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Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

Yellow-throated Scrubwren

Photographed by

Helen Leonard on Tue 8th Feb, 2022 and uploaded on Thu 5th May, 2022 .

Resolution

1400x1051

Viewed

277

51434

Comment

I realise that this image was accidently taken in low light with a very low ISO setting, I am not sure how it happened but the setting was at ISO64, next stop to Auto ISO on my camera so maybe I was just careless in setting the ISO to auto. I had been trying a few settings to get an exposure with as little noise as possible. I would appreciate comments on how people set their ISO when in a low light as in this rainforest setting without resorting to flash. Also this is not a cropped image but would the image be improved if there was more space around it.

Equipment

Olympus E-M1-MarkII with Olympus 300 mm prime lens and 1.4x extender ISO64 Exposure 1/13 sec hand held.

Location

Mary Caincross Scenic Reserve, Queensland

This image is not available for download.

Graham Gall	2022-05-09 17:43:15	Hi Helen Good effort! I am an Olympus shooter and can add some value for you. To be honest now with the denoise software we have (DXOPure Raw and Topaz denoise) we don't really worry about setting ISO low any longer. If you are shooting Raw I suggest you lift your ISO in darker locations like this and not worry too much. Just denoise then in post. On your Olympus body you can safely go to ISO1600 and still have very little noise anyway. If you are not shooting Raw then I suggest you start doing so and you will never look back. So in summary the answer to your question is we set our ISO as high as we need to to get the shot properly exposed or to get our shutter speed where we want it for freezing action. However many of us use fill flash in Rainforest environments like this. So long as it is not overly frequent on the one bird on the one occasion it is quite acceptable. The bigger issue with this image to be honest is sharpness. None of the bird is actually sharp sorry. Try to focus on the eye. If it was sharp this image could be rescued quite well exposure-wise in post. Your crop is fine. Hope this is helpful and happy to answer any further queries - regards. Graham
Helen Leonard	2022-05-09 21:49:30	Thanks Graham. I do shoot in raw and I do now have Topaz Denoise so I can follow your advice and up the ISO and adjust in processing for noise. I think with increased shutter speed it might well have been sharper as I would have had a clearer image to see through the lens as I took it. When you are using flash do you have the flash on a reduced power setting. I do have a small Olympus flash but have not used it on wildlife so will have to give it a go. Thank you for your quick and helpful response.
Graham Gall	2022-05-10 07:44:07	Hi Helen - great then you will be fine. yes use your Olympus kit flash - they are excellent if the bird is reasonably close but its surprising how far they throw - perhaps even up to 5 metres or so. And yes always set mine on minus 3! I promise you great results. Also use it when you have a really bright sky behind a bird and/or you wish to create a high key image with white background. Cheers and you are very welcome.
Helen Leonard	2022-05-10 12:00:02	Thank you so much for that, I have looked at the settings on mine and they seem to go down in fractions to 1/64 so I have set it 1/3 and I will give it a try out and adjust from there. Thank you again.
Graham Gall	2022-05-11 12:18:52	--Helen to be clear then I was talking about the Olympus flash that comes with the EM1Mk2 - then go into the camera menu itself turn flash + and - on - then set flash exposure compensation to -3 .

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	240/286 in Critique Gallery
	14/33 by Helen Leonard
	11/19 of Yellow-throated Scrubwren
	875/1122 of Thornbills and Gerygones
	25257/34570 Overall
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