December
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This is the type of shot I have been longing to get for a while. This was shot using aperture priority, AutoISO min SS. I had been shooting BIF overhead against a plain blue sky. To adjust the exposure so the bird would not come out dark, I had increased exposure composition . This was still active when this juvenile eagle swooped down to catch this fish. The first few frames were over exposed and perhaps out of focus but I was able to salvage this one. It is far from perfect but my best one so far.
SA909194
Mark Galer
on December 27, 2020This is a glorious image. The backlit bird and water spray against the dark background all add to the drama. Settings are good but you may want look at Manual Exposure as an alternative to Aperture Priority. As you are aware I shoot in Aperture Priority with ISO Auto Min SS most of the time. There are times, however, when I switch to Manual Exposure mode. The first instance is long exposure landscapes when the camera is on a tripod and the second is birds in flight where the background behind the flying bird is constantly changing between sky and dark foliage. When your subject is sunlit you could start with 1/2500 second at f/6.3, ISO 640 and increase the ISO if the ambient light is lower, i.e. the sun is diffused (use zebras 109+ to guide you taking the highlight detail from a white cloud in the sky). With a backlit subject I would typically find that I have to raise the Shadows slider in post to approximately +80. With your ISO set to 2,000 you may find that you are overexposing this image by more than a stop, but the dynamic range of the sensor is protecting your highlight tones to some extent. A sweet spot for the ISO on the A9 is 640 so if you are going to shoot in Manual I would start here for Action/Sports.