Great to see you back, have missed your calm measured style. Thanks for highlighting what is needed for wildlife images, probably my favourite genre as well. Sometimes holding a big lens is a struggle but in short bursts is manageable.
Many thanks Laurel and I hope all has been well with you 🙏 I'm glad that you love wildlife too 🙂 I hear you - even the relatively "light" lenses can feel like a tonne of bricks after a while! The things we do to do the things we love 😉 📸 I hope you're having a good week.
Hello Pia 👋 Thanks so much and awesome to be back! 🙏 I'm lucky that there are a few fantastic places close to home, which has made it easier for me to get my photography fix over these past few months! Looking forward to the warmer weather and getting back into the outdoors again. I hope your week gets brighter 💗😊☀️
Glad you came over to Canon. I think many mfrs. make good gear. For me Canon is the Leader for Sports and Wildlife. When you have one time to get the shot it has’t let me down. The lens selection from beginner to Pro is good and the reliability is also.
Hi Charles, I've loved my move to Canon 🙂 The AF on the R5 has been fantastic, but it's not perfect. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Mark II has in store. Thanks for your comments 🙏📸
Yay nice to see you've been getting out with some birds and wildlife. Even if you haven't been able to pull together a video for awhile. I thought life might have been rather busy for you. I would definitely encourage you keep looking after yourself.
So great to hear from you Denise and I hope you've been well 😊🙏 Things have been a bit manic and it has been nice at times to just photograph without worrying about filming. I've also dropped off Vero a little - I've been having a few issues and am not sure how I feel about it, but must catch up on some of your posts! I hope you've been looking after yourself too, and are having a good week 🙂👍📸
Welcome back Valerie! YT was not the same without your smiling face 😊 Great to see you are expanding your horizons with some birding and wildlife photography. Great choice for the new gear as well 👌
Hello Colin, thanks so much for being such a great supporter and it's always lovely hearing from you 🙏💙 I do enjoy capturing whatever's in front of me, and birds/wildlife have just been so much more accessible to me if late. I think you've also recently made the switch to Canon? How are you finding it? I will get to watching that video soon! I hope you have a great week ahead 🙂👍
Hi Ken, hope you're well and great to be back. I completely understand your passion for landscapes and I'm glad it brings you a lot of joy - that's what our photography should give us 🙂 Thanks for your comments 🙏
Hello Markie, I hope all is well 🙂 Yes...it's nice to have a bit of a breather, but it's never long enough! Shutter therapy is the best kind IMO 😄 Always great hearing from you and enjoy your week ahead 🙏📸
Great to see you back Val and another great video! I think you explain perfectly the best reason to "upgrade", when you feel it is what is holding you back despite your best efforts. Keen to see where you take this
Many thanks Zak, I hope all has been well with you 🙏 Not sure where I'll take this either, but the exploration's all part of the fun! Similar to your hikes 😉👍📸
1. Better light means more light for the focusing system 2. front lit (vs back lit) means reduced contrast. AF (even with the modern MLCs) struggles with low contrast. 3. appropriate shutter speed - even with IS/IBIS. For example, larger raptors such as kites (Black, Whistling) I prefer to go up to 1/4000. For static subjects, I tend to stick to 1/1000 wherever possible. I'm using a 500f4 prime with a 1.4x TC (Canon R3 which has outstanding low ISO performance). 4. appropriate f stop. I used to shoot f7.1, but have now, after 18 months, gravitated towards f8. 5. where possible, try and limit high ISO. It does soften detail, especially feather details. True, you can get a lot back with modern NR AI software such as my preferred DXO Pure RAW2. 6. good hand holding (or tripod + gimbal). I prefer to hand hold, it's a personal preference thing. heat haze isn't too much of an issue if shooting over grass. Try and avoid hot surfaces such as concrete, bitumen etc. Water may have heat haze issues early in the morning as it warms up slower than the air above it.
Thanks for your comments and sharing your preferences Dave 🙏 It's always good to hear different approaches, settings, recommendations etc. You make a good point about heat haze over water which I hadn't thought about and only recently noticed in a few photos. Interesting that you prefer f8 over f7.1 - any noticeable difference? Cheers 🙂👍
@@ValerieMisaPhotography for me, I tested 1/2000 and f8, and then 1/4000 and f7.1, before settling on 1/4000 and f8 being slightly more consistently sharper for BIFs. ymmv. Likewise, I have personally found moving from f7.1 to f8 for static subjects offers me ever so slightly more DOF (important for keeping eyes and beak in focus on most birds) and for my lens combination (500f4 mark 1 and 1.4x TC III) it helps with sharpness. Remember though, the primes are always better optically than any non prime. My 500f4 is sharp wide open at f4, although stopping down a stop to f5.6 makes it EVEN more sharper, the effect is subtle. The same with tacking on the TC - it loses every so small an amount of sharpness, but I can still happily use the combination at f5.6 (wide open) in say, a rainforest where light is at a premium. I'm lucky to have 2 temperate rainforests not too far from me here in Brisbane - O'Reilly's resort and Maiala at D'Aguilar National Park. In both cases, I'm shooting at 1/400 (the lowest shutter speed I'll go with this lens as the IS tech back in 1998 when the lens was released was still in its infancy and it's only worth ~2 stops imho, unlike modern lenses) and f5.6 to limit ISO (and I'm still shooting between ISO 10000 to 12800, and in a few cases, even ISO 25600. Thankfully the R3 has superb DR and high ISO performance, easily the best camera on the market for the latter category (it loses out to the A1 ever so slightly for DR imho). Your R5 will probably be ~1 stop worse, perhaps 3/4 stop. My typical workflow starts with DXO Pure RAW (v2, can't justify the price upgrading to v3 to be entirely honest). If you don't own DXO v2, then jumping to v3 is perfectly fine as it is better than v2. I then adjust my exposure, whites and blacks, before moving to masking and making further adjustments there. I also do a rudimentary WB in Lightroom. I've found that Jan Wegener is right - getting WB right helps to "sharpen" the image. I think it is a pseudo sharpening, with the WB adjustment changes the micro contrast in the image(s) and make edges appear sharper. Again, ymmv and I may be wrong in my interpretation of WB changing sharpness perception. front lit light will always result in better DR and will always assist better AF performance imho. Sure, you can rescue a back lit shot, but it's much harder to balance exposure and shadows imho. Why make life harder for yourself in PP? I'm certainly no pro, I've only been into birding photography for ~18 months. I do push myself very hard though - it's the only way to improve.
@@davepastern really appreciate you sharing your preferred settings, approach and workflow Dave. The 500mm f4 is a fantastic lens for sure, and a prime will always beat a zoom for IQ hands down. My dream would be to get a 600mm f4 one day, but I suspect by then, advancements in zooms will be so great that I might not need it! I've been keeping my eye on the expected 200-500mm f4, but I think it'll cost an arm and leg...we'll see. It sounds like you have a vast array of birdlife close to you Dave - lucky you and certainly make the most of it! I have both DXO v3 and Topaz and have just tended to prefer the latter as I can fine-tune my denoise settings. Each to their own of course. Agree front lit will always be better than back lit in terms of IQ, but back lit can lend itself to a more creative photo if that's the objective. Good on you for really committing yourself to improving your bird photography - it's such a joyful art. Do you share your images on any platforms, including Birdlife Photography Australia? If not, I highly recommend considering doing so - great organisation of like minded people who care about protecting birds and sharing photos of them. Have a great weekend! 👍📸
@@ValerieMisaPhotography 200-500 too short for birding imho. And it'll be a heavy beast. If you look at a 600f4, go with the mark 2, not the mark 3 (mark 2 is optically superior to the mark 3). RF600f4 has better AF but is also, imho, optically inferior to the mark 2 EF version. ymmv. Any big White prime is superb. The problem with the mark 1 500f4 that I have is that it is now very old and if something goes wrong, no spare parts to fix. Also, it only has 80% DPAF coverage, and fps burst speed is down from 30fps of the R3 to ONLY 14fps. I'm not a typical spray and pray shooter, so the latter doesn't bother me, but losing 100% DPAF can be a real nuisance sometimes. The mark 2 lenses (500f4 and 600f4) both have dual AF motors (vs a single older style AF motor in the mark 1 units that they replace) and they also work better with the mark 3 1.4x TC (which also has an AF chip in it to better work with the mark2 primes). DXO has just released the v4 version of DXO Pure RAW. I haven't upgraded (money is at a real premium right now due to job problems and a severe lack of income due to a crappy employer). v4 lets you adjust the luminance noise removal strength, has a preview option now, and you can also adjust the amount of sharpening and detail retrieval too. When I have the money, I'll upgrade from v2 to v4. Topaz Photo AI suite gives you more adjustment than just Topaz Denoise AI, which is what I also use. I only really use Topaz if the image is really noisy (i.e. I've shot at ISO25600 in the rainforest) and it's my last step in Photoshop before resizing the image to JPG for web. I'm on the "Birdlife Australian raptor group"; "Birds of prey (Australian and NZ)" and "Brisbane Birds" Facebook groups. I also have my own website, which I designed with Adobe Portfolio (excellent WYSIWYG website designer tool, plus free hosting and I can integrate Google Analytics too!). Sadly, the merchant side of Adobe Portfolio is really lacking (i.e. non-existent) and you can't export your website design (I think Squarespace and WIX etc are better long term options, but they are costly and any website that you design is non-portable). I could create my own website, but it would be html v5 only, non JS or CSS as my poor old head hasn't adapted to those newer coding techs very well and I find them confusing. I dislike PHP at the best of times (far too many security issues and web server performance issues imho). I do have my own website w w w davepastern dot com. Feel free to check it out. As I said, I'm a newbie, and really still learning a lot. i get a few decent images here and there, but my hit rate isn't great and my IQ is hit and miss imho. I'm still working on my digital PP workflows too, although they have mostly stabilised now into a certain routine that seemingly works well for most images.
Hi Valerie, wow what an eventful few months! Thanks for the tips, all much needed 🙂 An important thing I learned after some semi rushed wildlife photography, is to use a shallower depth of field for better subject separation from a busy background. Because I usually try to get everything in focus for landscapes, I forgot to change tack for wildlife and introduce some bokeh for the background. (then did some slight artificial blurring in post 😁) Hope you enjoy your bird photography when time is limited for outings! Just wanted to give you props for your video editing and storytelling, YT viewers don't always realise how much time goes into good video production, videos don't automatically make themselves! I think you have a great talent for creating engaging stories with a good balance and timing of narrative, music and visuals🙂Keep well!
Hello Pieter, always lovely to hear from you and many thanks for your comments and feedback 😊🙏 Good point on the shallow depth of field and I always love a nice bokeh! Keen to hear your thoughts on parts of the subject being out of focus/not sharp (not the eye of course). Personally, I like the natural transition in sharpness, but understand not everyone does. Thanks for appreciating the work that goes into the videos - there's a fair bit involved and it's continually a learning experience. But it is enjoyable and the connections and interactions like these make it all worthwhile. Have a fab weekend! 🙂☀️📸
Hi Valerie, I think both can work well: the whole subject being in focus or a gradual transition to blur. I've done both with macro photography and was happy with both, the one was just a bit more "arty" 😊 Loved the green areas with the warm light in this video, very dry here in Qld at the moment.. Need to get some jacaranda shots while the city is still full of purple!
@@photonspark hopefully you got your jacaranda shots Pieter 🙂 With the end of La Nina, we might not see so much lush greenery around for much longer and will be in for some hot and dry seasons ☹️ Have a great week ahead.
Hello Marshall 😊 I hope all is well with you and thanks so much for comments and support - it's always so nice hearing from you 🙏 I'm glad you enjoyed this one, a little change from landscapes for me. And you've made a change to, focusing more on street photography these days? Beautiful photos Marshall, I'm really enjoying it! Keep sharing and take it easy 😊👍📸
Wooohoo, so glad to have you back Valerie!!!!😀. Great timing on the video, as I was out this morning shooting wildlife and it’s awesome to hear you reaffirm the techniques I’m using👍🏻. Glad you are well and looking forward to your next video!!!!
😅 thanks heaps for the warm welcome back Barry! 🙏 I hope all has been well with you. You've been capturing wildlife longer than I have, so it's good to know I'm on the right track! Hope you had a good session yesterday and enjoy your week ahead 🙂
Hi Valerie you have been greatly missed!!! I'm a photographer that shoots what ever is in front of me! So I shoot landscapes, bird and wildlife, as well as macro!!! So I normally have two camera body's with me, one for fast action and the other for landscape!!! Sharp images is very important to me, heat haze is a killer!!! Especially if you can't close to your subject!!! Great video my friend, I love listening to you talk!!! I'm waiting for your next amazing adventure!!!👍👍👍
Hello Marvin 👋 I hope you've been staying well and I really appreciate your warm welcome back and support 😊🙏 I think I'm very similar to you - I really do enjoy shooting whatever's in front of me! It's great to mix things up and the challenges of each genre keeps the interesting. Although I don't know if I can keep up with always having 2 camera bodies 😄 Can I ask what you use and why? Always great hearing from you and hopefully the next adventure isn't too far away! Take care 🙂👍📸
Hi Valerie. Really enjoyed your video, as usual. Just out of curiosity, did you sell your Fuji X-H2 and lenses? Also, did you consider an X-H2S, or did you just figure that you'd experience the same autofocus issues? I was also tempted by the R5, especially with the common $500 discounts, but didn't want to get into large, heavy lenses, as in my retired Nikon D750. I also don't have your beautiful nature environments at a reasonable distance, so I unfortunately can't just get out there and shoot the beautiful variety of animals and birds that I so much enjoy captured in your pictures and videos. Can't wait for your next posting!
Hello Paula, hope you've been well and thanks for your comments 🙏😊 Yes, unfortunately I did have to sell my most of my Fuji gear to fund my R5 and Canon lenses. I did think about the XH2S but didn't think the AF would improve enough, especially when compared to eg Canon, and the low light performance was my other main concern. But it was a hard decision because as you've noted, everything is now heavier and more $$$ - one of the reasons I chose Fujifilm in the first place! Having accessible locations to capture what we love is always a challenge isn't it? Hopefully you keep finding opportunities to get away when you can, and in the meantime, just shoot whatever's in front of you! 😅 Stay well, and have a great weekend , hopefully with some 📸👍
Excellent gear choice in my opinion & with your lens choice is more than capable of producing very sharp images. Canon R5 is still one of the best bang for the $$$$. Photos are just a plus providing the memories of the time spent in nature. Enjoy your new gear & hoping you get more time to do so.
Always great to hear from you Thomas and I hope you've been well 🙏 Couldn't agree more that we've got to love being out in nature first, regardless of whatever photos we take. Did I mention that thanks to your Pangolin tip, I'm now a huge fan of their channel and love their approach so much that I'll be joining them on one of their safaris? Really appreciate it Thomas! Enjoy your week ahead 🙂👍
It's great to see you back. Great job as usual. My only problem is that you have gone to the dark side becoming a Canon user. LOL Sorry, I'm a Nikon user. But in all honesty, a great video !
Really appreciate the warm welcome back Mark and I hope you've been well! 🙏 😅 Is it equally as dark as Sony? I was also seriously contemplating Nikon - they've done amazing work with their recent range of cameras and lenses, and they're so well priced too. Always appreciate your comments and keep enjoying your photography on the light side! 😄👍📸
I love the Canon system! I use mine with dual-back button autofocus with one set for static subjects and the other is set for birds in flight. I know that you will enjoy that system. (Mine is the 7D ii)
Great to know that you're a Canon fan and also use dual back button focusing 🙂 I have a similar setup, but have an added button, so that makes it triple BBF 😁 I admire those who shoot BIF with DSLR cameras like yourself, because your tracking and panning skills would be top notch - I don't think I could keep up if I had to do it without animal tracking! Thanks for your comments 🙏
Thanks a lot Brett and I hope you've been well 🙂🙏 Haha I still have my XT4, so a foot in both camps 😉 Hopefully you won't boot me from our photogroup on that basis and we can catch up again soon?! 🤞📸
@@ValerieMisaPhotography the R5 is a great camera. Especially for the wildlife side of photography. Everyone I know who owns one, loves it! And the list is getting longer all the time. I will get around to setting up a time to meet. Like you I’ve been super busy. Chat soon. 😊
You’re back! So nice to see you again, Valerie. As you probably know, the 100-500 is my favourite lens for landscapes. Luckily, it’s also a pretty handy wildlife lens - especially on something like the R7 crop sensor camera. You’ve shared some brilliant tips and gorgeous images in this video. Awesome work. 👍💙
Hello Peter 👋 always appreciate your support and thanks for the welcome back 🙏💙 I thought I saw that lens on your most recent video thumbnail (which I will get around to watching!) I can see why it's so versatile, and interesting that it's your fave for landscapes? Hope you and the family are well and you're finding time for your passions! 👍📸🏎️
@@ValerieMisaPhotography Yeah, I always seem to get my best landscape shots with that lens. Sadly, very little time for shooting lately (my most recent video was shot in March!), but hoping I can free up more time next year. 😄
Really, has it been that long for you Peter?! Hopefully you're still getting quality "me" time in other ways, and I hope you get some sort of photography fix soon 🤞📸 Take it easy 🙂
@@ValerieMisaPhotography No, I’ve been out a few times since then, but that’s the first pure photography video I’ve had time to edit in ages! I think I need to retire so I can just do this thing full time. I bloody love it!
Hi Valerie, thank you for another great video! I can certainly relate to the noise of life and having a very busy, time-consuming and mentally consuming job. I feel like I missed most of the peak conditions of autumn in my local area because of this. I went almost a whole month without taking any photos with my camera. I’m finally back at it. I really needed this video. As usual, you always seem to make a video about a subject that I’m struggling with, when I need to see it. I primarily shoot landscapes but also love wildlife photography and have such a hard time consistently nailing the sharp focus on birds in flight. It’s usually the shutter speed that gets me due to low light. I think I probably worry too much about pushing the ISO because I know that my camera can handle a really high ISO but I’m overly cautious about it. Do you ever use a gimble? I have one but often find it to be too cumbersome to use but I’m guessing I just need to practice with it more often. Im going to go out and practice with the tips that you gave and hope I come back with some sharp photos of birds.
Hello Sharyl, it's so nice to hear from you and I hope you've been keeping well! 😊 We're in similar professions and I'm glad we can empathize with each other - it can be such a tough slog and leave us with no energy or bandwidth for anything else. I'm sorry to hear that you had to sit it out for a whole month...that would have been really hard, especially with the gorgeous fall colours around you! I'm glad you've managed to get back out there and got yourself some beautiful fall landscape photos though! I think getting sharp BIFs will constantly be a challenge for most of us. We might nail a few, but miss a lot! But that's all part of the fun and allure and I know that you'll keep at it and keep relishing your time out in nature, away from your desk 😉 I do have a gimbal and totally echo your thoughts about how cumbersome it is to use. I've not used it as much as I thought I would and often prefer to handhold. As I like to also film video, I've recently decided to switch to a fluid head instead. I think it offers the best of both worlds for stills and video, so am looking forward to using it more. Always appreciate your comments Sharyl, and it's good to know this video has been somewhat helpful 🙏 I hope your week is off to a good start, and that you'll get to enjoy the rest of your fall and summer with 📸 in hand! 🙂👍
I’ve done the samething Valery: from landscape to birdphotography. And it seem such small stap to do both. Obvias they are very related. Sinds i’ve started only the other day. Your tips are very welcom. I am glad you’v made this dissision. Thnx.
Hi Paulus, I agree that there are a lot of similarities between the two genres. Many wildlife photographers started with landscapes. Although, I'm not fully switching - I enjoy capturing whatever's in front of me and whatever I get a chance to do more of! Having to travel further for landscapes is a little difficult. I hope you're enjoying your wildlife photography and thanks for your comments 🙏🙂📸
hello, if I may, I would suggest you to use set up the back button of your R5 to the eye recognition. doing that the camera will try to focus more on the head (and the eye) of the animal. This is one of the first setting I fix on my both cameras (R5 and R6 mk2)
Hi Michele, many thanks for your comments and suggestion 🙏 It's good to know that you're also a fan of back button focusing 🙂 Have you considered double or even triple back button focus? I've the found triple button setup handy so far: my "AF-On" turns on animal eye tracking (as needed), my * button turns on spot AF (which is my default and helps when animal tracking isn't playing ball), and the far right button turns on zone (sometimes for BIF). However, the animal tracking usually sticks pretty well 🙂👍📸
Hi Valerie, I use only 2 back buttons for the autofocus (eye detection and spot) for both cameras. I also prefer to use the R5 for bigger and more static animals, for the faster and smaller animals I prefer the R6 mk2, which has faster and more accurate autofocus (and also faster frame rate)
@@ValerieMisaPhotography I really hope too... those are my wishes: faster autofocus (hopefully BSI and stacked). Higher frame rate... option to have more color bit (16 would be nice)
Hey Valerie, good to see you posting again. I fully understand the struggle to get out to shoot, edit, and put together an episode with work and life monopolizing so much of your time. Kudos to you for not stopping. I hope you are enjoying the R5 as much as I have been. Although I don’t photograph wildlife so much, the autofocus is excellent when I do. Is that the main reason for your switching camera systems?
Heya Shaun 👋 It's great to be back and I know you understand the grind it can become. Finding time and energy can be so challenging, but where there's a will, there's eventually a way! Keep at it 👍 I am loving the R5 so far - a fab camera and very hard to fault. Your experience too? Yes, the fantastic AF and ISO performance were my main reasons for switching. AF's not perfect, but quite a big step up from the XH2, and the low light performance of FF has been amazing. Looking forward to using it for landscapes too. Always appreciate your comments and enjoy the week ahead 🙏🙂👍
@@ValerieMisaPhotography I am definitely happy with my R5 as well. I have been using it for scenery video shots as well as my stills. It has such a beautiful cinematic quality that my M50ii vlogging camera simply can’t. I’ve had some issues with long exposures and dropped pixels, which is disconcerting. But overall, a great camera.
@@shaunkeenanphoto hmm, that doesn't sound normal Shaun and maybe worth looking into. I've got a few vids of yours to catch up on... Good thing the weather's looking terrible this weekend 😄
