Wild Species
When The Unexpected Happens
You never know where your next shot is coming from, so it is mandatory that you know your camera inside out, and can make the necessary adjustments required that are burnt into your brain (at least they should be).
So I'm set up with my camera and tripod shooting a landscape photo, and I hear what sounds like the sound of swans in flight somewhere behind me.
I turn around and I see this flock of Tundra Swans rapidly approaching my location out of the sun.
With only moments to spare and while assessing the scene before me, I quickly lift my camera and tripod as a unit, all the meanwhile switching from my custom landscape setting to aperture priority, dial in 2 stops over as not to under-expose the swans against the brightly lit morning sky, increase the ISO to 1600 to keep the shutter speed high as not to blur the swans, and then while panning with the swans, compose and shoot.
The lighting was somewhat tricky as the swans were being chased from behind by the sun as they flew a westerly heading, with the sun just barely kept at bay by the lens shade mounted on my lens.
Considering that the swans were what this image is about, I was using spot metering, and took my reading off of the upper second swan behind the lead swan.
I should add that I did not have to select spot metering, but always shoot with spot metering permanently selected on my cameras.
As smart as todays cameras are with their various metering modes, I still prefer to do the thinking as to what is crucial in the image and needs to be metered.
Today's camera's are capable of producing a perfectly exposed image through matrix metering, but because the camera lacks a soul, it does not know how to set the mood by exposing the image as required based on the light.
Of course it goes without saying, that this is more crucial to some images that others.
Click on the photo for a closer look....
