Manual exposure at fliers

liquidstone wrote:
Hi Dimitri,

There are several ways on how to meter the subject - you can spot meter with the 1DM2N and long lens if the bird is large enough in the frame, or you can meter off another thing with the same tonality as the subject. Others want to be more accurate, and use incident spot meters (eg Sekonic, etc.).

For the initial test shot, I just used my experience on white birds on backgrounds like grass in this case, under that lighting . Proper exposure of the bird is about -2/3 to -1 stop from evaluative metering, so I dial a Tv which is fast enough to stop the action, and Av/ISO that are optimum for the subject at that time, referring to the needle in the meter while half-pressing at the bird.

Then I take a test shot, review the histogram and adjust the EVs until the graph is very near the right end of the scale. After this, I'm ready for action and just worry about panning.

When shooting fliers, I make it a point to have the sun behind my back. I normally stop shooting when the bird has passed the line connecting me to its flight path perpendicularly. Birds that are flying away are not so nice to look at, unless it's a rare species. Under this shooting situation, the subject is always constantly lit, and manual exposure works beautifully.

Romy