Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/80 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
I posted the other day about the wet and scruffy birds that I fed on a stormy day earlier this week. I'd not gotten any pictures until after the storm, when they'd started to dry off, so they didn't look as wet and messy in the pictures as they had during the storm.
Well, yesterday was another storm and another day of working with the laptop on the veranda, but this time I brought out the camera during the storm, and although it was quite dark and gloomy (it was a thunderstorm, after all), I got some scruffy-wet bird pictures.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
I had a difficult time trying to get a good shot, not only due to the lack of light, but because I was using a new monopod and a new focusing screen on my camera, and was not yet used to either. Those are among the camera toys I'm stocking up on this trip that I plan to write about soon (having started the “camera toys” series with my post the other day about a new GPS unit).
‘Every picture tells a story’ – these certainly do!
Shall be interested to hear, in due course, how you get on with the monopod, but these results must encourage you.
Peter
Now you are morally obligated to take a picture of that poor fellow all preened and dry and handsome to post on your blog. He’s got his pride, you know!
Jeffrey, nice blog, nice shoots. A question though: since you have switched to 17-55 f/2.8 lens, many of your pictures are at f/2.8 and 1/160 or some such whereby: (1) depth of field seems to be a bit shallow and (2) ISO seems to be surprisingly high (> 400), like 800, 640 etc., for the aperture as large. Are you shooting in shutter priority mode? If so, have you achieved what you needed with the switch to Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 from 18-200 3.5-5.6? The latter would easily give you f/4.5 @ 1/80 (and ISO around 400, perhaps) and considering its VR, would your shoots be sharper?
I generally shoot in aperture-priority mode because depth-of-field is always on my mind. Often, I need to bump up the ISO to allow me a fast enough shutter speed. In my case, “fast enough” refers not to subject motion, but to my own lack of skill in holding the camera steady (because I’m concentrating on depth of field instead of my shutter speed 🙂 )
I’d certainly love VR, and would replace my 17-55/2.8 with a VR version the day Nikon came out with one, but I appreciate the depth of field and speed of a 2.8 too much to switch back to the 18-200 for general use. I now have a good tripod and monopod, so I hope getting used to them will help with my overall image quality, but by far the best thing for my pictures will be more skill, which I have yet to acquire. As I get better, hopefully, I’ll be able to lower the ISO yet increase the quality. We’ll see. —Jeffrey