takes influence on the choice of camera settings too, right?
From what I understand, both of you use DXO PureRaw in your workflow. In my experience, its a great program but the processed photos always end up looking quite underexposed after applying it. Even with that, correcting the exposure after using PureRaw still makes a better image than not using it at all and starting with a perfect exposure. Thoughts?
Another good one guys. When shooting in manual mode and capturing BIF against a bright sky,what is the setting change that will correctly expose the dark underneath of the bird? I already shoot as wide open as I can on my 100-400mm Olympus lens and OM-1 body. I need a high shutter speed so I am assuming that a quick change in ISO would be the way to go. I am I correct?
I think you are on the right track. All you can do against a sky BG is expose for the subject. So yes in your case if you are wide open and need a certain shutter speed then the variable you have available to affect exposure is ISO. If you want the bird brighter raise the ISO.
Ahaa, the BP-Showmen turned fundamentalist ;-) This is most certainly very useful for beginners, but just as well a good refresher for the rest of us. I've actually learned this topic last year from a German who used to live in Victoria Australia, maybe you've also seen him somewhere ? And about a week ago some bloke called Duade also made a good YT about this. From him I learned that the evaluative metering (on R6/5/3) actually still prioritizes the focus points. Do you have the same experience ? So far, I've been using partial metering because (as long as I manage to keep the bird centered in the frame) the camera will expose more for the bird and ignores (depending on the size of the bird of course) most of the background. Ideally, the partial metering should not stick to center of the frame but move along with the eye-AF tracking point. As for the main settings, I prefer the manual with Auto ISO (which is why metering counts for me) because it reduces the negatives you mention about either Av or full manual. I feel like adapting exposure compensation is less often needed than adapting ISO. And first I want to set aperture and shutter speed depending how the bird moves and what ISO range I can afford in the given light conditions. As you know, with the right processing methods (think prosets), higher ISO values should no longer scare us as in the past.
@@jan_wegener indeed! Such 'fundamental' topics deserve to be reflected over like every year. To avoid doing things on auto-pilot, and to check whether new insights, firmware or gear would allow to further optimize the workflow, or to consider breaking some habit to get a different feel in the image .. Did you still hear from the guy from Victoria ? Heard some rumors he's crashing a friend's house because he sold his own place to get some R3's and a big white hahaah .. wondering whether his wife and daughter agree ..
@jan_wegener your buddy was talking about Av mode. He didn't specify if this was just Birds perched, or in flight. Btw, thank you so much for speaking slowly. I signed up for your master class and I can't tell you how great it is to listen to someone who is speaking at a normal cadence.
@@edwardcollins3560that’s great to hear! AV mode was most popular before auto iso was available. Generally I think it’s more beneficial to set shutter speed and aperture yourself, rather than just aperture, because you don’t run the risk of suddenly getting very slow shutter speeds like you could get with AV
It will be useful to mention the terminology used by other cameras like Sony, Nikon and others as what you mention is applicable for Canon only. e.g Av is S in Nikon
Ouch, finally purchased DXO and I thought was $129aud but it was USD so was around $177. I've kept my eye on it for a while and seen it go on a really good sale but I think that was version 1. Anyway at least it is a 1 time payment and is a lot faster than topaz and does a slightly better job.
@@jan_wegener I couldn't wait for a sale :) was so happy with the results testing the free trail I got it straight away. It did take me a few months convincing because I didn't want to change my workflow but it was worth it in the end. A big reason was because I had to change to uncompressed raw to use the program, but testing it now it magically works with my Sony compressed files! Must be because its version 2?
Very informative. The only part that might be misleading is mentioning Aperture, ISO, and shutter speed apart from ambient light. Perhaps an oversimplification for purpose of the video, which is not in the context flash photography but Ambient light is too often disregarded. Great video nonetheless!
@@GlennBartley Sorry, I meant to make a positive comment on an amazing video. Thanks for the hard work! I believe that it will all come together by the end of the series. I just meant that there is much nuance and complexity to the light in the "scene", the way that it is metered, the reflective properties of the plumage, type and angle of light, etc, etc. So when I have heard or read about the exposure triangle, I have always felt that it pales in comparison to the qualities of the light but not nearly as much time is spent considering the light. Needless to say that in it's absence there would be no exposure regardless of the triangle. Looking forward to the rest of the series!
The light is important, but it does not affect the 3 inputs we have on our camera. How we set the exposure depends on the light, but the only inputs we have are in the triangle
@@jan_wegener Thank you for the video and your hard work! Yes, I agree, we base our inputs on the light meter, but of course the quality of the light can make the meter inaccurate, IE low light, bright light, contrast etc. in which case we can use the histogram, clippings, and with such great EVFs eyeballing it. There are some other lighting conditions where you would also under or over expose regardless of what the meters say. Please ignore my previous comment. It is beyond the scope of your video.
Hehe, nice to know why most camera bags are light grey on the inside. But one of mine is bright orange! I wonder how that might work for exposure. Expose to the right? No! EXPOSE TO THE WRONG! One of my favourite camera reviewers, Maarten Heilbron from Canada (originally the Netherlands, I think), made a video titled "expose to the wrong". I'm not gonna tell you what his point is, because I keep forgetting. Check it out yourselves if you're curious enough.
@@jan_wegener Thanks! Fork in the road... I'm still sticking with Fv. I use it as manual [never auto]. Use two dials instead of three. One to scroll through Aperture | Shutter Speed | ISO. The other dial to scroll up and down each setting. So two dials do it all. Maybe it's a habit or I'm lazy.
Have you or any of your viewers ever seriously tried Canon's Fv (flexible priority) mode? In theory, it always gives you complete control in that you set the value(s) that are important for that shot and you tell the camera which value(s) to set for you. What do you think?
I used to shoot Aperture Priority with my 70D, but with my R5 I LOVE the new Fv. I really like to have control over my shutter speed AND F-stop, probably shooting more open than recommended, but I feel I need to in order to blur my backgrounds (I just have the 100-500). I love that it sets my ISO for me, since I dont worry about that number as much with DXO to help me out. But in Fv I can change ANY of those settings easily. I tried to use my 70D last week and couldn't deal with not having the flexibility of Fv!! I am a real novice. Glenn I would be excited for you to try it and report back!?
I won’t use the histogram, it’s not something I’m interested in. I use my blinkies to look for blowouts and for any tricky scene I use auto exposure bracketing. Spray and pray 😂
We hope you enjoy the show everyone!
As always thanks for watching and please let us know what you think of the show and what you'd like to see us cover in the future.
Cheers!
Glenn
Excellent video! Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
You are welcome!
Thanks Jan & Glenn. You may also want to consider using the RGB histogram rather than the Brightness/Luminance one. You can still be clipping reds and yellows (typically) with the Brightness histogram (sometimes significantly), but the Brightness histogram would show a perfectly exposed (ETTR) photo. This is why Reds can still be hard to control with the Brightness histogram. The overall image may be a bit darker when using the RGB, but you'll have more of true colors of the actual pixels to work with. I only use the RGB as it provides even greater exposure control. As always, judgement comes into play of what is acceptable to clip. Keep up the great work. Cheers, Scott
Ya I'll sometimes switch to that one on a VERY red bird. But otherwise I think in general the luminance one will remain my go-to.
Yes, makes sense!
Thanks for the great tips!! I have so much to learn… I love it!
You are welcome Joseph!
Happy to help!
For future videos in this series, please discuss what settings you recommend for different scenarios and why. For instance, what shutter speed works best for birds in flight, versus a perched but twitchy songbird, versus a duck on land.
Sounds like a good one!
Thanks for clarification of the those confusing issues. It was a great help. Especially light bg noise risk is lesser and never noticed such fact. Yeah, true. It gives further exposure options. Thanks for the tips. Great.
Will do!, Although the higher the better in every scenario unless you want long exposure to blurr something on purpose
And OBTW, great video!!!
Cheers!
Thanks!
I learn a lot with your videos. They are very helful. I appreciate them !!! Thanks
Glad you like them!
Thank you very much for this new video series, very useful and very understandable… thank you for all to both of you
Great to hear!
Great work guys I think you nailed exposure ! 👍😍
Thank you 🙌
Great video as always looking forward to seeing more. 👍
Thanks Jasper. Glad you enjoyed it.
Awesome!
Really enjoyed this episode, very informative with simple explanations , great work 👍🏽
Glad to hear it!
Thanks!
Thanks for Sharing 🇺🇸
Cheers!
Thank you for this video, learnt alot from it!
Great video, I'm learning all the time and videos like these are fantastic. Thank you.
Glad to hear you found some useful tips May!
Great to hear!
Excellent explanation !
I mostly use Manual mode and Auto Iso for bird photography.
I hope there will be more of these episodes
Thanks
That's the idea. We'll do a fundamentals every few episodes 🙂
Since the 5D4 semi manual mode is possible. Ie, set your shtter speed, apeture and exposure offset, and leave the iso on auto.
I also use the approach on my R5. Eg, I am panning a bif, and the background changes from light to dark, or, from full sun to shade.... all the while, concentrating on maintaining eyefocus on a moving bird, or coaxing the af to stay on the birds eye with obstructions moving accross in front. No, I do not have a 2nd brain and 3rd hand to adjust iso during this pan - that is what the auto iso is for.
Thank you for sharing. While I am a fairly experienced wildlife photographer and even run occasional yours I have never met anyone I couldn’t learn something from. Being a 71 year old with some typical health issues I was basically locked away from other people during this pandemic and people like you guys became my shooting partners and most people need someone to bounce ideas or just confirm what what I already suspected. I also have a R5 and 600f4 11 and other zooms and it is nice to have other experienced people sharing what they learned. So best of luck in all that you do, and again thank you!
Thanks so much Mike. Hope you can get out and get some great shots this Spring!
Thanks Mike. UA-cam is a great way to connect for sure!
Thanks for doing this! I've been into bird photography for about a year and this seems like the perfect series to help me address things I've been getting wrong.
Glad you found us!
Glad it was helpful!
Really handy for a novice such as myself, thanks both!
Glad it was helpful!
I love your videos, I always learn things when I watch them. Thanks for creating such a great content :)
Cheers David. We appreciate you tuning in.
Great to hear :)
All your videos are great and extremely helpful , this one is no different , really looking forward to more in this series. Great job
Great to hear!
Glad you like them!
A nice exposure feature that Sony offers is "Zebras" for still photography. More accurate than a histogram, it allows adjustment of the exposure real time without having to take your eyes off the subject. Great for BIF. Having a histogram in the corner of the VF is nice but it requires taking your eye off the subject. Wish my R5 had Zebras!
Good thoughts. You can use zebras on the R5 in video mode. So I'm sure they could enable it in still mode through firmware if they wanted...
I love my a1's zebras...............surprised the other manufacturers haven't included them yet.
@@briansmall3090 Agreed. I do not exposure to the right on a Sony camera. I expose for the highlights and those zebras are really handy for that.
@@GlennBartley I often wonder why Zebras for still photography is rarely discussed. Canon and Nikon need to get on board!
@@djack4125 the Zebras are used for focussing on my R5 if I switch to manual focussing.
Exposure for video is critical if shooting regular 8bit - there is no leeway. If shooting 10bit video, or, 12 bit raw video, then there is a lot more lattitude, but most peoprl shoot 8bit video.
Exposure is less critical for 14 or 16 bit stills.
Love your videos. You guys have a great thing going with the two of you working together. Much more interesting than just having one person.
Glad to hear you are enjoying the shows!
Glad you like the show!
Super-duper content... thanks!
Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching.
Thank you!
Clear, well explained and on point. Even though I know most of the stuff you mentioned it's always good to know that great photographers like you two are shooting the same way as I do. Great video guys!
Thanks Michal!
Great video, looking to more of the Fundamentals 👍🏼😁
Thanks Verlene!
Thank you!
I use spot or center metering assuming that most birds in flight are going to be center focused.
Thanks a lot jan great videos and training , is it possible to have a review of sigma 60-600 lens ?
maybe :)
Great work guys, interesting that you have different preferences. Thanks so much for your time and effort
More than one way to get there in the end!
I think a quite natural way to think of E compensation in aperture priority mode is as a shortcut to bias the camera decision for the shutter speed, so you just set your mind to manual mode momentarily. At the end, in this mode the compensation will change the shutter speed, and the buttons combination is sometimes the same than those to access the second variable in manual mode once ISO is locked.
Thank you for your review, I find with BIF in rapidly changing backgrounds the most challenging. I used to shoot with auto ISO, but have gone to manual mode for most of my shots and presetting to the subject and trusting the camera from there. Sometimes I complicate things too much by overthinking, but I have recently programed the control ring on my lens for exposure compensation when I do need to change on the fly. I still have work to do to develop muscle memory with it, but it seems to work quite well.
Nice. Great to find what works best for you!
Thanks for sharing
HI JAN I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS
Thanks for watching!
Thanks :)
Very helpful series, keep it coming. What do you suggest are the best settings for photographing white and black ducks on water, such as the common eider. They are very difficulty to expose correctly. Either the whites are blown out or the blacks are under exposed. I'm shooting a R6 with the 100 - 500mm zoom or the 800 mm f11. Hope to capture eiders on the Quebec Gaspe this May.
The only way to master that is good light and to follow the histogram as we explained in the video
thanks so much. very useful information.
Cheers!
Thanks for sharing this valuable video. I am learning with manual shooting. If suddenly shooting from dark to light then I feel that ISO let camera to do itself is more comfortable and better. It helps not too over exposure. If I shooting same area, specially in dark forest then I using ISO manually, it helps me a lot.
Sounds like a good strategy. Glad you enjoyed the show.
Thanks for sharing
You can only teach people so much in the end they have to learn from there own mistakes
Experience in the field is certainly invaluable!
Yes, gotta be out there!
For birds in flight I use Shutter Speed with auto ISO and range limiter on the ISO (400 Base). I use a 400 base ISO for this because I found that with the denoise software there isn't much of a difference between 100 and 400.
Over the last two weeks I have done a significant amount of shooting birds in flight in which the light on the birds change significantly in very short periods of time. I was shooting Swallows over a creek/river that flows basically North to South with woods and hills on both banks so the birds were flying between direct sunlight and deep shadows all the time.
All of you guys with the auto ISO are starting to make me think 🤣
@@GlennBartley I think it is that because of the 3 options it is the least important and the only one that can be adjusted in post. For me at least, for 'bird in tree' settings I make sure I have the aperture I want with a shutter speed that I know can hold steady. Also even though it was a long time ago I still have thoughts of the days of film in which you selected your ISO days/weeks/months earlier.
@@GlennBartley Also seems Jan put out a video tilted "Get NOISE FREE Images at ANY ISO | Noise Reduction & Edit | DXO Pure RAW vs Topaz DeNoise" so why worry about ISO?
Thanks for this! Jan, would you consider doing a follow-up video aimed at exposing and editing birds against a blue sky? I find that I struggle both in nailing exposure but also in editing - bringing out the color of the bird but also getting a natural and vibrant looking sky. What are your recommended editing tools/settings (exposure compensation, HSL etc.) to get it right?
I think on a blue sky the rules are the same. Expose to the right. Dont blow out the sky. Then in post you can recover some highlights and saturate the sky to your taste.
@@GlennBartley Thanks! What are your best tips for getting a good color on the sky? What I have found works best so far are the HSL blue and white channels
More than anything the angle you're shooting at is important with sky. You will have nice blue sky in one direction that is easy to keep in camera, and unpleasant white sky in most other directions, which is hard to control and often looks unpleasant, when you try to recover it
@@jan_wegener Thanks Jan, good consideration.
found this really interesting, thank you for putting this together. it was presented in a very friendly and informative way, i know understand a lot more about how my camera works and look forward to trying out these techniques. i look forward to your next video. thanks guys.
Glad it was helpful!
Manual with auto iso is how I shoot. I typically just leave the aperture at the widest setting and just change the shutter speed and exposure compensation to match the conditions. I'm thinking of getting the 800 f11 also which can't even change the aperture and I'll have the control ring change the exposure compensation since I change that more than shutter speed for stationary birds. For BIFs I just turn the mode dial to change my settings to +1 or so EC with 1/1000 or more shutter.
Whatever gets the job done!
For BIF I didn't find the 800 to be super reliable. Just something to keep in mind. It did well, but would lose focus sometimes
I found an interesting control using Auto ISO with the R5 (also, I can’t make myself switch from Manual). Pressing Set while rotating the front dial adjusts the EV. I’ve failed to ever see that mentioned… If shooting in Auto, you have to be able to compensate for what the camera thinks is the correct exposure! One more: In Auto ISO, rotating the rear dial will override Auto ISO to whatever setting you select for the next shot(s) and go back to Auto after a few idle seconds. For those of you shooting Auto ISO, this might alleviate some frustrations when the DIGIC processor is adjusting the ISO for you while shooting BIF and the exposure keeps changing on successive shots. The light source is the same on the birds in the sky and to keep from having everything look like a crow, the EV should be +1. This is why I shoot manual! Been there, done that using Av on my 5D4.
Exposure is the bottom line…all we’re doing is capturing light!
Good tips Chris.
And your final statement is bang on!
To be honest, I sometimes find real manual is so much easier than the other modes where we are constantly fighting the camera :D
Great video Jan.
What auto focus do you use on the R5. For birds. Eye tracking
Bothe of use use dual back button. One is eye detect. The other single point One Shot.
Cheers!
Yes, eye tracking 99% of the time
I struggle with getting exposure correct. I have a bad habit of under exposing so this video has been really helpful, thank you
Cheers Matthew!
Great to hear!
I thought I had a pretty good knowledge of exposure, and I did. Still, there were valuable hints given. I liked the suggestion of checking for likely good exposure before the bird arrived. Plus, exposing for the light on the bird and shooting away as long as the light does not change. Very nice. Thank you.
Glad you found some helpful tips 🙂
Great to hear!
Hi- Great overview/review. A question for you is- what is the difference in the level of noise when you use a lower ISO and increase exposure/shadows in post-processing, versus using a higher ISO when you shoot?
If you expose correctly the higher ISO should be cleaner, if the difference is a lot. If you slightly underexpose much lower iso would still look better potentially
Great stuff! Do you think having Camo on lenses makes a difference?
I dont really think so. But it is helpful to protect the lens from sctratches.
to stop the lens being beaten up, yes
Hi - my understanding is that the histogram is based on the jpeg exposure (even with a RAW image, as there is an embedded jpeg preview), and as such doesn't truly represent the dynamic range of a RAW image. Also it is possible to have a histogram that looks complete, but there may still be a peak that is too far to the right to show in the small in-viewfinder display, and only becomes visible if you lower the exposure. The main problem is photographing white birds, where it's very easy to blow out the highlights, so I prefer to underexpose a little more than may be ideal, to retain that information in the brightest areas. Gannets are a good example.
That is correct. It always depends on the scene to how you expose ultimately.
Hello Jan, this is about a different subject. If you photograph a couple of birds on a purch but they are not in the same distance level, how do you make both focused and sharp?
Moving in a better position, Stopping down or merging multiple shots
@@jan_wegener Thank you so much!
I mostly use manual mode with auto ISO, but that's partly due to my camera: the Sony a7rIV is very nearly ISO-invariant: the Input-Referred Read Noise is basically constant across two bands (100-250 ISO, and then 320-12800 ISO). And it's pretty close to flat for the Photographic Dynamic Range Shadow Improvement across ISO (less flat in the 100-250 band, but then quite flat from 320-12800). That means that changing the exposure in the camera has almost exactly the same effect on noise as changing the exposure in post (particularly for the 320-12800 ISO range). That in turn means that there's very little point to manual ISO beyond ISO 320 with this camera.
Many other cameras don't have such ISO invariance. The Nikon Z9 is pretty good, with a cutover point at ISO 400. The Sony a1 also has an ISO 400 cutover, and is a bit flatter for IRRN than the Z9. Canon cameras have much more variance in IRRN and PDRSI, so they're better suited to full manual mode. That may be part of why your experience doesn't support auto ISO as well!
Photons to Photos has good charts for these. You can select camera models and compare various aspects of their sensor, as long as you keep the sensor size the same it's reasonable. If not, remember that you have to multiply the ISO by the crop factor squared to get the equivalent brightness.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that!
Great video, thanks. I can appreciate the fact that you pros opt for full manual control. However, me less gifted amateur, I like to rely on a bit of help by the camera. I absolutely don‘t understand the concept of aperture priority for bird photography. I actually almost always use exposure priority, particularly for birds in flight. If available light permits, I choose 1/2000 but never longer than 1/1000. with my EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L II plus EF 1.4 III I am at f/8 wide open, which I hardly feel to have enough light to stop further down. This is almost like a fixed aperture lens really. Therefore, aperture priority does not make any sense for me at all. I also let the camera choose the ISO, but I adjust to varying background bright-/darkness by manually correcting exposure. I always use +1 ⅔ when I capture a flying bird against the sky. So, I guess the lens actually takes influence on the choice of camera settings too, right?
From what I understand, both of you use DXO PureRaw in your workflow. In my experience, its a great program but the processed photos always end up looking quite underexposed after applying it. Even with that, correcting the exposure after using PureRaw still makes a better image than not using it at all and starting with a perfect exposure. Thoughts?
You have it all correct.
Yes, that's the way unfortunately
Another good one guys. When shooting in manual mode and capturing BIF against a bright sky,what is the setting change that will correctly expose the dark underneath of the bird? I already shoot as wide open as I can on my 100-400mm Olympus lens and OM-1 body. I need a high shutter speed so I am assuming that a quick change in ISO would be the way to go. I am I correct?
I think you are on the right track. All you can do against a sky BG is expose for the subject. So yes in your case if you are wide open and need a certain shutter speed then the variable you have available to affect exposure is ISO. If you want the bird brighter raise the ISO.
I'd say so
Ahaa, the BP-Showmen turned fundamentalist ;-) This is most certainly very useful for beginners, but just as well a good refresher for the rest of us. I've actually learned this topic last year from a German who used to live in Victoria Australia, maybe you've also seen him somewhere ?
And about a week ago some bloke called Duade also made a good YT about this. From him I learned that the evaluative metering (on R6/5/3) actually still prioritizes the focus points. Do you have the same experience ?
So far, I've been using partial metering because (as long as I manage to keep the bird centered in the frame) the camera will expose more for the bird and ignores (depending on the size of the bird of course) most of the background.
Ideally, the partial metering should not stick to center of the frame but move along with the eye-AF tracking point.
As for the main settings, I prefer the manual with Auto ISO (which is why metering counts for me) because it reduces the negatives you mention about either Av or full manual. I feel like adapting exposure compensation is less often needed than adapting ISO. And first I want to set aperture and shutter speed depending how the bird moves and what ISO range I can afford in the given light conditions. As you know, with the right processing methods (think prosets), higher ISO values should no longer scare us as in the past.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Werener!
Yes, done a few videos about this, but it never gets old haha
@@jan_wegener indeed! Such 'fundamental' topics deserve to be reflected over like every year. To avoid doing things on auto-pilot, and to check whether new insights, firmware or gear would allow to further optimize the workflow, or to consider breaking some habit to get a different feel in the image ..
Did you still hear from the guy from Victoria ? Heard some rumors he's crashing a friend's house because he sold his own place to get some R3's and a big white hahaah .. wondering whether his wife and daughter agree ..
Hi Jan: From your experience, what is the maximum iso you can use with a Canon 7D MK 11 using a canon 100-400 MK 11
I shot with that camera for a long time. 1600 was as far as I was happy to push it. 3200 in a pinch. By 6400 the wheels fall off...
Glenn's the expert on that topic :)
Av mode for Birds in Flight?
I’d probably use manual or manual with auto iso
@jan_wegener your buddy was talking about Av mode. He didn't specify if this was just Birds perched, or in flight. Btw, thank you so much for speaking slowly. I signed up for your master class and I can't tell you how great it is to listen to someone who is speaking at a normal cadence.
@@edwardcollins3560that’s great to hear! AV mode was most popular before auto iso was available. Generally I think it’s more beneficial to set shutter speed and aperture yourself, rather than just aperture, because you don’t run the risk of suddenly getting very slow shutter speeds like you could get with AV
It will be useful to mention the terminology used by other cameras like Sony, Nikon and others as what you mention is applicable for Canon only. e.g Av is S in Nikon
We'll try!
Fair point!
Ouch, finally purchased DXO and I thought was $129aud but it was USD so was around $177. I've kept my eye on it for a while and seen it go on a really good sale but I think that was version 1. Anyway at least it is a 1 time payment and is a lot faster than topaz and does a slightly better job.
Ya its a good product. Annoying pricing though.
They do sales a few times a year. It's pricy, but pretty good
@@jan_wegener I couldn't wait for a sale :) was so happy with the results testing the free trail I got it straight away. It did take me a few months convincing because I didn't want to change my workflow but it was worth it in the end.
A big reason was because I had to change to uncompressed raw to use the program, but testing it now it magically works with my Sony compressed files! Must be because its version 2?
Very informative. The only part that might be misleading is mentioning Aperture, ISO, and shutter speed apart from ambient light. Perhaps an oversimplification for purpose of the video, which is not in the context flash photography but Ambient light is too often disregarded. Great video nonetheless!
Not sure what you mean?
@@GlennBartley Sorry, I meant to make a positive comment on an amazing video. Thanks for the hard work! I believe that it will all come together by the end of the series. I just meant that there is much nuance and complexity to the light in the "scene", the way that it is metered, the reflective properties of the plumage, type and angle of light, etc, etc. So when I have heard or read about the exposure triangle, I have always felt that it pales in comparison to the qualities of the light but not nearly as much time is spent considering the light. Needless to say that in it's absence there would be no exposure regardless of the triangle. Looking forward to the rest of the series!
The light is important, but it does not affect the 3 inputs we have on our camera. How we set the exposure depends on the light, but the only inputs we have are in the triangle
@@jan_wegener Thank you for the video and your hard work!
Yes, I agree, we base our inputs on the light meter, but of course the quality of the light can make the meter inaccurate, IE low light, bright light, contrast etc. in which case we can use the histogram, clippings, and with such great EVFs eyeballing it. There are some other lighting conditions where you would also under or over expose regardless of what the meters say. Please ignore my previous comment. It is beyond the scope of your video.
Thanks.....
Thanks for watching!
Hehe, nice to know why most camera bags are light grey on the inside. But one of mine is bright orange! I wonder how that might work for exposure.
Expose to the right? No!
EXPOSE TO THE WRONG!
One of my favourite camera reviewers, Maarten Heilbron from Canada (originally the Netherlands, I think), made a video titled "expose to the wrong". I'm not gonna tell you what his point is, because I keep forgetting. Check it out yourselves if you're curious enough.
Some people just like to be controversial 🤣
I use manual mode with Auto ISO and exposure compensation. I rather use TV then AV (Canon user). AV doesn't make sense for me in Wildlife Photography.
Ultimately its all about controlling 3 variables. So whatever works best for you to get consistent results!
@@GlennBartley Agree 100%
Yes, most important is in the end that it works well for you and your style
Brilliant (pun intended). Fv > M. Thoughts?
Cheers Ruuben. Not sure exactly what you mean ?
@@GlennBartley It's a Canon thing... FV = Flexible-priority AE; M = Manual Exposure. Jan... who is much more wed to Canon, will get it.
M> everything else haha! :D
@@jan_wegener Thanks! Fork in the road... I'm still sticking with Fv. I use it as manual [never auto]. Use two dials instead of three. One to scroll through Aperture | Shutter Speed | ISO. The other dial to scroll up and down each setting. So two dials do it all. Maybe it's a habit or I'm lazy.
I wouldn’t use ap like that… I’d let the iso float .
Have you or any of your viewers ever seriously tried Canon's Fv (flexible priority) mode? In theory, it always gives you complete control in that you set the value(s) that are important for that shot and you tell the camera which value(s) to set for you. What do you think?
I've never used it. But might be worth a try!
I used to shoot Aperture Priority with my 70D, but with my R5 I LOVE the new Fv. I really like to have control over my shutter speed AND F-stop, probably shooting more open than recommended, but I feel I need to in order to blur my backgrounds (I just have the 100-500). I love that it sets my ISO for me, since I dont worry about that number as much with DXO to help me out. But in Fv I can change ANY of those settings easily. I tried to use my 70D last week and couldn't deal with not having the flexibility of Fv!! I am a real novice. Glenn I would be excited for you to try it and report back!?
I won’t use the histogram, it’s not something I’m interested in. I use my blinkies to look for blowouts and for any tricky scene I use auto exposure bracketing. Spray and pray 😂
To each their own! 🤣
living on the edge :D
use your hand
to do what?
@@jan_wegener measure exposure off your hand - hold it up in the light that is close to the same light striking the photo subject. Meter your hand.