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FZ50 BIFs

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Trevor Carpenter

Trevor Carpenter

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I've had a litttle bit of success with some Gulls in flight in the last few days. I'm really pleased with the last one. It's not easy but when you get it right the FZ50 does a reasonable job.

The fiirst three are sub adult Herring Gulls and the last two are the same adult Lesser-black Backed Gull











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eFZed50, Oly TeeCON17, RaynoxDCR150 DCR250
My Galleries are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorfcarpenter
 
Well done,

They are all good but, like you, I really like the last one. The only gulls around here are at the dump.

Being an old sea dog I miss them. I really used to enjoy watching them gliding backwards and forwards along the length of the ship or along the shoreline with hardly a wing movement.

Thanks for the memory.
--
FCAS #123
Old Sea Dog/cp 5400/FZ30
Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/oldseadog/galleries
 
I just got my FZ50. You are way ahead of most in your mastery of this camera. Would it be too much to ask for you to share a few of the basic settings you are employing. I know that you can't get this kind of perfection using A as a setting. My Tcon1.7 hasn't arrived yet. Did you use your Tcon1.7 in taking these gull pictures?
 
Blayne Olsen said:
I just got my FZ50. You are way ahead of most in your mastery of this
camera. Would it be too much to ask for you to share a few of the
basic settings you are employing. I know that you can't get this kind
of perfection using A as a setting. My Tcon1.7 hasn't arrived yet.
Did you use your Tcon1.7 in taking these gull pictures?
Click to expand...
NoTcon, my replacement is still in the post but in general the Tcon gives too much magnification for tracking birds. Also for reasons which aren't always clear to me the sharpness on BIFs never seems as good as static birds at the same distance so increasing the magnification increase the problems.

I start usually in S mode at at least 1/250 but if the light permits maybe 1/1000. I am also trying to keep the aperture up, around F5.6, F6.3, so once I've established some reasonable settings I switch to manual and make fine adjustments to both speed and aperture. Getting exposure right is hard especially if you have a fairly washed out sky and a mucky bird such as those immature gulls. So There is a lot of experimentation and review.

I rarely complain about Panny noise but noise is a problem with BIFs and sky and the best shots will have been through NeatImage and had some minor PPing done as well. Unfortunately the free version of NeatImage strips Exif data.

Hope that's of use

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eFZed50, Oly TeeCON17, RaynoxDCR150 DCR250
My Galleries are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorfcarpenter
 
Your info probably saved me a gazillion wasted shots. Thanks. When I tries S mode I got an unexpected result. As I increased the shutter speed with the thumb wheel I got numerically higher F stops. I expected that higher shutter speeds would open up the lens meaning that the F stops should have gotten numerically smaller. When I went from 1/500 to 1/2000 the picture got darker because the F stops went from 3.something to 9.something. What part of this don't I understand?
 
Wow!! Great series!!

I don't know how you guys capture those BIF's...

L.

--
My gallery: http://w3.impa.br/~luis/fotos



FZee50 + Oly EfEl50 + TeeCon17 + Raynx 150 & 250
Nikn CeePee4500; Cann SDee500
 
Blayne Olsen said:
Your info probably saved me a gazillion wasted shots. Thanks. When I
tries S mode I got an unexpected result. As I increased the shutter
speed with the thumb wheel I got numerically higher F stops. I
expected that higher shutter speeds would open up the lens meaning
that the F stops should have gotten numerically smaller. When I went
from 1/500 to 1/2000 the picture got darker because the F stops went
from 3.something to 9.something. What part of this don't I understand?
Click to expand...
A couple of possibilities ,

1 Unless you are on a tripod in a sealed environment the parameters feeding in are constantly changing

2 The camera is intelligent at least it thinks it is and makes what it thinks is the best decision

This is one of the reasons why I move on to M once I have established an idea of what the best setting is likely to be. Sometimes in S mode I find the camera makes a decision which is not going to give me anything like the best result.

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eFZed50, Oly TeeCON17, RaynoxDCR150 DCR250
My Galleries are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorfcarpenter
 
Very nicely done !!

I like them all, but I especially like #3 and #5. Actually, #5 almost has that 3D effect. You get that sense of space between the gull and the homes.

Roger
--



If everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane !

Panasonic FZ50 and TZ3
 
wonderful series. the last shot really works for me, the gull in front of the houses seems to be hovering in the air. All great detail and focus, which has been eluding me these past months. how did you focus these (manual versus spot, fast, 3-across)? And since you didn't mention an RDS, are you just framing and praying while you pan?
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-- Rich
Take many pictures - a few are keepers, the rest are are lessons.

 
.great work, I think my fave's are #2&3 as they are interesting angles of the gull in flight and the last one for the background and attitude of the gull...great stuff. RonS
 
dontfret said:
wonderful series. the last shot really works for me, the gull in
front of the houses seems to be hovering in the air. All great
detail and focus, which has been eluding me these past months. how
did you focus these (manual versus spot, fast, 3-across)? And since
you didn't mention an RDS, are you just framing and praying while you
pan?
--
-- Rich
Click to expand...
Thanks Rich

I use High Speed 3 Focus because it works for me and auto focus which is fine providing I can get enough subject in frame which isn't that much, less than half is fine. I don't ue an RDs because I tried and failed miserably. I could possibly follow the bird with practice but I could never achieve guaranteed sharp focus.

I minimise pannning by always looking to get a 3/4 angle, that side on Herring Gull has slowed right down as can be seen by it's funny posture.

Finally the subject matter is difficult but as standards of difficulty go gulls are at the easy end. They tend to do a lot of slow moving or even hovering in the wind.

Hope that helps.
--



eFZed50, Oly TeeCON17, RaynoxDCR150 DCR250
My Galleries are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorfcarpenter
 
Hi Trevor

First of beautifully sharp photos and quite obviously your definition of "little bit of success" and mine are far out. But as I think I read some while back that you used to "shoot" aircraft as part of your work, I shouldn't be too surprised at the clarity.

Anyway could you explain what you mean by High Speed Focus 3 - I've never come across this term before and am curious about its function?

Thanks
Dave
You said:
Thanks Rich
I use High Speed 3 Focus because it works for me and auto focus which
is fine providing I can get enough subject in frame which isn't that
much, less than half is fine.
Click to expand...
--
FZed 50 + Raynox 150/250 + ...........??
Reserve Panasonic DMC-eFeX8

 
Electra1502 said:
Hi Trevor

Anyway could you explain what you mean by High Speed Focus 3 - I've
never come across this term before and am curious about its function?
Click to expand...
The Auto focus options give you the following choices (the left hand column on the menu from the function buttons)

AF area modes • 1 point
• 1 point high-speed
• 3 point
• 3 point high-speed
• 9 point
• Spot --

One of the BIF gurus suggests that you use 3 point high speed and I have found the advice to be good. Initial focusing seems slightly slower but I find that this is the best setting for maintaining focus on a moving subject.



eFZed50, Oly TeeCON17, RaynoxDCR150 DCR250
My Galleries are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorfcarpenter
 
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