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badgers 22-9-2016

Landscapes,portraits,sports - anything really as long as it's not offensive.
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andygolfer
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badgers 22-9-2016

Post by andygolfer » Fri Sep 23, 2016 11:43 am

I went to a friend's garden last evening as he gets regular nightly visits from badgers. I only had to wait 10 minutes to see the first one and for a while there were 2 feeding om monkey nuts and other scraps of food - peanut butter on bread seems to be a favourite!

I got several photos but they are far from sharp so any advice on how to improve next time. I was using flash which didn't bother them much and although he had low power lights on they were barely visible in the view finder so I zoomed out to make sure I caught them. I was using flash and ISO around 1250 and used TV at 250th second (the flash didn't seem to allow me to go faster than that) I would have preferred faster and compensated by going a bit higher with the ISO. The first few were rubbish, totally out of focus then I switched to manual focus which made a vast improvement (these pics) but they aren't sharp.

i'm trying to work out if it's
A: movement (I know that animals and particularly birds move imperceptibly and in daylight I try to work at around 1/1000th)
B I think a bit of the problem might be that the manual focus wasn't spot on and working at F 5.6ish gave a shallow depth of field - they were only about 15 to 20 feet away.
C: insufficient flash power thus slowing down the speed or lowering the F no. even more. I only used the built in flash rather than my external 430EX (I was worried that might be too bright for them)
The grass in front looks sharp but that could be due to either A or B so I'm puzzled

so any offers please on how to improve next time?

Imagebadger 22-9-2016 0280 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

Imagebadger 22-9-2016 0281 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

Imagebadger 22-9-2016 0284 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

Imagebadger 22-9-2016 0286 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

hope you enjoy the pics anyway C&C which solves my puzzle most welcome, thanks
Andy
Andygolfer (or at least I was once), now just plane crazy

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LondonEye
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Re: badgers 22-9-2016

Post by LondonEye » Fri Sep 23, 2016 6:21 pm

Sorry, cannot help with camera advice. I enjoyed looking at these, as I do with the other wildlife pictures posted.
The best we can manage in London is Foxes and squirrels.
Thanks
Pete

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PorkScratching
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Re: badgers 22-9-2016

Post by PorkScratching » Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:20 pm

andygolfer wrote:I went to a friend's garden last evening as he gets regular nightly visits from badgers. I only had to wait 10 minutes to see the first one and for a while there were 2 feeding om monkey nuts and other scraps of food - peanut butter on bread seems to be a favourite!
Magical seeing them isn't it? We were lucky to see and photograph some at a B&B we stayed at for RIAT one year.
andygolfer wrote:A: movement (I know that animals and particularly birds move imperceptibly and in daylight I try to work at around 1/1000th)
It's not this. Although the shutter speed would only go up to 1/250th with flash armed, the flash itself is supplying almost all the light for the exposure and is very short duration, so will freeze the action for you whatever shutter speed you choose. As an aside, the 1/250th max is a common maximum value with flash due to what's called flash sync speed - the fastest shutter speed at which the second shutter curtain hasn't started to move as the first one finishes (I won't go into detail here but you can look it up if you want to know more!)
andygolfer wrote:B I think a bit of the problem might be that the manual focus wasn't spot on and working at F 5.6ish gave a shallow depth of field - they were only about 15 to 20 feet away.
Focus is definitely the problem, made worse (as you suspect) by the shallow depth of field at f/5.6. You can use AF with AF beam assist from the flashgun or camera - but it tends to scare wildlife so isn't always practical! Therefore manual focus is usually the best option. You then often have the problem you had of it being so dark it's hard to get it spot on. You can try to pre-focus before they get there, but that doesn't give you chance to refocus as they move around. Perhaps try shining a torch at or near them when they're feeding so you can set the focus (actually you might find the AF will get a lock). If the torch isn't too bright and you gradually move it towards them it might well work. Also try f/8 or even f/11 and a higher ISO to compensate - it is darkness so nobody can complain about the higher noise if they're in focus! I use manual mode and set 1/250th and f/8 or f/11 when I try this kind of thing (not that I have for a while - my badger shots were on film!).
andygolfer wrote:I only used the built in flash rather than my external 430EX (I was worried that might be too bright for them)
Well, they don't seem bothered by the built-in flash, so give the flashgun a try next time - it's much brighter as you know, so should help with being able to set f/11 or so without having to increase the ISO too much (or at all).

It's a good first attempt, and being a friend's house I guess you can carry on trying and improving!

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