Bird Watching: "On the Waterfront" - Vol. #7, 1 by linthicum

linthicum wrote:
Thanks rose & duc.

duc, I took 900+ photos that day (8/17/10) so it took me awhile to find the original. The photo was taken at 9:15 a.m., at 500mm. I use Spot metering just about all of the time and especially when shooting white birds. I was using Aperture priority, F/8 setting, ISO set at 400, which resulted in a 1/1600 shutter speed. Exposure bias was set at -0.3. On a bright day I should have it set at -0.7, or -1.0. Each camera is a little different. The original needed a tad of darkening (at least for me). I pretty much always shoot Aperture priority (which doesn't always work. I usually have the Manual Mode set at 1/1600, f/8 because if it is focusing on a dark background the shutter speed is too slow and the photos are washed out. I can quickly switch back-and-forth between the Manual Mode and Aperture priority. And, if your subject is still, you can experiment with a multitude of settings. I could probably eliminate a lot of these issues if I shot in RAW format, but I don't.

Here is a photo taken about the same time but the shutter speed was 1/3200 of a second. The remaining settings are the same as the photo that you inquired about.

Anyway, hope it makes some sense.