Down by the river...

...with the k20d and 50-200mm lens.

Black headed gull


A small flotilla of mallards.


A pair of swans


And a very shy chaffinch!



All quite cropped - I think I should have gone for the 50-300mm!

The swans really stand out here ! Great moment well caught. The wider angle has let your whites blow out a bit, so probably needed to adjust EC for that (compare with your first one, the tighter crop, where the metering has produced a lower exposure).

I think the main problem is the fact that most of the frames have a lot of (highly reflective) water in them. Guaranteed to confuse any exposure meter. Except possibly a Weston Master with the invercone in place. Anyone old enough to remember them?

Anyway, a slightly earlier picture of the two swans - where he's chatting her up - with less blown-out whites.

Thats really nice as well !Great how he's looking around towards you. Has those good reflections too I may not be old enough to remember that meter .....

Not only old enough to remember - I still have one that works as well now as it did 30 years ago - although it rarely sees any light these days!

Carl

I'm not sure we can blame the tools in this case

If the metering is being confused by the water reflections that means you will get darker images and less problems with blown highlights on the swans. Granted an incident meter isn't going to be confused by the reflections but then you are going to get a normal exposure and the swan will be even more blown out.

The real problem is the dynamic range of the image and the inadvertent but accidentally correct underexposure caused by the water reflections isn't sufficient to put the swan fully within the available DR. What is needed is a tad more deliberate underexposure to keep all that detail in the white feathers. Swan's aren't easy to photograph

They may well be hard to photograph but the final one is the best of the lot IMHO. The first one where they are canoodling is a standard (but nice) swan pose. The other one is telling a story - big time.

And Yes, I still have a Weston with its invercone and it works a treat. It cost an arm and a leg way back then.

I do remember the Weston meter and invercone but have never owned one. If you don't have an incident lightmeter, the best way to meter that shot is probably to take a reading off the palm of your hand (in the same light as the swans) using your camera set to spot metering and manual exposure - and then open up one stop. Alternatively, you could spot meter off the brightest part of the swan and open up two stops.

I have just checked the EXIF data for the swan shot. It was taken at F/9.5 1/750 ISO100 - which suggests that the camera was on full auto. It is about 1 full stop down on the Sunny 16 rule. Ignoring the camera metering and shooting at f/16 1/100sec ISO100 (or equivalent) would probably have worked out fine too.

Andrew

We're getting dangerously close to that splendidly divisive topic, the zone system.

Back in the days of my first SLR (a Zenit 3m with the f3.5 Industar!), I used a cheap Boots exposure meter - a selenium cell one. By coincidence, my grey school trousers just happened to be just the right shade that I could take a reading off them and it would be spot on.

True, however...

First, I am still getting used to the 'new' beast, so I want to get the feel for the Auto setting prior to branching out into the murky waters of manual.

Second, I prefer a fast shutter speed especially at the longer end of the range. It's a heavy beast and I'm not as young as I was.

Finally, when trying to follow fast moving (relatively) birds etc, one doesn't have time to faff around too much.

But thanks for your advice.

I think you might have overlooked "or equivalent". Shooting at f/8 1/500sec ISO100 is equivalent. Personally, I find shooting manual is way less faffing about - you do not have to reshoot when the automatics get it wrong, which in my experience is most of the time.

Andrew

Oops! Gotcha.

First thing I need to do is get really comfortable with the controls - I do miss the simplicity of my old MX - and that comes with use.