Exposure compensation ?

[Steelhant]

Watched your video, always very helpful. Just one question...On a nice day shooting birds in flight I always seem to be plus 1 or more on exposure compensation, wings under bird always dark unless there snow that helps a lot or a bright ground cover and then you tend to blow out the highlights. I've tried both matrix and spot metering any tricks here ?

Thank you,
Chuck

 

[Warren D]

I have the same issue with flying osprey, a darkish bird with white parts that just love to blow out. Full manual seems to be the best solution keeping the highlights just under blow out. Works as long as the light is consistent.

 

[Steve]

What you're running into is less of a metering issue and more of a dynamic range issue.

First, totally normal to need +1 (or more) against a bright sky (dark blue usually doesn't need anything, but the lighter the sky - or if there are clouds - the more positive compensation needed). As Warren says, if the light is even sometimes manual is a good choice.

The bigger issue though is that in the middle of the day you have a high contrast range between the shadows and highlights. It's why I usually don't shoot in the middle of the day - I don't like the hard, overhead light. Still, the best way to mitigate is to expose so your highlights are just short of clipping BUT keep your ISO as low as possible. And shoot RAW.

When you're back home, if the ISO wasn't too crazy, you should be able to pull the shadows up and not have them get too noisy.

Still, the better trick is to shoot earlier and later in the day - afternoons are for naps

 

[Steelhant]

Thank you for the response...I have been shooting manual , auto iso and raw, maybe just try manual iso ! No nap for me lol....Rough -legged Hawks like daytime flying !

Thanks again ,
Chuck