first day out with DSLR. advice needed

fguihen

I had my first outing with my 400D, using mainly the 70-300 sigma. I have to say im soooo disapointed.

Every picture i took was blurry. It was about 6pm in dunlaoire, so the light was fading.

With my old panasonic Fz7, which had image stablization built in, I could easily take the images of birds i was attempting tonight.

I tried upping the ISO so that i could up the shutter speed around 1/125,but not a huge improvment.

The worst ones were the ones of birds in flight.

What shutter speed should I be using to capture an image without blur, and if i dont have a tripod with me, does that limit me taking many photos when the light starts to fade?

I believe i should have used a shutter speed of 1/300 min, as its equal to the focal length of my lens, but thats impossible in the evening light, everything would be completely dark.

upping the ISO would introduce noise. What do you guys do in this suituation?

Biro

What aperature is the Sigma at at 300mm? Also, what ISO would the Panasonic be at in the same environment?

challengemaster

go out earlier!

For fast moving things, eg. flying birds, you want maybe 1/300 - 1/500 to get them.

also if you have the lens at the full end (300mm) - you want 1/480 to cancel out camera shake. (the 400D is a crop body, so you're effectivly using a 480mm lens) this depends completly on the person aswell, though. Sasar on here can handhold for 1-2 seconds, where as elven can only handhold at about 1/350 or faster. Depends what you can get away with. But moving objects require fast speeds..

I'm assuming the lens you have is f/5.6 at 300mm end? No good what so ever for low light situations. You need a faster lens, eg. f/2.8 or lower really

Increasing ISO does introduce noise, but its not too noticable until it gets very high. ISO 1600 is complete crap, where as ISO 800 is decent enough. anything under that is completly acceptable tbh.

What I would have done in the situation is - Set ISO to 800, stick the camera into TV mode, select 1/500 shutter speed, and let the camera do the rest. If it was still underexposing, try get it only by such an amount that can be easily fixed in PS or Lightroom. 1-2 stops underexposed. And if that doesn't work, call it a day.

A tripod is about as much use as a third head when trying to shoot birds in-flight in lowlight really. But for general low light shots, in particular things that dont move.. tripods are essential.

There's a learning curve, indeed. You'll get used to it, and know you/your camera's limits in time

Oriel

Go to aperture mode and set the number to as low as possible and up the ISO.
Apart from that, buy a better lens.

fguihen

thanks for the advice guys.

with the panasonic I was using ISO 100, anything more didnt so much introduce noise, as completely fill the frame with noise, and introduce a small bit of the image! I guess i was just really really used to using that camera. at ISO 100 it was brilliant ( i say was, as i sold it to fund the DSLR).

To answer the 2nd question, yes, at full zoom the lens is limited to F5.6. Best i can afford at present and for the forseable future.

From your advice, im gona try to get out a bit more with the camera and get used to its limits. once i know what its technically capiable of, i can concentrate on composition( which is killing me also!)

thanks folks.

Thirdfox

Good light is so important - you have a 1.6x multiplier with the 400D body so that 300mm is equal to a 480mm lens on a 35mm film body (meaning you should have at least a 1/500th second shutter speed). And if the subject is moving you may need to double that to stop motion (so 1/1000th second is a guaranteed no motion blur - you can see why 1/125th is just not good enough, even for a stationary subject). Image stabilisation shouldn't help in these cases as it's less to do with your hand shaking and more to do with the subject flying quickly (unless it is stationary?)

Here's a shot I took on my 55-200 (at 120mm equivalent to 180mm on a film body) Nikon D40. It was sunny so at ISO 200 I could shoot wide open at f4.8 and have a 1/2500th shutter speed). I actually could have closed down the aperture a bit to around 1/500th of a second but in the heat of the moment I forgot

So while a f5.6 lens can be limiting in bad light you can get pretty decent shots in sunny conditions (or even just during normal daylight hours).

Here's my BIF (bird in flight) shot:

Freddie59

That is some cool picture!:D

Thirdfox

Freddie59 wrote: »

That is some cool picture!:D

The regular posters here are probably sick of seeing it so often But I find that it's a good example picture to demonstrate the Nikon lens, aperture, shutter speed etc. and I find that a visual example normally is much more effective than just words.

Dades

Thirdfox wrote: »

The regular posters here are probably sick of seeing it so often

Good to see it again!
I hadn't noticed before where you'd cloned out the string holding that plastic bird up.

I'm in the market for the OP's lens at the moment, too.

fguihen

thanks for the advice guys. Yea, thats a cracker of a picture!

Dades, I wish i was able to give you a good review of the lens but Im not expirienced enough just yet to do so, I can say that its a big downside that its a little slow, however you cannot give out about that when you consider the astonishingly low price.

Build quality is really good.
There is no slop ( in my lens anyway) when at full zoom and I can detect no lens slide when i put the lens at full zoom and lie the camera on its back.
It is terribly ugly though( if that could be considered a downside:) )


with regard sharpness, i really cannot advise on that just yet.

Dades

fguihen wrote: »

Dades, I wish i was able to give you a good review of the lens but Im not expirienced enough just yet to do so, I can say that its a big downside that its a little slow, however you cannot give out about that when you consider the astonishingly low price.

I reckon like the others here you'll have a different experience when you take it out during the day. And maybe a bit more experimentation with settings. The light at 6pm at the moment doesn't allow for much of a window.
Here's hoping anyway!

fguihen

Dades Wrote:
I reckon like the others here you'll have a different experience when you take it out during the day. And maybe a bit more experimentation with settings.
The light at 6pm at the moment doesn't allow for much of a window.

yea, im thinking i was looking at this all the wrong way. Any lens will have limits, some more than others. this particular lens is limited to not being able to freeze action in the evening light.

Maby instead of wishing i had a faster ( and exponentially more expensive) lens, I should play to its strengths, such as planning my action shots of birds in flight during the day when light is readily available, and taking some shots using the tripod in the evening. ive been meaning to get out and play with the neutral density filters to get some nice blurring effects.

nilhg

Start with the basic stuff, get it all straight in your head and get yourself used to using the camera under good conditions until it becomes second nature too you.

Most people learn to swim in the shallow end.:p