wildlife photography through the lens of an animator

Friday, November 14, 2008

How fast

People sometimes ask me how fast my camera is. I answer: "It is fast. It takes five photos in a second with shutter speed up to 1/8000." What does this mean in real life? The illustration is below. These images were taken in a shadow at dusk at ISO 640 and speed of 1/2000. I could have probably achieved better result at 1/1600. This is a point and shoot sequence. What I did was to choose the settings i thought would be appropriate for the lighting conditions and the action that I was about to photograph, then wait, then follow the target and press and hold the button. The photos came out underexposed so I did some color correction in Photoshop. The newer DSLR models should be even faster, have better auto-focus and produce more detailed images.
Pacific Black Duck, Tasmania
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5 comments:

  1. A great series of photos of the Pacific Black Duck. There are details in a series like this which are not visible in a one-off photo. I like what you are able to do with your camera and lens and thanks for sharing details of settings.

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  2. Beautiful series shots of the Pacific Black Duck.
    I've just been reading about these ducks!

    Totally off the subject but have you read John K's post about Lynne Naylor's crowd layouts?
    Look how wonderful and alive they look!

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  3. Thank you, Mick! Some of these days I plan to post a little 'animation' sequence of this landing. I just need to find some time to do it...

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  4. Thanks, BlackCrow!

    Totally off the subject, but, yes I did read John K's post. And all I could think looking at those drawings is of my daily work life and how frustrating and not satisfying it is!

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  5. G'day Nickolay,
    Nice work under tricky conditions.
    Gouldiae

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