First attempt at some raptors photos c+c welcome

[shefjr]

Hawk 044 by Shefjr, on Flickr



Hawk 006 by Shefjr, on Flickr

I really wish that the tree branch wasn't covering his/her face.


Hawk 029 by Shefjr, on Flickr


Hawk 024 by Shefjr, on Flickr

exif for all photos is;

Nikon D90

0.003 sec (1/320)

f/9.0

380 mm

ISO 200

I tried to crop the images however, could not because I couldn't figure out how to keep my EXIF data.
I know these photos have been done before by many others. I just figured I would share a few of my attempts.

 

[KmH]

Moved to the Nature and Wildlife Gallery per new guidlines for the Beginner's Forum.

Read the new Beginners Forum description when you get a chance.

 

[Austin Greene]

Posting up well composed photos outweighs EXIF data any day

Crop these babies and show us what you come up with!


P.S: I can tell you one thing right off the bat, however, you need to open up that aperture and raise those shutter speeds!

 

[shefjr]

Moved to the Nature and Wildlife Gallery per new guidlines for the Beginner's Forum.

Read the new Beginners Forum description when you get a chance.

Will do. Sorry for the mistake.

 

[shefjr]

Posting up well composed photos outweighs EXIF data any day

Crop these babies and show us what you come up with!

P.S: I can tell you one thing right off the bat, however, you need to open up that aperture and raise those shutter speeds!

I'll keep that in mind about the exit data on the next upload I do.
As for the aperture my glass isn't fast and I have read on several posts on here that you should always stop down at least 2 stops for a crisper photo. I was using my sigma 150-500 f5-6.3. I also thought about bumping my iso up but I didn't want the grain look. If you have any insight (opinion) on what I should have done to make it better I would love to hear. Also, do you agree with the 2 stop "rule"?
Thanks for any input.

 

[Infinite_Day]

Why didn't you zoom all the way in to 500mm? You could have shot the lens wide open at f/6.3 @ 500mm, bumped up your ISO some (I don't think the D90 will have issues with grain at ISO 400) and increased your shutter speed. I'm not sure about the Sigma lens but I shoot a 300mm f/4 with a 1.4TC wide open at f/5.6. It makes it tricky to nail focus on the eye but if you use good technique and have good light you should get a pretty sharp photo. It gets a bit sharper stopped down but, then again, the 300 f/4 is tack sharp to begin with so your lens may not perform quite the same.

 

[Austin Greene]

Posting up well composed photos outweighs EXIF data any day

Crop these babies and show us what you come up with!

P.S: I can tell you one thing right off the bat, however, you need to open up that aperture and raise those shutter speeds!

I'll keep that in mind about the exit data on the next upload I do.
As for the aperture my glass isn't fast and I have read on several posts on here that you should always stop down at least 2 stops for a crisper photo. I was using my sigma 150-500 f5-6.3. I also thought about bumping my iso up but I didn't want the grain look. If you have any insight (opinion) on what I should have done to make it better I would love to hear. Also, do you agree with the 2 stop "rule"?
Thanks for any input.

Sometimes you've got to make sacrifices in order to capture the shot as it should be captured, in this case, with a faster shutter speed. Shooting "wide open" doesn't render the sharpest possible photos in 90% of cases, but also thats if you've done everything else properly. Before you start stopping photos down for better IQ, focus on getting the shutter speed right. That said, each lens has its own "sweet spot" where its generally sharpest, and with many lenses similar to yours its right about f/7.1-f/8. I personally would have bumped the ISO up to 400 or even 800 (if you have some noise reduction software), opened up that aperture to f/8, and then shot at a higher shutter speed with all that great light I just bargained for.

Hope it helps!

Toga

 

[mubsharkarim3]

these picture are very nice and the view is very nice and blue sky look nice and i love this picture

 

[shefjr]

Why didn't you zoom all the way in to 500mm? You could have shot the lens wide open at f/6.3 @ 500mm, bumped up your ISO some (I don't think the D90 will have issues with grain at ISO 400) and increased your shutter speed. I'm not sure about the Sigma lens but I shoot a 300mm f/4 with a 1.4TC wide open at f/5.6. It makes it tricky to nail focus on the eye but if you use good technique and have good light you should get a pretty sharp photo. It gets a bit sharper stopped down but, then again, the 300 f/4 is tack sharp to begin with so your lens may not perform quite the same.

It was my first time out using the lens. So my technique for shooting out at 500mm was not at all spot on. I found myself all over the place. I need to find some sort of technique for taking photos of something when I'm out in the middle of the field. I never considered bumping up the ISO. I guess I thought my shutter speed was sufficient. Also the reason I didn't open the lens all the way up was because I had read in a lot of other posts on the forum that lenses don't function well opened all the way up. I'm am going to make the adjustments that you and toga talked about and see what I find. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Joel_W]

Both pics 1 & 3 are just shots of the bottom of the bird gliding through a blue sky. We've had way too many of those kind of pictures posted lately to get excited about unless they're truly spectacular. Now picture #4 has some nice wing movement/angle. A crop would really help. Picture #2 suffers from those nasty branches obscuring the Raptor, especially the twig running right across it's head.

 

[shefjr]

Both pics 1 & 3 are just shots of the bottom of the bird gliding through a blue sky. We've had way too many of those kind of pictures posted lately to get excited about unless they're truly spectacular. Now picture #4 has some nice wing movement/angle. A crop would really help. Picture #2 suffers from those nasty branches obscuring the Raptor, especially the twig running right across it's head.

I agree that there are a lot of gliding birds through a blue sky. That is what inspired me to try that type of shot. I actually found it difficult to get that type of shot. I was really disappointed that the stupid twig was in the way. I think if it weren't in the way it would have been an ok photo. As for #4 thanks for the advice on the cropping. My Dell pc has taken a "dump" so I don't currently have a way to do any pp with my photos. In either case thanks for your thoughts.