Nikon Apeture Priority Mode

I just started bird photography and need advice. I have a Nikon D5000 with a Nikon 70-300 VR lens. I shoot in Apeture priority with an apeture of 4.5. I need to increse my shutter speed to freeze the wingbeat without adding too much noise. On a regular sunny day what is the highest ISO that I can use to increase speed without creating alot of noise? I was thinking around 400 - 600? I am shooting bald eagles in Iowa this weekend so any advice would be welcome. I use auto focus on continous mode with dynamic area.

Thanks

Rich,

You are right to be using Apeture Priority for flight shots (and bird photography in general). It took me awhile to depart from the safety of Program mode

I have never used the D5000, but I think Nikon has significantly improved their noise control, and the D90 is apparently a superb low-light camera. With my D300s, I can shoot with ISO 1000 or 1250 with virtually no noise in most instances (check my gallery for the Seal at Sunset photo as well as the Redhead Drake photos for examples). If the sun is shining, ISO 640 should give you very little noise and I'd reckon you could crank it to 800. However, if it really is perfect sunshine, you shouldn't need to bring it up that high. I usually shoot at f/8 (the sharpest for my lens) and you can probably leave the ISO around 400 or so. It's all about experimenting and trial and error. The improvements in ISO capabilities and noise reduction have really been ramped up lately and unless you are going to be cropping a lot, there should be virtually no (distinguishable to the naked eye) difference between ISO 250 and ISO 640 in good sunshine

- Luke

Luke,

Great stuff! Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge and thoughts.

Rick

If you have time, I'd try to make a bunch of test exposures at various ISO and lighting conditions and see what is acceptable for both you and your camera. You may have difference tolerances for what is acceptable.

I came back form a camera club meeting a couple of nights ago where the old Canon 20D was a topic of discussion. Several members were raving about how good it was at ISO 800. Outside of family shots at the holidays, I don't think I have keep an image shot at 400 or higher, out of 70,000+ images shot with the camera. The quality for what I needed simply wasn't there over 200 ISO.

So again, if you have the time, try to make some test exposures. You are not try to make great art here, just see how the camera responds and decide if the results are acceptable.

Dan is exactly right. There's no substitute for test shots. You can do them indoors, and isolate to just one variable at a time. At the suggestion of NPN member Bob Steele (at least I think it was Bob), I took photos of highly detailed prints with lots of dark colors, across a whole range of settings (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) across the three lenses I use most often to determine the "sweet spot" and where the noise became an issue. It was very helpful, and well worth the time. You can also check out how changing exposure compensation impacts the shots.

You can also work on coping with backlighting and low light and other challenges in that kind of set up.

No single exercise I've done has improved my exposures more than working through this process.

Using a smaller aperture, i.e. 8 or 9, instead of 4.5 would give you a much greater depth of field which in flight shots would increase your chance of sharply focused pictures. Brian Peterson's "Understanding Exposure" has a wealth of information on this topic.

I usually shoot in Av, except for flight shots. If the light condition is constant, I use manual. You want to expose for the bird, regardless of the background. With Av, if your background changes from sky to forest, the exposure will change. You perhaps could minimize this with spot metering, but that requires accurate framing.

In manual exposure mode, in good light (sunny 16), typical settings for me would be ISO 200, f8, 1/1000, with adjustments as needed by field conditions. These settings are good for soaring birds and they will freeze the wing beats of most large birds. If you need to freeze faster wing beats, you can shift to ISO 400, f5.6, 1/4000.

Regardless of the mode you are shooting in, Av, Tv, or M, if you plan to shoot with a larger aperture, i.e.4.5, in good light you shouldn't have any trouble with ISO 200 to 400. If you are worried about noise, test you camera to see how it performs at higher ISOs. Then you can use it at the highest ISO that gives you an acceptable level of noise.

Yeah, I'm trying bird photography in the backyard and there are lots of challenges:
1. I don't have a super long AF lens, so I'm attempting manual focus
2. I only have small birds in my yard and I can't get super close.
3. I only have fast birds in my yard.
4. when I shoot at higher ISO I can stop the subject motion, but I have to crop in quite a bit to make the subject visible, then noise does become an issue
Pete D.