Paul, agree that the closer I can get the better. I started carrying a camera as a necessity. Everytime I sailed into a new avi-fauna area, I had to learn new birds. As a non-birder before starting a circumnavigation, I really needed the aid for ID. Now, I'm just used to birding that way and I have wished I had a camera when I haven't. I will learn more as I get used to this camera, but unlike my others, I think I will try to learn something other than leaving it on auto and clicking away. I had a great morning at the Huntington Beach Central Park. It was bright and sunny and a great day for a walk before it got too hot. It's 2:30 p.m. now and 92degrees (33c) on my patio about 2 miles from the beach. One thing that helped immensely was making sure the view I got in the viewfinder was set right!
I now don't have a blurry blob. I did some experimenting. Tonight I will do some reading. I need to be able to take advantage of a few of the features. Here are a few cropped and edited shots from this morning. Red-shouldered Hawks, Bushtit--these are very fast little guys and it's hard to get a good photo, Western Bluebird, Townsend's Warbler. I really like this camera and I am very happy with the purchase.
Hi Sue,
Your little bird with the blue head is a beauty!
I spent a lot of time experimenting with my camera and the conclusion I arrived at would have taken a brighter person a couple of hours, so there's really not much to the basics and the basics are good enough for amateurs (such as you and I). I suppose there is the element of learning being an organic process and having to make our own mistakes to truly understand what we're doing, but looking back I could have cut out a lot of the time I wasted by not assuming it was more difficult than it actually is.
Boiled down to its bare bones: the aperture mode sweet spot is generally thought to be a couple of notches up from the smallest f number; I personally never have ISO higher than 400 because the image is too grainy on this camera for my liking; the aforementioned two settings will then dictate your shutter speed (the lower/smaller the ISO and aperture f number, the higher the shutter speed will be which the camera will automatically generate). The only other basic setting that can impact your shutter speed is EV, minus EV will increase your shutter speed (I understand the science underpinning this but it's not necessary to do so). I personally quite like using minus EV on a bright day for reasons other than increasing the shutter speed. There is obviously more to it, such as considering your background and the colour of your bird, but those basics will get you going and then through experience you'll begin to make adjustments according to the background and the bird. I personally don't really adjust for the colour of the bird, I take more notice of the background.
On a bright day the settings I use are: aperture mode; ISO 200; EV -1 or -0.7; I generally use full zoom and the camera's automatic settings generate the aperture number based on that full zoom (usually around 6.5 even though I have aperture mode set at 2.8); the camera will then generate shutter speed of around 2000. On an overcast day I have ISO 400 and EV 0. So, all I am really doing there is picking my camera up in the morning (which was set to aperture mode and 2.8 the day before), having a look at how bright the day is and setting my ISO and EV accordingly, the camera does the rest.
You'll see many pictures on the forums where the ISO is really high in order to generate higher shutter speed, but bear in mind their cameras are more geared towards handling ISO and delivering good images at high ISO.
A point that you will read so many times is that high shutter speed is everything. I personally wouldn't assume that to be the case. I'm pretty confident that the best bet with my camera is to keep ISO low and if that means sacrificing shutter speed then so be it, and I have had some very nice images at low shutter speeds.
In terms of other camera settings such as: picture control, contrast, saturation, sharpening and so on, I did a lot of experimenting and in the end decided that the best bet was to keep everything on neutral or 0, and do my adjustments through post processing. At this point, I'm not fully convinced I've done the right thing in that respect but I'll stick with it for a while.
The beauty of establishing your basic settings and keeping with those, is that you can just get on with taking pictures and try a bit of experimenting without niggling thoughts such as: "should I have ISO higher, what's the shutter speed coming out at". I don't even consider shutter speed these days, I go with ISO and EV and let the camera deliver the shutter speed without worrying what it is. For instance: the general rule is to keep the sun behind you, but I have a picture of a siskin in my gallery and I've sat at 90 degrees to the sun with the EV banged up high and it's produced a nice glow to the picture without over-exposing, so while it is always useful to read what other people do it shouldn't stop you from trying out a few things that go against perceived wisdom.
The beauty of having a bridge camera is that it allows you to get much closer to the bird than more expensive much larger equipment. I spend a decent amount of time rolling around in the grass trying to get close without being spotted. I have pictures of kingfishers and a male kestrel in my gallery: I'm pretty close and they don't know I'm there. I would never have gotten that close with the more expensive, larger equipment. By getting closer you can bridge that gap in terms of quality of equipment.
All in all, there's not really much to setting your basic camera settings, there's no need to get lost in the technical aspects and I personally believe camera technique is at the very least as important: such as being able to keep the camera steady, being able to get close, being mindful of what is in the background and moving accordingly, knowing when to take your pictures (there's not much use in standing in front of a bird which is at a distance taking pictures because the pictures won't be any good and more than likely you'll chase the bird off into the other direction, instead spend that time working out how you're going to get close in order to get a decent image).
And finally, when you're reading about these things, it may be helpful to consider the background of the authors. Some people are very science minded, and it's possible they'll go right into the settings in huge amounts of detail and will have triangles, graphs and all sorts coming out of their ears. My words are those of someone who steered well clear of any science subjects at school, always preferred the ideas subjects such as English Literature, History, Religious Education and studied History at university. I mean, I used to walk into Physics classes and you'd have lads and lasses dissembling old radios and trying to build rockets to fly them to the moon, they loved that sort of stuff, whereas I'd be looking at the equipment completely lost thinking: "what is this, what am I meant to do with it, what is the point". So for me, I'm much more minded to just get some basic settings, get out there and enjoy the walks, nature, the birds and try some experimenting on the job.
All in all, it's meant to be enjoyable, so 'best of luck Sue and if I can get used to aperture mode, given my lifetime of aversion to technology; then anyone can!