animals Hatchlings (modified)

I felt the exposure wasn't right on my previous post. This is my new

attempt. Thanks for looking and as always, C&C welcome.

Kristin,

You did a good job with the image. The Sun to the right and the birds in the some shade do present problems for most camera metering systems.

At F/5.6, ISO 300 , I would have expected an exposure of 1/2000 second, not 1/320 second. The light intensity seen on the wood suggests a bright Sun was present.

Next time, try reducing your ISO to 100 or 200, because the shutter speed will still be sufficient to get a good exposure from a 400mm lens.

On cloudy days, this changes and you do not want slow shutter speeds unless you are supporting the camera/lens from any induced vibrations.

Regards,  Mike

Thanks for the feedback.  That raises some questions though. 

This is a new lens (used, but new for me).  I shot with only a 50mm 2.5 macro for years and I know that lens pretty well.   For this image, at 1/320, the original was under exposed by nearly a full stop.  Shot in AV mode, on a tripod, and I decided to push the ISO to 320 anyway, just  so I could have close to 1/2 my focal length.  

Am I having a mechanical problem?  I had one image this Sunday where 1/2 of the image was completely black, indicating that the curtain was out of sync.  But it just happened the one time, so I was treating it as a one off.  

Note to self...need light meter. 

"The light intensity seen on the wood suggests a bright Sun was present."

Yes, a bright sun was present--lighting the back of the subject. Most of the scene is in the shade. The exposure settings are quite reasonable for the conditions.

Hi Kristin,

Was going through some of my Pmail and ran across yours from awhile back and thought I would come over and check to see how you are doing with that 100-400!

Looks like you are doing pretty well!

I will admit, the 100-400 does have a bit of a learning curve, but it does look like you are coming along fine with it, and receiving some helpful advise along the way.

This shot has some very good details, and I do like the composition with the flowers around the nest and the branches sort of framing her and her chicks.

Regards always,

Jim j.