You know you've stumbled upon something good when you rewind and rewatch again! I'm really looking forward to get in the field and put these techniques to work! Thank you!
I spend a lot of time in the field struggling to improve my results and these videos are like having an expert right with me talking my language, thanks and keep up the great work.
Scott, I watch your videos and take notes! You inspire me to create projects to try these techniques out in the field. I can’t think of any praise higher than that! I live in the US, in Ohio where it’s cold and grey at the moment, but I can’t wait for some sunny days to get out! Thank you for all the hard work to teach us your craft!
This is the third time I have watched this video and I gain so much from it. I really appreciate your videos, you give a lot of content that is helpful. You don't waste my time by talking about non-sense. Your presentation is professional and goes beyond the average photographer. Thanks again.
A huge thank you for always explaining the topics in a very approachable way and your own examples come in very handy! I'm more into landscape photography (still a beginner), but your videos also help me gaining knowledge in certain photography topics, using this knowledge and are also inspiring like this one. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience, photos and knowledge!
Another super clear tutorial there Scott, definitely with you on the quality of a video rather than the quantity have to say your instruction is one of the best I have seen on u-tube. 👍
Really great information! This is my second video of yours and I feel I've learned A LOT MORE than watching many other photography tutorials/tips videos. Thanks for explaining everything so well :)
Excellent video. Your style is very nice and informative ie including basics with more advanced. I'm just starting to do wildlife so I'm pleased to find you.
You earned a sub from me today!!! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. As someone still getting into wildlife photography, I greatly appreciate your teaching!!!
Brilliant videos. Just found your channel a couple days ago. I only shoot wildlife occasionally, but I can use much of what you talk about in other genres. Love your images!
Great video, I thought I knew all there was to know about Aperture until I watched this video, you are on another level. Brilliant thank you Scott 👍 I’ve Subscribed
Thank you Scott. Your videos are excellent and to the point. The pace of your voice is just right and your explanations are very clear. You seem to have innate didactic skills because you make very tricky topics quite approachable. Could you please cover the issue of heat distortion or heat shimmering and how it affects focusing with long lenses. How do you deal with it? We have experienced this issue many times in Africa. Would be nice to have your perspective. Again, many thanks for your great work, and, by the way, we love your accent! Philippe
Hi Philippe. Thank you so much. I'm glad you find the videos useful and like my approach. I'm also glad you like my accent. It's referred to as the East Midlands accent, and our traditional greeting is "Ay up me duck", in other words "hello my duck", which people often find amusing. I might find it difficult to cover heat shimmering, or heat haze, because we don't often experience it in the UK. So I might not be able to find appropriate circumstances to film the video. There's not a lot you can do about it. There are two things things you can do. Firstly, get closer to your subject. The less distant the subject is, the less air is between you and the subject, so there is less air to distort and your autofocus will perform better. But that doesn't prevent the heat haze in the background, which can look ugly. The other thing is to think about whether you can change your position to prevent shooting through the distortion. For example, if there is something that radiates heat quickly, like tarmac or very dry soil, you will may get heat haze. But if you can change the position to avoid the tarmac or dry soil, you might be able to avoid the distortion. Similarly with shallow water, which is often much warmer than deep water. But very often it's not possible to move far enough to avoid it. If I find myself in the conditions to be able to cover this topic in more depth, I certainly will do. Thanks for your lovely comment, for watching and for being a subscriber, much appreciated.
@@WalksOnTheWildSide Thank you for taking the time to answer so thoroughly. Your suggestions fall in line with what we have tried to do to overcome this issue. I did learn something new though from your explanation; heat shimmering would be less of a problem over greener and wetter land patches. In Africa, we could not always get closer to our subjects because of National Parks' restrictions with the rover but sometimes changing the angle would help somewhat. I am trying to find creative ways to deal with it in post. I'll let you know if I do find a way around it. Keep up the great work Scott!
You got yourself a new subscriber !! I shoot f11 on 800mm rf and r6 so getting subject separation is difficult but I am not that bothered as I enjoy the birds more than chase the perfect picture. Thanks for your advice
J'aime beaucoup cette démarche artistique qui va à contre-courant de certaine habitude en photographie et qui d'ailleurs, je vais essayer d'appliquer dorénavant. Merci
I'm totally agree with you. I always prefer to have my subject sharp and with the eyes in focus, rather than have a blur background!! Even because I can always blur it in post-production 😜
Another awesome video with many useful tips along with great images! Top work mate😊👍👏👏👏 * annoying blade of grass, my OCD kicked in instantaneously😀😀. Cheers
I have been watching your videos recently and it is the best I have come across with lots of food for thoughts and personal development as a photographer, I would like to know if you have any tutorials on wildlife Photography( photography tips and editing), If so, then I would have like to take a photography course with you.
Hi Gyalbo. Thank you. It's nice to hear that you're enjoying the videos. I don't currently have any tutorials other than my RU-vid Videos. But I am looking to start running some workshops from next year, so if you're based in the UK, watch this space. Thanks for your interest and thanks for watching.
Loving your videos so far, the one on Wading birds gave me a lot of information!. Looking forward to the ones on Urban wildlife and Water fowl. Keep up the great work mate.
Thanks Andy, much appreciated. The water fowl vid was published a couple of vids ago. The urban peregrines might be a while as I need to figure out how to get better views of them. But I’m really hoping to photograph the peregrines at a few different urban sites. Thanks for watching.
Maaaaaate your a Gentleman, another friggin awesome video. Your skill and knowledge about photography and birds is truly amazing as is your video compilation. Would love to catch up for a beer or two one day. You should come down to Oz to capture some of our outstanding birds. look me up 🙂
Thanks Peter. I'd love to make it Oz one day to photograph all your amazing birds. So if I do, I'll take you up on the offer of a beer. Thanks for watching.
Thank you Mr.Walker, very helpfull talks. Very interessting pictures you took - i like the Gannet a lot. Where do you get all this interessting birds? I am doing wildlife fotos too, mostly spiders - I have a alpha 6600 - and I am looking for an upgrade - any recommendations (i cant afford a A9 or new AR5)? greetings from Austria
Hi. I think the camera upgrade really depends on what you mainly use the camera for. If it's mostly spiders and other insects for macro, I would look at a full frame. If you want to also capture fast moving action, such as birds in flight, you want something that captures at least 10 frames per second to give you the best chance. I think a really good camera that suits all these things and doesn't cost too much is the A7III amzn.to/3U4uHTW If you're not so bothered about the birds in flight, then the A7II amzn.to/3OxlGS8 would be a good option, and it's cheaper than the A7III. There are lots of other options, but these are two good ones to be thinking about. In terms of the birds, they are all bords that I find around the UK. I've made a video about how I scout for different species here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Wzyvy7y9b0A.html. Thanks for watching.
@@WalksOnTheWildSide Hi Mr. Walker, thank you for the answer. I was thinking about a a A7RIV. With the A6600 and the 200/600G i can capture birds too, its just not nice to crop afterwarts, which I thought a R-Model would be come handy. What about a A7RIV, its newer and has 33MP... your editing video helped me also with the OEM software to get rid of the noise, so I am really thankfull that you share your professional knowledge. Thx an have a great day.
Great video! I do agree that some lenses are sharper at f8. However a lot of telephoto zoom lenses are designed to be sharper wide open as this is where most people want to shoot these lenses. I have tested my tamron 150-600 g2 and came to the conclusion there is minimal difference between f6.3 and f8 in terms of sharpness. I would rather save 2/3rds a stop of iso in most instances. That being said if I have the light I will stop down a bit, primarily because there is less chromatic aberration at f8.
Thank you. I used to have that lens too. I agree with you that people often want the light, which is why they go for wider apertures. I think the point is that we don't have to be wide open as often as people say. I honestly think I shoot more often in the f/8 - f/13 range than I do f/5.6 - f/7. There is usually something we can do to get nice backgrounds even if we're not wide open. Thanks for watching and thanks for your comment.
@@WalksOnTheWildSide I agree! In fact subject distance and background distance in relation to the subject, are more critical for good bokeh than aperture. Keep up the good work!
Scott, my question is this: Let's take Nikon's 600mm f4. Sharpness peaks at f5.6 and falls off quickly after that. How do you fight the competing issues of fall off in sharpness and diffraction as you stop down to f9 or smaller?
Hi. I think a lot of it is about knowing your particular lens. Most lenses I've used over the years tend to be sharpest overall in the mid-range apertures. Sharpness changes over different parts of the frame differently. So often, as you stop down the edge and corner sharpness gets better until you pass the mid-range apertures. I've just looked up the Nikon 600mm, and this isn't the case though, the centre sharpness drops as you stop down and the edge and corner sharpness is maintained, so this performance is a little different/better than many lenses. It's important to think about these as well as the centre sharpness because we often offset our subjects to a side or corner. Diffraction doesn't tend to have much of a noticeable affect til past 1/16. But even then, it doesn't worry me that much - it can often be corrected. My go to apertures tend to be from about f/7 - f/13. But I'm not afraid to go even narrower. I recently looked up the apertures I've used in my catalogue and the highest I ever used was f/51. Quite an extreme example but I've got a fair few photos that are in the low 20s. I'm not sure if you've seen my recent video on the wildlife photographer of the year results - but there's an interesting section of the apertures that were used at the end of the video. Thanks for the question and thanks for watching.
@@WalksOnTheWildSide Yes, I did see the video you did on Photographer of the Year. I think I watched it all the way through, but I'll check. Thanks for taking the time to research the 400mm f4 E FL ED VR. I just happened to have saved the MTF charts on that one. Please forgive me for asking lots of questions, but that's one of the ways I learn and you are an excellent resource of information. Just know the more I ask, the more I'm paying attention and trying to learn! Keep it up! f/51? OMG. ;-)
A very well presented video Scott with great examples to illustrate your points. You are a very good educator. I love shooting wide open, but I think that having variety is very important and that is illustrated in your video. I really like the way you use physical elements in the frame to provide subject separation. What it requires, and you have illustrated it well here, is to think about what you are doing. Make the environment work for you and your equipment. Another key takeaway from your video is that you don't have to be constrained by the aspect ratio that the image was taken with. If one shoots wide it gives you options for cropping afterwards. Just because the image was taken at a ratio of 4:3 doesn't mean that your final image has to be the same. After all it's not slide film, this id digital and we have far more freedom now. it's the vision of the photographer that decides what the image should finally look like. Thanks you so much !
Thanks Dave, I totally agree. It's always great if you can frame it up well, but cropping away a bit does no real harm - as long as you don't have to crop too heavily. One of the many benefits of digital photography.
Hi Andy. Thanks for looking for it, but I'm in the middle of changing website providers and I'm hoping to have a new/better one up and running by the end of the year.
Right wildlife aperture? For long distance ( > 70 meters or so ), the lower the better (lower aperture, greater opening), otherwise around f 7.1, which has some good compromises; enough light, enough room for shutter speed, and enough budget lenses can achieve this. The only real options for adjustment for wildlife is ISO, as the aperture is hereby set, the shutter speed needs to accommodate what you want, and your subjects movements - freeze frame? Also depended on how you want the supporting elements of the environment to show… totally blurred out, just identifiable, or in focus?
