Taking Photos

[World.Hunters]

just wondering what cameras u guys use and what mega pixle would be sufficant for taking pictures of harris hawks ect im thinging of getting a digi camera that is 5 mega pixel

would be helpful if u guys could post a few pics of ur bird ect with information on how many mega pixel the camera is

cheers lads

im still looking for a camera so if any one has got a digi camera or camcorder pm me thx :supz:

[Cobra]

just wondering what cameras u guys use and what mega pixle would be sufficant for taking pictures of harris hawks ect im thinging of getting a digi camera that is 5 mega pixel

would be helpful if u guys could post a few pics of ur bird ect with information on how many mega pixel the camera is

cheers lads


Heres a couple from last season taken with an inexpensive 5 mega pixel

[Saker-Clive]

This is my HH, taken last year with a 3,2 mega pixel. The small cameras are ok for close up shots but for quality action shots you'll need a Canon EOS 20 type thing or equivilant...............................

[Cobra]

[QUOTE=E.H.S]just wondering what cameras u guys use and what mega pixle would be sufficant for taking pictures of harris hawks ect im thinging of getting a digi camera that is 5 mega pixel

would be helpful if u guys could post a few pics of ur bird ect with information on how many mega pixel the camera is

QUOTE]
Forgot to say its a "concord" cost me about a ton
Chris

[Hacker]

Make sure what you buy has a fast shutter response time.
To many electronic shutters have a delay between you pressing the button and the camera taking the picture.
Alright if you like sky shots.
You can find out info on shutter time delays, on the web.

[Kanati]

Make sure what you buy has a fast shutter response time.
To many electronic shutters have a delay between you pressing the button and the camera taking the picture.
Alright if you like sky shots.
You can find out info on shutter time delays, on the web.


yes... well said. the shutter speed is the important factor more then the pixels if you are going to be taking actions shots!.

[World.Hunters]

thx guys this has been very helpful just wondering if u dont mind how much did u pay for ur cameras and by the way cobra i like ur dog:D i also have an alsation:supz:

[The Ninja]

Gotta agree with the others here, shutter speed is more important, I've got a 5 million pixel which takes fantastic detail on 'still life' but almost useless for any action shots.

:-)

p.s - cost: anything from £100 upwards.

[World.Hunters]

does any1 have a camera they would want to sell for a resonable price

[The Ninja]

does any1 have a camera they would want to sell for a resonable price

Have a wee look round on ebay. (Not trying to put you off buying anyone elses, it just gives you some more ideas.)

[Roo]

3 megapixels or more should do A4 size prints, go for the big names e.g. Nikon/Canon if possible and try to get a camera that has either a sport setting and/or aperture/shutter priority/manual settings, it will make things easier.

Always good to look up reviews on www.dpreview.com

[Cobra]

by the way cobra i like ur dog:D i also have an alsation:supz:

A great breed! She was a terrific loyal bitch, sadly departed last bank holiday :(
Chris

[Sambo]

just bought myself a canon ixus 750 7.1 megapixel havent hadchance to use it yet should be good though hopefully.

cheers sam

[World.Hunters]

sorry to here that cobra

alot ov these dogs have problems wiv back legs my first alsation when that way had to have her put down that was along time ago tho

[GregMik]

EHS,
If you are wanting to take action shots, you are going to need a camera with as small of a shutter lag as possable or you are not going to even come close to getting a good picture. The camera Tasha and I use is a Canon EOS. She has the 20D and I have a RebelXT. I am going to be trading up for a 20D as the rebel has a 3 frames per second shutter. While the 20D has a 5 FPS. If you are going to try to get by with a "piont and shoot" you will not get any range out of it.
If you look at post's by Tasha55304 and I you will see examples of the pictures taken with these two camera's.

Greg

[Out Hunting]

I have a Nikon D70 digital SLR, I much prefer it to the Cannon EOS. The D70 is a 6.1 megapixel camera which is great if you want to blow up pics. It also has a 3fps shoot rate along with all the best bits of a normal SLR. It also comes with some superb software!

All in all this camera is hard to beat!......well thats my oppinion.

[Mr_Colin]

ok people are getting themselfves confused here. Someone was talking about shutter lag near the front of this thread. I think he is talking about the time it takes for most point and shoot camera to actually take the pic. Some takes a second or two from pressing the shutter release to actually taking the picture, hense the pictures of sky comment. Others thought he was talking about shutter speed. Point and shoot camara's have a fixed shutter speed which is useless if you want the action pics. You need to spend the cash and get an slr type camera that has many shutter speed to choose from depending on light. Personally I use a D1x Nikon but either canon or Nikon is good and reliable, although Nikon is heavier but more robust IMHO.

If you get an SLR camera try to get a long zoom with and image stabilizer function. It will help with the camera shake at the longer lens settings, but the cost more. There are some good ones at around 20-200 mm settings.

Hope this helps

[Big JoeJoe]

I've got a Konica Minolta Dynax 5D DSLR. Its a good Cam but I aint used it to it's full potential yet. Picture quality is very good I think.

Cheers Joe

[GregMik]

Mr Collin,
I have found that for action shots the Image Stabilization on the Canon lenses doesn't work very well. It works great for still or slow moving shots to remove camera shake. But for Fast action they acually hurts more than help. We turn it off on our 100-400L lense for action.
All this is just opinions. Do some research and be willing to spend some money to get good shots. Being cheap will not get you the quality you want.

Greg

[Big JoeJoe]

The Konica Minolta Dynax 5D has an anti shake feature on it is this not a standerd feature with DSLRs??????

[GregMik]

The Konica Minolta Dynax 5D has an anti shake feature on it is this not a standerd feature with DSLRs??????

Not on a Canon. You have to buy a lens with IS to get that feature.

Greg

[KuzWing]

What sort of price range are you looking at , think a good quality slr camera is ideal can get some good deals at the moment, I use a nikon d2h and a d70 ok the more megapixel is good for more information in the picture but speed is a priority in action shots and a good quality fast lens (f2.8 ) is also a very important factor because this will keep the speed up on the camera because it lets in more light which is important on those overcast hunting season days, I have made A1 size prints from a nikon d1 (2.74megapixel )with out pixelation, if you pm me your e-mail I will send you a full size image from the D70

[GregMik]

Here is one from a RebelXT. It is a 8.0 megapixel camera.

Greg

[Talon]

nice pic as allways greg.

[Jarreth]

I have an Olympus E300 (8 mp) and a Nikon 100 (6.1). There is more to a professional camera than mega pixels lol. The Nikon I have is a better camera than the Olympus. This Photo was taken with a Nikon, but sadly not by me!

[World.Hunters]

very nice photos

i dont know anythink at all to do with slr cameras ect so i was thinking of a normal digital camera such as 5mp has any1 had success with such cameras on motion shots and what is the small videa capture like on these digital cameras

[Roo]

One huge benefit with non SLR's is the huge depth of field they have (basically a lot can be in focus at once)

I have had a Fuji S7000 and that was good, the S5500 may be worth a look, it has a lot of zoom and if it has a Continous focussing feature you should be able to get some decent pictures.

[GregMik]

One huge benefit with non SLR's is the huge depth of field they have (basically a lot can be in focus at once)

I have had a Fuji S7000 and that was good, the S5500 may be worth a look, it has a lot of zoom and if it has a Continous focussing feature you should be able to get some decent pictures.

But the problem with that large depth of field is you need a small f-stop to get it....Which means shooting in low light like cloudy days you will get allot of motion blurr due to the slow shutter speed needed as a small f-stop doesn't let allot of light in.

Greg

[Superfly]

I use a Sony DSC-F828, Carl Ziess lens and a 28mm to 200mm optical zoom.
Takes around 7 frames in about 2.5 seconds and can be pushed up to 800ASA and some stupidly fast shutter speeds. Also has a manual zoom on it and can either go "fully auto" (apart from the zoom), or even have manual focus via a ring on the lens.

Loving every minute of it, does produce noisy images at the higher ASA, but I use photo-editing software filters to clean that up, plus it's not noticable on a standard 10 X 8 print anyway.

OOPS - forgot to mention - goes up to 8 megapixel and cost me about 700 quid with a spare battery and a 1MB memory stick and backup 256MB compact flash card.

EDIT: Some Examples...

[Roo]

But the problem with that large depth of field is you need a small f-stop to get it....Which means shooting in low light like cloudy days you will get allot of motion blurr due to the slow shutter speed needed as a small f-stop doesn't let allot of light in.

Greg


Perfectly true with an SLR although I was on about the so called 'prosumer' cameras like the Fuji S7000 - even at f2.8 everything was sharp at most focussing distances. I think it's something to do with the focal length and circles on confusion but I dont know:roll:

Thats a Fuji S700 compared with a Nikon D70 anyway, perhaps the Fuji is unique in having such a large DoF...

[Kentish Falconry]

Today, 03:59 PM
Superfly
Senior Respected Member
Brancher Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: St Helens, Lancs
Posts: 123





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I use a Sony DSC-F828, Carl Ziess lens and a 28mm to 200mm optical zoom.
Takes around 7 frames in about 2.5 seconds and can be pushed up to 800ASA and some stupidly fast shutter speeds. Also has a manual zoom on it and can either go "fully auto" (apart from the zoom), or even have manual focus via a ring on the lens.

Loving every minute of it, does produce noisy images at the higher ASA, but I use photo-editing software filters to clean that up, plus it's not noticable on a standard 10 X 8 print anyway.

OOPS - forgot to mention - goes up to 8 megapixel and cost me about 700 quid with a spare battery and a 1MB memory stick and backup 256MB compact flash card.


I have also got the Sony DSC F828 but I am only using it for close up work now as I have found that I can't get clear images over a longer distance when I use the Digital zoom I find a lot of blurring that dosn't show up untill you try to edit the pic's, I bought the 2 x lense to try to overcome this problem but I found it was not worth messing around with it.
I use a 6 gig memory card in mine as I found the 256 cards were used too quickly. I also had a problem with taking birds in flight with the shutter speed and by the time I set up the pic and the delay in the shutter all I got was a pic of the sky.
I know have a Canon EOS 20D with a 75-200 IS lense and that is working great but I will need a bigger lense the same one Gregmik talks about in this thread but I am not going to pay the UK price for it. Again this is an 8 meg camera so I have not gone up in Pixels but I can interchange the lenses.
Terry:supz:

[Hacker]

I`ve not long bought a Sony DSC-H1 5Mp camera.
The reason i bought this model is that it has the fastest shutter delay of all cameras in its class, prosumer, it also has shutter speed priority an f2.8 lens and continuous shooting mode allowing you to either shoot continuously till you fill your card, or multi burst ,16 frames recorded as a still image file when you press the shutter.
This should allow for some nice action shots.
Cost £274.00 plus memory stick

[World.Hunters]

thx alot to all that have replied ill post sum pics and this is why i want a better cam this is with a normal crappy 1.3mp digital camera:oops: not mine by the way

[GregMik]

EHS,
On the second pic, see how you have a big depth of feild? alot is in focus but you have alot of motion blur on the wings. This is what happens with a large f-stop and slow shutter speed. Here is what you get with a small f-stop and a fast shutter. The wings are out of focus because of the small depth of field.

Greg

[Roo]

And how you focus with a large aperture, long lense on a unpredictable moving subject I just don't know:cry:

[GregMik]

And how you focus with a large aperture, long lense on a unpredictable moving subject I just don't know:cry:

It's called taking lots and lots of pics. I think Tasha and I are over 25,000 pictures in the last yr.

Greg

P.S. I like to say "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then."

[Superfly]

It's called taking lots and lots of pics. I think Tasha and I are over 25,000 pictures in the last yr.

Greg

P.S. I like to say "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then."
Aye, never a truer word. :)
With my first "test" of the camera, I ran off probably 300 pictures in the space of one display. A good 80% were of empty sky or blurred grass. The one's I did get the bird in frame, some where badly focussed, but even so, I got a couple of nice shots. Now my percentages are better, but that's why I love digital, snap like a wildman, save the couple you like, erase the rest. Repeat ad infinitum. :)

[Kentish Falconry]

Aye, never a truer word. :)
With my first "test" of the camera, I ran off probably 300 pictures in the space of one display. A good 80% were of empty sky or blurred grass. The one's I did get the bird in frame, some where badly focussed, but even so, I got a couple of nice shots. Now my percentages are better, but that's why I love digital, snap like a wildman, save the couple you like, erase the rest. Repeat ad infinitum. :)

What settings are you using with your F828 M8 perhaps I should play around with it a little more although as I said I do like the Canon because I can change the lenses, almost all the pic's on my website are taken with the Sony and we will see this year if there are any improvements in the photo's with the EOS 20D. I also want to be able to take pic's of the Falcons at hack this year so this is another reason for the upgrade, I thought the 2x Tele converter on the Sony would Improve things but unless I am on full zoom I get a black circle around the picture. I also find it difficult to take pic's in low light situations the built in flash does not have enough power so you have to be close to the subject, I had some excelent shots taken at the presentation dinner in Abu Dhabi at Shiekh Zayed's Palace but they are unusable as they are too dark and trying to enhance them with photo editing just won't give the right results for me.
ATB
Terry :supz:

[AndyYounger]

Hi All.
i currently use a canon EOS20D i previously and a 300d. the 20D is very easy to use but the real difference is ifeel is in the lens. i have a 70-200 L series f2.8 USM lens with IS( image stabalising) using this in conjunction with a 1.4x extender is perfect. sometimes if the light isnt quite good enough i will use it without the extender as it only allows a fstop of f4.
Here is a couple of shots i have taken.
The first is a kestrel. i was a goo 60 yards away. the second is a male goldie that belongs to Berkut. he was around 40 yards away gliding past.
Both photos were taken in RAW at 8.2 megapixels. then later converted to jpeg. this way i have a lot mare controll on the pc and can compensate for reasonable exposure problems.
Cheers

[AndyYounger]

Here is another of a harris above me following on.

[Superfly]

What settings are you using with your F828 M8
I tend to adjust the ASA depending on light, but try to keep it at 200 ASA unless forced to push it higher. I prefer to set it to aperture priority in order to get best speed. For flight, I have it on a set focus point, using 'F' on the multi-burst. I am going to be experimenting more with focus and such this year as I only got the camera right near the end of "display season" last year so I've yet to truly familiarize myself with the subtleties.
If in any doubt, I'll switch to manual focus, otherwise it's a SAF which I lock off, I've not yet determined if the continous focus is any use with a fast moving target.

I've never had any trouble with the flash pictures, but admittedly I've done very few and none at over say 20 feet. I'd say for long flash, you're better off with a dedicated "gun" anyway.

I normally shoot at a mere 3MP (more than enough for A4 prints) and utilize the "smart zoom" to get better optical shot. This is really an in-camera way of cropping the picture prior to taking the shot, rather than doing it later in photo-editing software. It bumps my zoom up from 7.1 to 11+ Which can make all the difference.

I'd make no claim to be an expert with this camera though and it's worth surfing the net for F828 related forums.
That said, any knowledge I have I'll gladly share. :)

[GregMik]

Great pics Andy!! When you take the pics are you using the IS? I have found that the IS doesn't work that well for action shots. It works great for low light still objects tho. If you have the cash a 100-400L F4.5 works great for hawkin action during the day. It gives you a bit more range that the 70-200 even with the telextender.


Greg

[AndyYounger]

Thanks GreigMik
That was a lense i thaught of. maybe one day soon. the f2.8 is a good choice over here as a lot of our days can be dull and overcast.
i use ths IS on mode 2 and it seems so work well whilst panning. although i am still learning.

[GregMik]

Andy,
Same here. We have the 70-200L f2.8 also only in the non IS. If you are using the telextender you are dropping the f-stop down to 4.0 tho and that is just about where the 100-400 is at 4.5.
We have had the 20D for about a yr now. Before that we had a film SLR. It was too expensive to take allot of pics with it, so we didn't. It got to the piont where Tasha and I both wanted to take the cam so we baught another one yesterday. Here is a link to a site that we belong to. The experts on there have helped us out alot, especially with using Photoshop.

http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/ic.cgi?a=vg1

Greg