Camera Labs

I was down by the water with some friends who had come for a visit, and today had very average overcast lighting........ and this bird came into land..... D300, 18-200mm, 1250 @ 7.1 iso 250...... all full frame

Nice sequence and framing!

I presume you were shooting at 6fps for this one?

Tell us more about your AF settings...

...... this is easy to achieve, just lots of practise, even I miss sometimes, but hoping to catch this sort of landing straight on....... meantime I will keep up the practise to achieve my goal.....



Camera at: 'C' "A "and set at 7 frames
Equipment Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Camera Model: NIKON D300
Camera Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Maximum Lens Aperture: f/5.7
Sensing Method: One-Chip Color Area
Color Filter Array Pattern: 809
Focal Length (35mm Equiv): 300 mm

Image-Specific Properties:

Image Orientation: Top, Left-Hand
Horizontal Resolution: 240 dpi
Vertical Resolution: 240 dpi
Image Created: 2008:01:14 16:36:17
Exposure Time: 1/1250 sec
F-Number: f/7.1
Exposure Program: Aperture Priority
ISO Speed Rating: 250
Lens Aperture: f/7.1
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Metering Mode: Spot
Light Source: Unknown
Flash: No Flash
Focal Length: 200.00 mm
Comment: COPYRIGHT Bernie Gibson 0412221816
Color Space Information: aRGB
Image Width: 750
Image Height: 498
Rendering: Normal
Exposure Mode: Auto
White Balance: Auto
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Gain Control: None
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Subject Distance Range: Unknown

hope this helps

Actually I was just after what Dynamic AF area settings you'd used and whether you found one type worked better for this kind of shot than another... it's interesting to hear from people actually taking these kind of photos about how well the systems track moving subjects...

See the focusing section on this page:

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Nikon_D300/lens.shtml

I am still changing settings on the D300 with each outing. What I have that works for me is spot metering on overcast days and shooting into heavy shadows gives a better exposure than matrix metering. Matrix metering for sunny days, Although this is a good starting point for me and the D300 my settings will change

In regard to Dynamic AF area settings I am on 21 points ATM, continuous focus and short re focus, but this could change tomorrow, as I am also testing the Sigma 120-300 2.8.

So far I find that the Sigma 120-300 2.8 lens, through very good, is a bit heavy and large to hand hold for any period of time. A mono pod, or a tripod with a gimbal head is the way to go and will also improve your keeper rate. I can see why a lot of people prefer the Nikon f4 300 mm as it is a much easier lens to hand hold, but you do not get the lovely out of focus backgrounds that a 2.8 lens will give you.......

Hello Bernie,

Lovely shots! But could you give us pixel-peepers a link to the original or large photos? (best done by linking the images to the respective hosting-site like [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/.../.../][img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/.../....jpg[/img][/url])

_________________
Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

sorry, no links to larger images.......