Posted by admin | Posted in Cameras photo\'s | Posted on 09-12-2008
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digital photography lighting tips
Zoo Photography tips?
I want to start my own folio of photographs taken at Melbourne’s zoo’s. I have quite afew already but i want to keep improving the quality of them.
I have a Canon 350D SLR with a 80mm – 300mm zoom, and a fairly sturdy Manfrotto tripod, which i use, but because there is only mostly filtered light at the zoo, its hard to get decently exposed images. They usually end up being slightly out of focus.. I was told when i was studying that digital images taken with the slr always come back slightly blury, is there a way to fix this or do i just have to use the unsharp mask on all my images in Photoshop?. I usually leave the setting on shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/300 of a sec. My lens doesnt have Image stabilizer.
You were told incorrectly. A properly taken (with right equipment) digital image will be sharp as a needle! Canon 350D is a nice camera and it should not be a problem…. What may be a problem is your lens. Is it a Canon lens, or a third party, like Sigma or Tamron? The later two are known for lens quality that is far from perfect and seriously inferior to those made by Canon. So I would not be surprised if the lens is responsible for the pictures being blurry. You may want to try shooting at smaller apertures, as the picture will generally become sharper at low apertures (f/8 or even f/11 should give you better results). But then you may have to give up 1/300 shutter speed, or bump up the ISO, which by itself will introduce extra noise.
A cable release will also be helpful, so that you don’t shake the camera as you trigger it (in addition to a steady tripod).
Last but not least – are you shooting through glass or any other obstacle by any chance? If so, the glass may also degrade your images… A polarizing filter (must be circular, linear won’t work with your auto-focus and auto-exposure mechanisms) may help you cut down on reflections in the glass cages. Though I don’t think that is your problem in this case!
Good luck!
LEM.