The trip to Hungary concentrated around hide visits, as mentioned in my first Hungary post. The hides are all in ‘ideal’ light positions, but the light conditions are not always predictable. The forest water station was located in a stream of light, occasionally blocked by the waiving trees.
So, where I normally set my camera to manual mode, if light conditions are constant, here I tried a different setting. Since activity at the water station was quite frantic, with birds chasing eachother away and birds doing their bathing and getting out asap, I opted for a minimum shutterspeed value of 1/1000 (in shutter priority mode), exposure compensation at 0 and auto-ISO: so where light changed, the ISO would be set up if there was not enough light and ISO would drop where there was too much light. To enable the Auto-ISO, just press the ISO button on top of a (Canon) body and dial until the display reads ‘A’, for auto.
With the camera I was working with I knew that if light would drop, my noise could become problematique, but this image was much to my delight:
| Hawfinch (en), Appelvink (nl), Kernbeisser (de) |
|
| Canon 50d, 1/1000 @ f/4 @ ISO400 |
See also: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=65845 for reviews of this image.