Questions on exposure with shore birds

Ok, not quite sure if this is the forum for this but since I would like the answers to come from people who primarily shoot birds I thought this would be a good place to start.

I was out last weekend hoping to get some great shots from my canoe of the shore birds that are remaining in the area. I managed to get within 10 feet of this one in particular and was thrilled that he did not seem to mind me being so close.

It was sunny, very little cloud, about 10:00 a.m.

I had set the camera up to shoot 1/800 @ f8.0 with auto iso, metering set to center-weighted average.

The camera is a 6D and the lens a Sigma 50-500 with the focal length in these two pictures 413mm and 332mm respectively.

When I got home and started to view the pictures I was taken aback to find that the camera had metered them to set the ISO so high. These two are at ISO 4000!, and there were some in the set that were as high as ISO 10,000. Seriously???

So any suggestions as to why?

Does anyone use center-weighted averaging for metering??

Should I be doing something different?

I found this to be extremely frustrating as I had thought these would turn out to be stellar shots, instead of what they are.

I know they don't look "bad" at 1024X768 but at 1:1 the noise is incredible and if they were at ISO 400 (which I thought because of sunny conditions it would be around) there would have been little to no noise.

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I use spot metering instead of a weighted one to prevent just such an occurrence. I also set my ISO at what I feel is best based on my experience. I think you would have been fine with ISO 400.

With your choice of center weighted and letting the camera decide the ISO you ended up with the camera metering off of the mud.

I would suggest Evaluative metering.

I'm curious to why you shoot with auto ISO, especially in such bright, unchanging light. I would suggest shooting with manual metering, auto ISO off. In light like this there really is no need for any higher setting than ISO 400. When set up to meter manually you can have control of shutter speed on your camera forefinger dial and aperture on your thumb dial(camera back). By watching the scale inside your viewfinder you can use shutter speed and aperture to achieve an accurate exposure. You'll need to decide which shutter speed is best for the amount movement your subject is making and work toward that number by adjusting aperture and if necessary increasing ISO. Also set your focus point to center activated if it isn't already.

Whenever possible shoot earlier in the morning or in the later afternoon/evening. These shots would have an entirely different feel two hours earlier.

Nighthound wrote in post #16336755
I would suggest Evaluative metering.

I'm curious to why you shoot with auto ISO, especially in such bright, unchanging light. I would suggest shooting with manual metering, auto ISO off. In light like this there really is no need for any higher setting than ISO 400. When set up to meter manually you can have control of shutter speed on your camera forefinger dial and aperture on your thumb dial(camera back). By watching the scale inside your viewfinder you can use shutter speed and aperture to achieve an accurate exposure. You'll need to decide which shutter speed is best for the amount movement your subject is making and work toward that number by adjusting aperture and if necessary increasing ISO. Also set your focus point to center activated if it isn't already.

Whenever possible shoot earlier in the morning or in the later afternoon/evening. These shots would have an entirely different feel two hours earlier.

Great advice right here....

Thanks guys,

Yup, I do shoot manual, with the back button but....

For some reason, I don't remember what I thought that I would let the camera decide where to go with the ISO. I think that I was thinking that I needed a lot of light for the Bigma.

I do know that I wanted a fast shutter speed and an f8.0 aperture, I guess I thought that the camera would not go to extremes.

I was also relying on the good noise handling capabilities of this body to compensate for a slightly faster than normal ISO.

From the results it obviously didn't work out so well! LOL

Lesson learned.

The time of day was entirely because I was slow getting started and didn't get out on the water until well after 8:00 a.m. and it was intended to be a training run for this particular setup trying to get ready for next spring when the migration begins the opposite way. Will be changing to either spot or evaluative metering. Part of the good things from this was the great advice from experienced people. Thanks big time.

The other is the decision to purchase a 500mm f4.0 MK1. Hopefully it will be here by Friday.

I always shoot AP, and choose my ISO. I let the camera decide shutter speed, and if it seems too low, I open up the aperture. I know lots of folks prefer Manual, but I shoot birds mostly and they will bounce around so much that the light is constantly changing. Too difficult for me, but I do use exposure compensation a lot. But Kudos to you for even taking your camera out in a canoe. I don't trust my boating skills enough to do that.

jzelik wrote in post #16345199
I always shoot AP, and choose my ISO. I let the camera decide shutter speed, and if it seems too low, I open up the aperture. I know lots of folks prefer Manual, but I shoot birds mostly and they will bounce around so much that the light is constantly changing. Too difficult for me, but I do use exposure compensation a lot. But Kudos to you for even taking your camera out in a canoe. I don't trust my boating skills enough to do that.

Thanks for the tips, I'm not quite as brave as you might think. Before I even took any gear out on the water I made sure that the canoe was as close to untippable as I could make it. With its current configuration I can stand up and not worry about it going out from underneath me. I have, and it has before the additions.

My brother-in-law calls this a "canamaran" (part canoe, part catamaran) LOL!

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Try under exposing one full stop and see what happens and yeah what Steve said!