After an unexpectedly long session where I came within maybe 20 metres of a Kārearea (NZ Falcon), I realised my exposure compensation was set to -2EV. I couldn’t believe it.
The images were salvageable, but not to the quality I wanted.
The reason I was at -2EV was from a few nights before — seeing what I could get of the moon handheld at 600mm (the answer: nothing that was usable), but what a silly thing NOT TO CHECK the setting a few days later.
Ha, a tough couple of days learning the hard way about new stuff.
During the first day of shooting at Zealandia I would hold the camera body and the lens collar foot. This meant my left hand was too close to the camera body and that the lens was not well balanced. I believe this contributed to a higher number of shots that were soft due to camera movement (despite IBIS working in the body and the lens).
Today for Zealandia’s shooting I moved the collar so the foot is offset to the right, allowing my left hand to comfortably hold the lens further down the lens barrel for greater stability — it appeared to work better.
With a max ISO of 10,000 images are noisy but usable. I made the cardinal error of not watching my shutter speed, and had for some shot ramped it up to 1/1600, and forgot about it. This was forcing an ISO of 10,000 even in bright shots. Moron! I did get some good captures but the high ISO has blown out highlights, and given in some dark shots that could have been lower ISO there is a very over smoothed high-ISO look to them.
I need to remember I am not in Aperture Priority and to look more closely at shutter speed. The fact is when shooting birds with the 180-600mm I am in f8 to allow a slightly greater depth of field, and will be changing aperture a lot less than shutter speed.
To be fair a lot of the shots are birds under canopy, so it is dark, even in the middle of the day in summer.
A new lens, and especially one as beefy and capable as this, brings a bunch of new challenges, although its performance is already stellar.
I’m very grateful to have watched Steve Perry’s superb lecture on his best advice for nature photographers, and in the short time I have followed some of his techniques it has absolutely transformed my results.
The biggest impact so far has been this combination:
I’ve used each of these individually in the past, but never in this way. My biggest mistake has been shooting wildlife or action in aperture priority instead of manual.
The combination of auto-ISO and manual has allowed me to easily adjust aperture and shutter speed in an instant as needed. As Steve points out, you need to watch the shutter speed carefully.
The maximum ISO is currently set to 10,000 which might be too high for the Z6, although folks have it as high as 12,800. It will be a process of experimentation to find the right level.
Under canopy photographing bird life the ISO has frequently maxed out, and even under-exposed the image.
I need to get a lot better at my lens handling basics, such as holding the lens steady and tracking animals in flight.