Black Kite

[Prem Sagar]

Hi,
One more shot of the black kite here. Critique pls.

Nikon D90
Focal Length: 185.0 mm
Shutter speed: 1/999 sec.
ISO: 1250
Metering: Matrix
Exposure Program: Aperture priority
White balance : auto
Software: GIMP 2.6.1

It was early in the morning and the light was not that great. I increased ISO to 1250. I would like to know your comments about the max ISO you use. This image is a crop. I obviously didnt do a good job of focussing fully (only 185mm) and had to depend on crop to get the right framing.

Also would like to know what white balance / metering mode you would have chosen (I used auto / matrix) for the above picture.

Cheers,
Prem

[Bibhav Behera]

woahhh ISO 1250 is pretty high for the D90 to give decent results. i would keep it max to 400. How did you get 1/999 as your shutter speed ? :)

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Looks to be a big crop. Why did you use only 185mm? I think the high ISO was unnecessary. I have seen some very clean files from D3 at ISO 1000. I have heard D300 is good as well. Harshad or Mital can comment about the high ISO files of D300. I have heard that D90 is not as good as D300 as the noise reduction blurs away details.

The top and bottom of the frame is too close to the bird and needs more space.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

Hi Prem,

Nice eye level photograph. Agree with Bibhav about the ISO, around 400 should be ok to avoid more noise. Higher than that usually makes it difficult to get sharp photographs. Try using full ISO like 100, 200, 300 than intermideate ISO like 250,320..etc.
Some more room in the frame will add to the composition.

Keep posting..

[Prem Sagar]

Thanks all of you for the wonderful comments.

Great to know about the mistakes I have done.. it certainly helps me a ton.

@bibhav I used Linux image properties tab to fetch the info.. the shutter speed was 1/1000 but is shown as 1/999. Just copy pasted it.

Cheers
Prem