Mallard In Flight Help

[Jim Stafford]

Hopefully I do this correctly as this is my first post. What should the settings have been? I shot this with my Xti, EF-S 55-250 F4-5.6 IS lens, at about 171mm, hand held, Aperture Priority at F8, 1600 ISO, camera gave me 1/3200 shutter

1)
http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/pp124/jstafford_photos/IMG_9736.jpg[/IMG]

 

[Jim Stafford]

I think I did the ic wrong

 

[Photog]

Add

 

[Jim Stafford]

I understand the two bird thing, i posted the whole pic not cropped, it is not as sharp as I want, hat do I need to different, I have another post also

 

[Overread]

for my I never take my ISO above 800 and I consider 400 pushing it with my TXI.
You see the more you boost ISO the more noise you introduce into an image - 1600 and your really pushing it. You got a good shutter speed for the action and focus looks like its locked on right. Personally I would think f5.6 would have been better for this - open up your aperture rather than boost your ISO in this case.
Even then you might not be able to get the shutter speed you want so then you have to make a choice - risk blured motion on the wings (not always a bad thing) or have more noise from a higher ISO setting

 

[Phranquey]

All things considered, this was a nice learning shot. The ducks are in good focus, although not centered, which is difficult to do....these guys are pretty fast in flight.
I would agree on going to ISO 800 and bumping to f/5.6. This would give you roughly the same shutter speed, blur the background a bit more, and reduce the noise (though for being at ISO1600, the noise doesn't look all that bad). The trees seem a little too close to being in focus, which is a bit distracting to the eyes while trying to look at the ducks.


Overall, great effort.