How to take pictures of birds against the sky?

[StRoRo]

Is there any techniques for taking pictures of birds against the sky?
Especially in over cast conditions, I just seem to get silhouettes.

I have a canon 50D and I have set to spot to judge the exposure of what is the centre of the view finder only but its still not good.

Is it just a case of manually setting it to over expose for ½ - 1 stop?

[Mike Jackson]

You need to expose for the bird rather than the sky. You could just over expose by a couple of stops but the best way is to set the expose manually by exposing for something a similar colour to the bird.

[Ollie]

Always difficult to get the correct exposure against overcast skies. I just usually up the exposure compensation by up to a couple of stops depending on the colour of the bird and the sky at the time. It's very easy to over or under do it though and finish up with either a silhouette or a badly over exposed photo

[Geoff F]

Are we talking about flying or static birds?

If you can see a reasonably large area of the subject, using spot metering may help but some exposure compensation is often still necessary.

The potential problem with spot metering is that most cameras will not automatically hold the exposure if you half press the shutter and move the camera to recompose the scene.

There are two ways around this; use the Exposure Lock button or note the settings and switch to manual control, then enter those settings; which isn't really practicable with flying birds.

Evaluative metering is usually held once you press the shutter half way but because the camera has allowed for the sky you may need to add on a lot more exposure compensation.

[britnik]

A quick way is to point your camera at at some grass or a mid tone on a nearby tree trunk and hit the AE Lock if you have it. Otherwise you are off to manual.

[momji1971]

I use the grass/midtone trick most of the time or use a static bird to meter off if in the same angle of light for birds in flight. Always using manual settings.

With manual settings, you don't have to worry that if the BIF goes in front of a dark background and then sky, your exposure will be off as it would using APriority or SPriority.

Human reaction time just isn't quick enough to +/- comp when chasing a bird through the sky/background!

regards.
Stu.

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by momji1971

Human reaction time just isn't quick enough to +/- comp when chasing a bird through the sky/background!

regards.
Stu.

I do this, as I'm sure do many others. Most of the Canon semi/pro cameras have the rear wheel which is designed to do just that. I'm not saying I'm some super human being with lightning reactions, far from it, but it's a technique which can be learnt.

[Ollie]

Originally Posted by glsammy

I do this, as I'm sure do many others. Most of the Canon semi/pro cameras have the rear wheel which is designed to do just that. I'm not saying I'm some super human being with lightning reactions, far from it, but it's a technique which can be learnt.

Same here, I often aren't fast enough and get it wrong but as Graham said it is something that with practice can be done. With the camera on high speed shooting mode I will often take a burst of 10 shots or more and can often finish up with 3 different exposures for the sequence.

[momji1971]

It was just a tip, not a right or wrong kind of thing.

Graham, I'd be interested to know the names of the canon pro's you know have their set-up like that. So I can have a chat with them to discuss they're reasoning behind it. (PM them if you want.)

It was a couple of Canon pro's that taught me to use manual for BIF and the reasons why.

Again this isn't a right or wrong thing just different horses for courses.

Regards.
Stu.

[Stinky Bob]

Would setting up exposure bracketting help in this case