It’s been said, certainly many times by me, that the secret behind good photography is an awful, awful lot of bad photography.
I’ve taken just a shade over two thousand photos in the last three days, the better of which many of you have seen (they’re all over on !birding@lemmy.world). Herewith, I present to you this other album, which I have entitled:
“Dang It.”
Who was shooting silhouetted birds against the sky a couple of seconds ago and forgot to reset the exposure settings? Was it me? It was me.
Birds hiding behind things. Be prepared for this to become a recurring theme.
Check out the detail on that rock. What’s that? A squirrel? I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
Servo AF: For when you already have a subject in focus, but when you press the shutter button you’d like it not to be.
Tonight, On: “Too Late To Look!”
Black bird. White snow.
Stella, do me a favor, will you? Set up a meeting with whoever programmed the R10’s subject tracking so I can slap him.
Bird butts.
Don’t give me that green square, you bastard. You’re a green square.
Servo focus tracking, my left pinfeathers.
I knew this wasn’t going to work but I was duty bound to try it anyway. This was a 1/50 sec exposure at ISO 3200, in the dark, hand held, and at 475mm.
Even in ideal conditions you can find new and innovative ways to screw up. I didn’t get a single decent picture of this damn robin. I took four of them. That ought to do it, right? This was the best.
Do you mind?
Again with the subject tracking. And they’re telling us pattern learning “AI” is going to take over the world tomorrow? I’m not buying it.
Those are some sure fine pine needles.
I have no idea what I was thinking with this one. This is a one fifteenth second exposure at ISO 3200. I may as well have gotten out my easel and paints.
The second photo in this burst was downright iconic. The first one, not so much.
I had exactly one chance to nab this bluebird and I never saw him again for the rest of the day. I’m still salty about it.
The autofocus would not let go of that fence. “Use manual focus, dummy!” I did. Do you have any idea how far away from the zoom ring the focus ring is on the RF 200-800? It’s like six inches. Do you have any idea why? No, really, I want to know.
Anyway, by the time I found it and cranked it in the right direction and then got the camera back on target afterwards, he was gone.
This lizard wasn’t even moving.
I guess there was something really interesting about that twig at the 9 o’clock position?
I use spot AF on purpose for this sort of thing. Apparently that’s only a suggestion.
“There’s that magpie again, right over there!” my wife said. Yes, there was. Was.
And finally: Hold still, damn you.
Hey, at least shooting digital is free. Never be afraid to embrace your failures… Unless you never learn.
You’ll get 'em next time, sport.
It sounds like the R5 MkII is a bit better behaved than the R10, but I recognise all your complaints from when the “camera is in a bad mood” (i.e. I’m not thinking through what the issue is). I’ve got about 10 modes (ah, could look at the manual, but…), selected via menus from pressing buttons rather than a dial. When using the single point or not very many points, I’m quite often deliberately selecting something at the same distance as the bird, rather than the bird, for the sort of reasons you mention.
If the “I’ve got focus” blue boxes appear around the bird (or even better when it recognises an eye), I know there’s a fair chance of an at least OK shot.
Just checking - you do have the stabilizer switch on, I take it - the beast is a nightmare without.
The bit of the lens I least value is the “loosen or tighten zoom” ring - why on earth doesn’t it have a “lock in place until I twist again” point!
One other suggestion - my lens is much better behaved when the speed is set to allow a decently low ISO to be selected by auto ISO (say, sub 2000). Of course, birds hide in shade or behind leaves so that’s another fools errand. More light helping the photo work - shocking news I know.
I have my permitted auto ISO range set to 100 through 3200. I find that anything above 3200 produces a result that’s grainy enough to annoy me, which is probably a result of my smaller sensor (read: being cheap). I always have stabilization enabled.
I concur on the zoom tightness ring as well. I have no use case for such a thing whatsoever. Even at its tightest it’s not quite enough to keep the lens barrel from getting slowly bounced into its extended position if you have your camera danging from your neck while e.g. hiking, and I would much prefer it to have a lock for the fully retracted position like the smaller Canon zooms do. Possibly suitably upsized, as appropriate. That position would be much more useful as a second actual control ring. Maybe there was some mechanical reason a hypothetical second control ring could not have been added in front of the zoom ring as well, but I’d really doubt it. Perhaps this is what we get for the 200-800 still not being an “L” lens. At least it came with a hood and a strap.