A little help for a newbie please?

[Cookie2]

I am starting to experiment with my E-510 and liking shooting in manual more and more every day. Is there anyone here that can offer a little advice as to what I should be doing differently? My usual willife encouters are early morning and late evening so the shutter speed is usually having to be around 1/50 and the aperature as open as I can get it, usually 4.5. I was shooting at 100 ISO but moved up to 200 to try and get my shutter speed a little quicker to avoid some of the camera shake and resulting blurs. I have spent hundreds on books trying to learn photography but am missing SO many good shots with my slow learning curve! LOL!
This is a very good example of what I am talking about. I got the right colors and light in this shot. It was late evening on a north facing slope so it was pretty dark. The deer was only 40 yards away shot with a 70-300 Zuiko lens. The ISO on this particular shot was 400. I'm afraid that if I move the ISO up anymore I am going to begin to see noise. If I'm wrong please let me know. If I'm not is there anything I can do aside from a tripod that I can do???

 

[OutdoorWriter]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-10 AT 07:42AM (MST)[p]Other than buying a faster lens or bumping up the ISO more, there's not much else you can do in low-light situations. You might also try using a monopod, which is a bit less clunky than a tripod.

Of course, the nice thing about digital photos is the ability to make corrections, especially if your camera has the ability to shoot RAW images. If the photo is sharp, it's usaully salvageable.

TONY MANDILE

How To Hunt Coues Deer

 

[Cookie2]

The picture was actually shot in raw but there's not much I can do about the blur is there? I try to shoot all my pics in RAW so I can make adjustments as necessary. Of course being a newbie, I don't know much about my Photoshop elements program either!

 

[OutdoorWriter]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-10 AT 02:17PM (MST)[p]I did use the Unsharp filter in PS a bit, but no, getting the blur out is impossible. That's why I said in my last post "if the photo is sharp." The adage "you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear" applies.

Seriously, try the monopod. I've used a Bogen for years in lieu of a tripod when shooting wildlife.

TONY MANDILE

How To Hunt Coues Deer

 

[Cookie2]

Thanks Tony,
Is the 1/50 shutter speed sounding about right to you? It seems a little slow to me but it's the only way I'm getting the shots. Any faster and I wind up with dark images.... Like I said I'm new to this and just fishing for advice on what's the best way to go about all this....

 

[OutdoorWriter]

Considering the underexposure you wound up with, that shutter speed was probably too fast in relation to the other settings you listed. Obviously it will vary muchly, depending on the light level of course. The shutter speed likely would have been much slower if you had the camera set on auto everything. Of course, the pic would been even more blurred.

TONY MANDILE

How To Hunt Coues Deer

 

[PopeShawnPaul]

Bump the ISO if you have to. I'd rather have a noisy sharp shot than a clean blurry one...

1/50th of a second will not be enough for most situations even with a monopod. Shooting in manual doesn't help necessarily. Aperture priority is fine 90% of the time.

www.shawnmccully.com