Dunnock and female sparrow

[Murray30]

As the weather has been rubbish ive been confined to the garden,
i had a second go at sparrows in flight focusing on the perch on a feeder,
hand held 190mm,iso 800,shutterspeed 2000(which still isnt fast enough imho)


and the regular dunnock turned up to say hello
300mm,iso1600,f8,shutter speed 350(i,m starting to be a bit braver and upping the iso)

[GME]

Just goes to show about upping the ISO. To get pin sharp images of birds, particularly the small ones you typically need fast shutter speeds. This being due to their constant movement of course, which is not affected by use of tripod for example. Often to get this with our UK light you need to bump up the ISO. Considering you were using 1600 on the Dunnock, you've got a cracking shot! On my older Canon 350D the noise would have been deafening lol, but yours is hardly noticeable! I like how it looks like it's taking a bow after a performance for you before a red curtain I think you should keep being brave if you can get images like that on high ISO levels, especially as something like Neat Image can help even further in reducing noise effects later in processing. And I like the composition of the Sparrow in flight. Another nice shot

[Murray30]

Thank you very much GME,

there was a bit of noise on the dunnock background but not as much as i was expecting(oh the red background is the fence panels) im just starting to learn how important it is to have a clean background,i have the neat image plug in but i always tend to stick to my awkward routine, which is if i have quite a clean background i use the selection tool (density about 25) and keep clicking away until the flashing ants are around the border and the subject only then go to noise reduction in filters on p.s. elements and repeat the process of bringing up noise reduction tool and clicking ok until im happy with it(i did say the awkward way),i shall have to start getting to grips with neat image.

As for the sparrow in flight that was trial and error and out of about 30 images two were kept one where a sparrow was coming into land(parachute mode) is questionable so i left that one out as theres to many artifacts in the background,i shall keep practicing weather permitting but i am still relying on 95% luck and 5% fluke for my birds in flight pics

Thanks again GME very much appreciated

Regards Murray

[glsammy]

Difficult subjects to get in flight shot of. You did well.

To give you some idea of the shutter speed that's often needed to get most of the bird in focus, here's a shot I took earlier this year.



Note the shutter speed, 1/5000sec! The only way I could get this was to apply loads of exposure compensation and hope I hadn't over done it.
Like you said, I had loads of failures, got about three which were acceptable out of hundreds, and definitely falls into the lucky category!

[Murray30]

Thanks Graham,

That chaffinch flight shot is a stunner Graham,and thats very sound advice about the exsposure, i often make the mistake of waiting for sunshine and the way things are going i could be waiting a long time for that, i have experimented with high shutter speeds for a coal tit that was coming to the feeder and no amount of highlights or exsposure in elements was bringing back the detail(to dark in the beginning).
i shall keep practicing and i will take on board your advice about the exsposure,
even as a very much beginner thats one thing i've learnt is 1500-2000 is definatley not enough for these quick flitters.

Thanks again Graham and thank you for your advice always appreciated

Regards Murray