Today with Tamron 200-500mm

[Bub-les]

Managed a bit of time so here's a couple from today. Have taken others but not had time to sort the wheat from the chaff!( lots of chaff!)


Any advice or help appreciated.

[mh68]

You didnt mention whether the shots were handheld or with a tripod? If handheld, the shutter speeds are very slow for such a long lens without support.Upping the iso will help get better shutter speeds.Even if using a tripod i`d do the same to get slightly faster speeds, which will help with sharpness.Dont be afraid of using high iso`s, Grahams recent pics show that results dont suffer too much at all, and you can still get very good images.Better to get a sharp shot with a little lost detail, than a blurred shot due to too low shutter speeds.I`m not familiar with such long lenses so thats all I can offer i`m afraid. I`m sure you`ll get some better advice though from the others.
I noticed the paler background area on the first shot appears to have lines running through it, not sure what the cause is, but maybe someone else will know.Does the original shot have those lines too?

Mark H

[Ollie]

As Mark said the shutter speeds are low on these, 1/30 for the first and 1/80 for the second. Aperture at f 6.3. If these were hand held you did well to get them as good as this because they are slightly out of focus which could easily be due to motion blur if hand holding.

I think the lines that Mark mentioned are just noise but can't be sure.

I seem to be quoting Mark again here but I would try and get the shutter speed up by increasing the ISO. Long telephoto lenses even on a tripod do take a little getting used to.
Roger

[Bub-les]

Both handheld deliberately using without a tripod as I;m going on holiday at Easter and cannot take one with me. I can take a monopod. I had a cheep one but I've succeeded in breaking it so I'll have to get another!. Don't know what caused the the lines just checked it is on the original RAW file. It also seems to be in the wagtail photos as well.
I've tried with higher ISO but I just get loads of noise! Its another area I'll have to practise with.

[mh68]

I wouldnt worry too much about the lines, sometimes light does strange things especially to out of focus backgrounds. As far as noise goes, getting exposure perfect so you dont have to brighten a shot afterwards helps, overexposing slightly can help even more, but doing so drops your shutter speeds a bit. It`s really a bit of a juggling act to get the right settings. At least when you go on holiday you`ll probably be shooting in much better light which will help no end.

Mark H

[Bub-les]

Thanks Colin and Mark.
Here's another photo



I haven't cropped this one.

[NickCantle]

That looks like quite a step up from the first photos. Obviously the light conditions are good here. Just needed to get the eyes in focus. But yes, for what it's worth from me, It looks like an improvement in image quality.

Nick

[delros1]

when shooting birds with the 200-500mm tamron len,i have found it very usful to set the camra to 800 asa,shuter speed to 1/800,and set it for spot metering.when taking photos of very bright birds,i under expose by ev 1.3 -1.7,which seem to work very well with the nikon d200.
if you are going to use a monopod,it is well worth geting the spiked feet 238 by manfrotto,£11.99 from www.speedgrapic.co.uk i also found the 331 supportbracked=£47.20, very usefull.enjoyyour holls, looking forward to seeing some great photos,when you get back.

[Bub-les]

Thank you for your advice and recommendations.
What I really relay need now is some decent weather lol
I must admit to have got stuck in an ISO rut and thanks to the suggestions here I've started to experiment again but so far the results are very disappointing not sure if its entirely my fault though need some sun!

I like this one but the noise is high. I have not cropped it or processed it much just a little tweaking using curves and unsharp mask.