Indian Peacock

[Ashok Sorout]

Spotted this dancing bird during Ranthambore National park safari.

EXIF- Camera Canon 7D, 100-400 mm at 400 mm, 22meters away, f5.6, 1/640, ISO 3200 (Auto), Hand held. Exposure AV priority mode.

Taken in the early morning during low light conditions, I think thats why camera selected high ISO.

No cropping done.

[Bhargava Srivari]

It is always good to use Av mode, where you get to dictate the settings :) In this case, ISO 1600 would have given you a shutter speed of 1/320sec thereby still having room for f7.1, if you were using a bean bag for support.

tfs

[Ashok Sorout]

Hi Bhargava, during the shooting it always looks fine but when I download the pictures find them not very sharp, Pl suggest how and what are the parameters to be verified during the click, I was 22 meters away from this peacock. What are the things if image is under exposed or over exposed, inview finder it always looks good because except AV rest are set by camera.

[Mrudul Godbole]

A slight wider composition would have been good to include the feather tips and also the legs. Since you were using the 100-400mm Lens, you could have zoomed out a bit more. Agree with Bhargava a lower ISO would have sufficed. You need to have good hand holding techniques to get sharp images or use a bean bag or a tripod. Also check the histogram to see if the image is over or under exposed and then correct the settings accordingly. Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Check your camera settings. The highlight warning should be on so that whenever you overexpose the highlights, it should blink while previewing the image. Also, keep an eye on the histogram.

I am not in favour of using very high ISOs, except when it is a must. You need to see how much depth of field is required and then decide whether to go for f5.6 or f8 etc.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Bhargava Srivari]

Histogram helps a lot on deciding the exposure compensation. See the histogram (it is best to shoot with the info available at first glance- for this you will need to press the info button when viewing images). It is better to shoot in such a way that the histogram curve is sitting in between both the corners (left and right) such that more of the curve is into the second half of the histogram box.

Also, the exif data we post while sharing images- f value, shutter speed, ISO, EV impact the quality of the end image most, so you need to monitor all these settings while shooting :)