{"id":30262,"date":"2015-03-24T07:23:21","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T13:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=30262"},"modified":"2015-03-24T07:43:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T13:43:47","slug":"the-balancing-act-of-shutter-speed-iso-and-wing-motion-blur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/24\/the-balancing-act-of-shutter-speed-iso-and-wing-motion-blur\/","title":{"rendered":"The Balancing Act of Shutter Speed, ISO and Wing Motion-blur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, a little photo-geekiness from me this morning. I know that some regular readers of Feathered Photography (especially those who are photographers themselves) sometimes wonder why I tend to use such fast shutter speeds so I thought I’d attempt an explanation.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0the years I\u00a0was active on a\u00a0bird photography critique site I’m\u00a0keenly aware of the fact that\u00a0in bird photography some folks prefer\u00a0moving wing-tips to be crisp and sharp while others like the implied motion when they are blurred\u00a0because\u00a0it seems more natural to\u00a0them.\u00a0Though it’s not a strong preference for me I do\u00a0slightly prefer the wingtips to be as\u00a0sharp as possible\u00a0so for perched birds I typically fire off a few shots at lower shutter speeds and ISO’s and then change my settings for possible take-off.\u00a0In these situations,\u00a0especially\u00a0with\u00a0passerines whose wings move much\u00a0faster than\u00a0larger birds, I’m often shooting with shutter speeds in the range of 1\/4000 to 1\/5000 sec.\u00a0Here’s why.<\/p>\n

The first two images below were taken two days ago on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, canvas added for composition,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Western Meadowlarks are among the largest songbirds I photograph so their wing speed is relatively slow but even at 1\/2500 sec I have significant motion blur in the wings in this image. It doesn’t bother me particularly but given the choice (if I have enough light for faster shutter speed and my ISO isn’t too high) I’ll typically change my settings to get faster shutter speeds than this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sage<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sage Thrashers are only 44% of the size and weight of meadowlarks (1.5 oz vs. 3.4 oz) so thrasher wing speed is much faster than that of meadowlarks. Here, 1\/3200 sec still didn’t give me sharp wings for this small bird.\u00a0In both images the wing-tips were close enough to the plane of the body that the softness was mostly due to shutter speed and not a depth of field issue. (I’d really have liked this shot if I’d had more light on the face)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In this older meadowlark\u00a0shot (I’ve posted this one before), despite the fact that the entire bird is less sharp than those in the previous images, the faster shutter speed (1\/4000 sec)\u00a0has made a significant sharpness improvement in the fast moving wing tips. 1\/5000 sec would have made an even larger difference. Admittedly there are other variables involved – the wing tips may have\u00a0been in-between descending and ascending which would have slowed them down but\u00a0typically I do get sharper wings at faster shutter speeds, as expected.<\/p>\n

And yes, there’s\u00a0sometimes a slight image quality sacrifice (more grain\/noise at\u00a0higher ISO’s)\u00a0I make to get these faster shutter speeds but they also pay off in some of the very fast behaviors I\u00a0photograph.<\/p>\n

Much ado about nothing perhaps but I thought I owed my readers an explanation of my shutter speed\u00a0“philosophy”.<\/p>\n

Right or wrong that’s what I do. It’s just my style.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, a little photo-geekiness from me this morning. I know that some regular readers of Feathered Photography (especially those who are photographers themselves) sometimes wonder why I tend to use such fast shutter speeds so I thought I’d attempt an explanation.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,6,334,379,370],"tags":[31,958,222,959,271,282,323],"class_list":["post-30262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-sage-thrashers","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-high-iso","tag-motion-blur","tag-noise","tag-sage-thrasher","tag-shutter-speed","tag-western-meadowlark"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/western-meadowlark-1383b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7S6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}