Game Farm Series

[SX3]

Here's a few shots of my brothers 10 month old yellow lab at a sw metro game farm last Saturday.

These were taken with a 40D and a 70-200L 2.8/IS lens. I'm just getting into this. Any help would be appreciated.

I spent most of the afternoon in manual mode, iso 200, f8-f11, and IS off.

[HawgMan]

Nice shots!

[finnbay]

Looks to me like you're doin' pretty well! Great series!

[311Hemi]

SX3, you got some great shots. I am shooting that same lens and got some images from a training day we held at a game farm two weekends ago that I posted (I think they are on the next page). I found my shots were very similar to yours although it looks like you were a good distance closer to your subjects.

With that said, and because you asked for help I am very interested what others have to say and I would like to hear some feedback as I certainly thinks is valuable info going forward.

To me:

#1: Nice close in shot, but "I think" is a bit out of focus. I would be interested to hear what setting could have been made (if any) to make it sharper. I guess to me it seems to be a focus issue. I would also guess a faster shutter speed would have made the wings sharper depending on what you were going for in the image.

#2: Good shot that to my eye seems pretty sharp. Not sure if the contrast could be helped a little or if it's a little overexposed. Curious what others would think.

#3: Again looks like a pretty sharp image, but the colors seem a little lacking. I think post processing could help with that but I would be interested in knowing if any settings could help with that?

#4: This image seems a bit overexposed? Again, would like to hear what you could have done differently.

#5: I like it! I think post processing might help with the saturation to get a little more color....but it may be fine just how it is.

Overall, great shots. I am just getting in to photography so these are my "rookie" thoughts. I know there are some here that can explain what they may do differently to make these images even better (either during the shot or post processing them) and I think that info is very valuable if that's what your looking for.

[mmeyer]

Those are some great shots. I love the action that you were able to capture. The middle 3 might be overexposed in the snow but you could probably bring it down a little in post processing. I think a little sharpening could help these as well. Great captures though. I would be very happy with them if they were mine.

Welcome to the board by the way.

[Steve Foss]

SX, welcome to the photo board and to HSO/FM. Great to have you here!

Looks like you're doing pretty darn good. Manual exposure is a great way to go in steady lighting conditions, which is what you have here.

Nice shots, I'd say. If you shot in RAW, you can recover the blown snow highlights. They're not blown too badly. I've purposely overexposed enough to blow the highlights by 1.5 stops before in order to get very little noise in the shadows, and I've been able to use the exposure slider in Photoshop's RAW preview screen to get all the highlights back.

Keep shooting, and keep sharing.

[dukhnt]

I really like the dog chasing and catching the rooster series. Welcome to the forum.

[MN Shutterbug]

Nice series. Taking the pictures is probably just an enjoyable as gunning them. They really tell a story.

[SX3]

Thanks all for the comments and feedback.

It was just as much fun hunting with the camera. Any tips for metering the second shot from above? I was metering off the the snow and increasing the exposure. Should I have been metering off the blue sky?

Here are a few more photos.

[Steve Foss]

When I'm in manual mode and want to dial in my settings (again, this manual mode thing only works really well with consistent light), I take an image of the snow, adjusting exposure until it's just short of being blown out. I start in Av mode and use EC to do this, then adopt those settings in manual mode and tweak from there.

If my subjects are going to be very dark against the snow, I'll actually set exposure so the brightest parts of the snow are blown out a bit. That exposes the shadows/darks as brightly as possible, and I can recover the blown highlights in the Photoshop preview screen.

And I continue to check the histogram after each burst to confirm that things are just right. I don't care if the image looks washed out on the LCD (often it does), I care that the historgram is as far right as I can get it without causing too much blowout.

[Dbl]

Nice group of photos, especially the last four! I opened a few in CS4 and they are just slightly overexposed but nothing that couldn't be tweaked.

I use a slightly different procedure for metering these in manual, stems from years of shooting film but works very well in the digital age. I take a meter reading off my hand (very close to a 12% to 18% grey card) held out in front of me facing the same direction as I will be shooting. This can be done in manual or Av, doesn't really matter, doesn't need to be in focus, just center up your meter. I then normally take one shot and check the histogram to make sure it looks like Steve mentioned above. One maybe two shots will hit it right on the head. Constantly check your histogram to make sure you are getting what you want exposure wise. That is one of the most common mistakes made, a lot of poorly exposed shots could be prevented by checking your exposures!

Great start on these shots.

[buzzsaw]

Fun series, I've done this for some customers and they were really happy with the results. I think people really appreciate their efforts being recorded.

[mrfish1991]

way to go on the pics...and i see that they also made the StarTrib site in the outdoor section

[SX3]

Thanks guys for sharing all your great techniques and info! I look forward to getting out and trying them soon.

Mrfish, My brother posted the picture on the star trib site.

[JayinMN]

Nice shots, I have a 11 month old yellow female. The game farm must have been heaven for him.