Informative video, great tips. I'm using an old Canon 7D, 400 5.6 classic L lens. Anything shot above 1600 is a noisy mess. Wimberley gimbal mono head and Topaz noise reduction are life savers. 2 thumbs up for focusing from below the barrel. Cheers, Montreal Heather
Jan, ty for an absolutely brilliant video. With this video, you have achieved a level of instruction beyond anything else I have experienced on RUclips- a thorough master class. Let me make my case with a few examples. Having the right tools and then using them in the right way makes all the difference. You give us a persuasive argument for ball-heads vs. gimbals- ball-head is better for these specific reasons. You get granular when you examine the tradeoffs of tightening down the head for best stability but limited mobility- these are the crucial details that may be obvious but that we benefit so much from hearing when you point them out, if only because we are reassured that they are tradeoffs that Jan himself must master. But you keep getting better and going deeper: you explain the pros and cons of stabilizing the lens with hand on top vs. hand on ball-head. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Your arguments are winning ones. When one compares your methods to what we see other photographers at your level doing, with hand on top, we can imagine that perhaps when using a gimbal different rules apply, or perhaps that this is one area where Jan is a step ahead. Your granular explanation about which fingers and how you use them for stabilization is, again, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. As viewers, no doubt we could work that out by watching you in action, or through our own practice, but minus your emphasis on your specific technique, it would be easy to overlook it- and that is where the two or three percent advantage is to be found that carries us closer to the place we want our skills to be. We don’t need to figure out the best technique because you are explaining it to us, the how and the why of it. Brilliant and masterful. As another example, you step us through your thinking about safety shots. This lesson by itself could stand as a rich and worthwhile video. This is valuable insight into the way a master such as yourself thinks and decides. This is a protocol that we can apply with greater confidence and success (and modify it as circumstances dictate) because you have so thoroughly laid out your thinking for us. Brilliant. Along these lines, one of my favorite parts of your Bird Show with Glenn Bartley is the Tweak of the Week- I only wish it were every single week! I could watch endlessly to how the both of you think and decide and apply your esthetics. You would have to go a long way before you went too far in your drilling down-- throw away your brake. What percentage of skillful technique vs. percentage of esthetic sensibility goes into producing a Jan Wegener image? Once one reaches the level of technical proficiency that you have, I don’t know if the majority vote goes to skill or to esthetics. (Of course, there is the skill and proficiency that you share with us in your PS/LR products-- but there the esthetics are even more decisive-- and more discussion on your part where the esthetics are concerned will always be welcomed by me.) I wouldn’t expect every future video of yours to reach the same outstanding level you have attained in this video, but I want to register my most profound wish that you continue along this path for as long as you want to- I will be following behind you with greatest appreciation. You are a Yoda to us padawans.
Wow, thank you so much for the kind words! I truly appreciate your thoughtful analysis and enthusiasm for learning. It's my passion to share what I've learned and help others improve their photography.
@@jan_wegener seen no one getting into these details and these are the real world scenarios, challenges that photographers face in across geography. Thanks for inspiring and sharing your insights!
Thanks for a heap pf helpful reminders Jan! I made a lot of changes in my gear over the last two years. From the old EM1.1 to OM-1. I have to stop going that low with SS after taking insurance shots. Last weekend I lost an amazing battle sequence between rainbow lorikeets and a little wattlebird because I took my SS down to 1/160. I got something still (action shota), but I would have easily recovered the ISO noise in DXO, even at 1/1000s in that situation and the shots would have been much better.
I am still struggling on low light, I am in Costa Rica with my canon r7 100-500mm and I try sooo much! I think still don’t get something and that I am to slow to get all a good perception of the environment and configurations 😣. Thank you I will try to do my best and apply more of your tips: it is rainy, cloudy.
Find out the slowest shutter speed for your lens, to get sharp pictures. In the past there was a rule of thumb of 1/(focal length) - so in your case 1/100-1/500 (dependent on your current focal length). Because of image stabilization, you could use slightly longer exposure times. I guess you can work at 1/250-1/500s at maximum aperture and Auto ISO
@@airb1976 I am glad you mention this. I own both the R5 and R7, which I use with the RF100-500. I find the "reciprocal rule" still applies, perhaps because high resolution sensors are particularly sensitive to motion blur, especially at the long end of the range. For the R7 (800 mm equivalent), I try to stay above 1/640s. For the R5 at 500 mm, I try to stay above 1/400s. Even with image stablization, good support, and electronic shutter. I was in Costa Rica in 2020 - the birds were gorgeous, but it rained incessantly 😊
Great advice, Jan. Some of those I already do, others I'm going to add to my repertoire. At first, I didn't understand your use of the term "safety shot" and how you advise against them. As a biologist, we use the term to mean get a (usually for documentation) photo (arthropods & vertebrates) before the subject crawls, jumps, runs, flies away, or (for plants) before the winds come up.
Great video! I think my greatest challenge is just distance from subject and how to improve sharpness in low light situations. Happy New Year Jan and thanks for the content! Cheers!
A fab video and a much sought after one Jan - low light shooting is a highly sought after topic. The tips are fantastic and I use some of them regularly - they work very well. One additional tip is to change to the metering mode sometimes when shooting a bright / light colored subject - that will give us a stop or two more shutter speeds if used with Spot Metering mode. Also, your point of spray and pray in low light is interesting. I thought it was better the other way - reduce the shutter speed (Don't mean single shot!), so that the camera can focus better - I had quite a bit of good luck this way.
Great tips! Before digital cameras, tripods were almost essential for photographing birds in low light (without flash). I used a wooden Miller tripod which was heavy but very stable. With a relatively still subject, sharp photos with exposures of a second or more were possible.
Thx for that video. First measure I am going to take is increase the maximum ISO from 12,800 to 25,600 on my Sony A7RV. Could have even figured out this myself as DxO Photolab does a really good job on denoising the 12,800 ISO pictures and my main problem on dark days is underexposure, not the noise. Well, sometimes you need a Pro to steer you into the right direction. Frohes neues Jahr für dich und alles Beste from Germany.
Thanks, Jan. Great video as always. I like to shoot birds in flight which presents even more challenges in low light situations. Based upon your video, I’m going to experiment with higher ISO settings. I need to improve my post processing skills. I mainly use Lightroom and I also have Topaz Photo AI. Please let me know if you have any videos or workshops that would be helpful. Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Hi, my best recommendation would be my Lightroom Masterclass where I teach you step by step everything you need to know to create a great and easy to follow editing workflow and make you images stand out! It's linked in the description or you can visit my website janwegener.com
Thank you for your good tips. I also prefer a shorter shutter speed and therefore I need higher ISO up to 25800 or higher when necessary. Another Alternative is to change the lens (I have a 105 mm 1.4) hand make some shots with more landscape around the animal. Best wishes for the new year 🍀🍀🍀
Thanks Jan for the very important topic; Shooting in east Himalayan region where birds are very skittish and stays in undergrowth. They also move very fast; only resort is high iso and high shutter. Also distance is also high, cant go without cropping- what could be the viable options.
Jan, First of all we are huge fans and have been following for many years. Many thanks to your shared knowledge and resources. If you could help address this problem it would be much appreciated! One thing I’ve never seen covered in any video is why you’d get a lot of noise in an image that is bright. For example we went to the Galapagos recently which sits on the equator. The lighting was very intense. We’d stop down on the f-stop and have a lower ISO and we were still getting an absurd amount of noise in our photos. This isn’t the first time this has happened either. It’s happened more often than not over the years. Both my other half and I shoot with the same gear with the same results and we’ve encountered this numerous times over the years with no explanation. So now we have all these photos with tons of noise (currently no way to reduce the amount in the images as we are on an iPad Pro only at the moment). PS I wish you’d release a Photoshop and Lightroom master class for the iPad Pro. Programs like DX Pure Raw Denoise do not currently exist for iPad Pro users.
Hi Jan, thanks for this great overview of details which may turn out to be crucial ! My biggest issue is to resist underexposing the image while hunting shutter speed, certainly with 'active' little birds ;-) I agree holding the lens foot (flexshooter) tight helps to stabilize the lens, and this also helps to move the lens subtle to follow the bird. I now really enjoy the register/recall focus point function in the R5ii, allowing me to asap getting back to the right focal plane by hitting the Set button with my thumb. No more needing to grab the focus ring! This Friday we had a great session with bearded reedlings .. but at first I was disappointed my shots looked too soft. But this is simply an extremely fluffy bird, and the eyes and close reeds were plenty sharp .. so the to be expected sharpness differs between birds !
The shutter shake is a real thing with the R7. I have had a number of low light shooting sessions where I came back and found that only the first image in each burst was sharp. Now I always try to remember to shoot full electronic in any low light situation. The image wobbles with that sensor are frustrating but still much better than the effects of the shutter shock.
Great video, I especially like the tripod tips. I use the same head and it works great, also for landscapes or macro but especially with big lenses like the 4/600TC or 800PF.
Followed you for a while. The work is impressive. I’m a Canon shooter using both an R5 MkII and R6 MkII. I’m not proficient with PS but consider myself seasoned in LR Classic. Def love the way you cover material in the YT vids. My big question/concern: Your courses on PS and LR seem to only be targeted at “bird photographers”… or Am I missing something?…while I shoot flying birds, they are larger, faster and louder - I’m an Airshow/Aviation Photographer and although quite different… the low-light challenge is never ending especially as the show moves into late afternoons. … and using an RF100-500L MOST of the time, wide open is limited. Thanks
I think what I teach can be applied in many different ways, I just like birds as my subjects. In the end we all have the same tools available in the programs, just need to use them slightly different to fix whichever problems we encounter
I also photography in low light situations here in Brazil and I usually don't like to carry a tripod. Usually, if the bird allowed I try to to as much photos I can to get 1 or 2 sharp enought. I use the R7 and usually I use a maximum of ISO16000 and work in DxO Pureraw to reduce the noise. My last trip I was photographing a Bornean Banded Pitta, an amazing bird almost in the end of the day and I was able to get just 1 sharp shot, but I'm very happy with the result.
Thank you for your content. You asked for us to share low light frustrations. Perhaps my biggest are birds in flight whose flight path alternates above/below the horizon line. This occures frequently. An example is a small body of water surrounded by tall trees of varying height. An incoming waterfowl background may alternate quickly between open sky and trees. This usually occures more quickly than I can work exposure comp up or down.
Thanks for another great video! You didn’t mention anything about shutting off IS when on tripods or using self-timer. I played around with the IS on and off when recently shooting a stationary owl, where it looked like it could benefit having the IS off when on a tripod, though off course it is very sensitive to any tiny movement. And I’m guessing self-timer is not interesting for you as it will make you too slow to react to any action happening, as when people try and do the HQ picture settings. Keep up the great videos 🤩
Thanks Jan, great video as usual. Great tip with respect to shooting bursts and then refocusing rather than keep shooting continuously. However, would I do this under the following situation. A while ago, great grey owl started to fly towards me. I had the eye locked in with the auto-focus and shot continuously as it approached. It actually landed on my lens which shocked the hell out of me (an incredible moment). I did get some amazing shots (lots of keepers), but was also perturbed at seeing some images slightly out of focus when I thought I had the eye locked in for every shot. I shoot with an R5 and 600 F4 Mark II. Question, should I have shot this in bursts and refocus or simply keep my back button eye tracking auto focus pressed and fire continuously? My gut tells me to keep shooting and hope the camera will do its job. Cheers mate.
I always enjoy your videos. I shoot the R5 with the RF100-500 and the RF200-800. Low light shots (early morning and late afternoon) continue to give me trouble. I will be trying your suggestions very soon. Thanks for the tips!
Exceptional bird images. Always thanks for sharing. Do you have a general rule for vibration reduction? Which mode do you use for static subjects and which for moving subjects? Are there times you do not use vibration reduction?
Muito boas dicas, me fez abrir o olho sobre o Obturador eletrônico, nunca tive coragem de usá-lo, por medo do efeito gelatina, minha próxima passarinhada com toda a certeza irei utiliza-lo Muito obrigado pelas dicas e pela dublagem automática para o português! Forte abraço e feliz ano novo!
As always, a great and informative video, Jan. As my main place to do birdphoto is in the Atlantic rainforest, low light is a very common thing, so there was many good tips here. Specially in the areas where i use to photograph the ant pittas is very dark, so it's difficult to go under iso12800. I have been thinking about putting up an artificial light source to get more light in this areas, because the birds are not very jumpy there. Often comes as close as 2-3 meters distance. Don't know if you ever tried it? If so it would have been nice to hear your experience about that. Wishing you and your family a wonderful New Year, with a lot of joyful moments. Cheers, Bjoern
The main issue is that for a light to be effective at like 3-5m, it would have to be quite bright, probably brighter than most portable LEDs, unless it's very dark outside
a great video once again! in fact, the main problem I encountered was to bypass the psychological barrier of getting in very high isos... there are so many people around still talking of iso the lowest possible....
Shifting the histogram to the right by raising the ISO does not reduce noise (and ISO is not part of exposure which is only controlled by the aperture, shutter speed and scene brightness), but it might increase the risk of blowing highlights. Set the ISO to the value where the gain shifts (in cameras with dual gain sensors) and set the shutter speed and aperture for example as suggested in this video. Shoot raw and adjust the lightness of the image when it is developed.
Jan , one of the big problems a lot of the Bird Photography locations are now putting on photographers here in the US especially in Texas no more use of flash photography , they do that at High Island photo blind and It also includes the entire refuge .
I was talking about flash in this video, but left it out. I have not been using flash as much anymore, but sometimes it can help a fair bit. The biggest issueI find is that the mirrorless cameras can shoot at much higher frame rates than the flash can most of the time
Hi Jan. Always love your videos. Are there any other menu settings that can help get less noise in low light? “Standard” vs “faithful” or other style, using spot metering, battery more than 60% charged, does the pre shooting affect noise?
Not really, the picture styles only affect jpegs. Higher battery charge can affect fps in some camera like original R5 with the mechanical shutter. Pre shooting doesn't affect IQ
Thanks Jan. I never realised that EVFs make a dark location appear brighter than it really is. This explains why I've underexposed some images taken in the rainforest canopy (O'Reilly's; Maiala). Sadly, I'm using a 1st gen EF 500mm f4 prime, and the IS on that is very limited (the lowest I can safely go is 1/400 from my experiences). The same lens means I have to drop my FPS from H+ to H on my R3 (I get 14fps in H+ mode and obviously less in H mode). Canon CPS advised to lower the FPS to help with AF accuracy with such an older lens. I can't wait until I can retire in 13 years time and use my super to buy a RF600f4 LOL! My newly purchased RF200-800 is well, garbage. Sorry, I know you recommended the lens, but my personal experiences with my copy are well, not good. I still need to do more testing, but I am at the point of sending it back to Canon for testing and if they can't fault it, I'll just sell it and recoup as much of the cost as possible.
It seems odd with the 200-800, there's some people who struggle with it, which makes me start to think there may be some bad copies. It should perform very well on the R3
@@jan_wegener I know it should, but it isn't. Some of the softness was due to heat haze (my assessment and Duade kindly checked and he felt the same way too). Other images, which shouldn't have any heat haze, are also soft. I'm also noticing some AF pulsing like with the R7 + Sigma 150-600c combo where in a range of images taken at burst, 1 is sharp and the rest are soft to varying degrees. My old 500mm prime does not do this. The RF200-800 has fast and silent AF, but it seems vastly inferior to my old 500mm prime. That is my assessment after near 3 weeks of limited testing. I'm hoping to set up both lenses on my tripod/gimbal in the backyard and do some test shots on Wednesday to mitigate any effects that might impact on the image quality. The lens appears about 90% as sharp as my 500mm prime when AF does grab the bird correctly. I'm not too fussed with that as I knew it was never going to match the 500mm prime for sharpness. There's 1 post on the Canon US forum that sounds similar to my issues, but they never posted a follow up post so I'm not sure what their resolution, if any, was. I want to love this new lens, but so far, I am hating it.
Should be a setting on your camera that turns off the “view assist“ or something similar when shooting them all light. The setting you want will show you the actual exposure in the viewfinder as you change your shutter speeds or aperture. Where that “view assist“ comes in handy is when you’re shooting indoors in a flash situation and there isn’t enough available light to see anything in the scene without it. Outdoors, you want what you see in the viewfinder to reflect the actual exposure so you have real time feedback on where you are
This is where i set my register recall to a custom button so that l can set a low iso and slow shutter speed but if the bird does it's display or whatever l can go straight to my register recall button set to a higher iso and shutter speed, anyway that is Canon's terminology for it l not sure what Nikon and Sony call their register recall but l sure they would have something similar. By the way l did pick up in the No More Shock section you said to set your mirror less camera shutter to electronic first curtain or electronic so as not introduce extra shake from the mirror.😱
Buenas tardes desde España, soy un seguidor empedernido de tus videos, he aprendido mucho en ellos, megustaria muchisimo seguir tus clases magistrales en Photoshop y Lightroom pero tengo el problema que no domino mucho el ingles, asi que no se como hacer para seguir dichas clases, muchas gracias, un saludo.
I once worried about noise in my images and didn't want to pay the Adobe subscription. I found the Affinity Photo 2 editor and is currently subscriptionless, but I'm being told that may soon change. Thanks for your thoughts and experience!
Hey sir, I am thinking between the Nikon Z8+Z pf 800mm vs Canon Eos R1+100-500+1.4x/rf 200-800,What is the better kit for wildlife out of the 3? Let me know
@@jan_wegener Actually I asked you about 3 kits.Anyways I photograph wildlife like birds and sometimes mammals also.I included R1 cuz my friend said that the low pass filter in it is so good in facts sometimes it retains as much detail as the r5ii.Let me know.
Great video....👍 I still use Canon7D mark ii and Tamron 150-600 G2. My biggest problem is that the Tamron lens has a tendency to refocus resulting in lost shots. How to get around this problem?
Try separating your shutter release from the focus. Set your camera to use the back button (AF On) for focusing and the shutter release only to snap the picture. That way you can pre-focus using your thumb and even let go of it if the bird is in a stationary position and when you press your shutter the focus won’t try and move because it’s already there.
I always wonder if there's an advantage in balancing a sandbag on top of a big lens on a tripod. With all the friction between the sand grains it should damp down any resonant vibration. The grain size or using a rice bag might make a difference. Has anyone tried this out?
Very well said! I completely agree with safety shots. I abandoned that practice as well. BTW my husband bought me your master class for Christmas! I’m super excited to dive in and learn more!
Great tips and really appreciated. I shoot the R5 100-500 and do struggle in the early mornings with low light. I hike and shoot whatever I find. Could be perched birds or BIF, or deer. I feel autofocus struggles in low light. I shoot bbf with 1 eye detect button, and 1 spot, 1 fast action button. Do you change your focus point settings in low light? I also shoot the lens in mode 2. I never change mode, and maybe that’s a mistake. Thoughts?
@@jan_wegenerThanks Jan! Do you also change focus points? I’ve yet to find a way to cycle these effectively. I tried the lens ring, which will cycle them, but not change/ engage them. As soon as I hot a back button it reverts to that programming.
Looks like you used mostly full frame cameras and RF lenses which can tolerate high ISOs. It's more challenging with APSC sensors and lenses which cannot be set to higher ISOs without introducing noise in low light. Any tips on the best way to use APSC sensor cameras in low light? Thanks
The issue is that in low light gear really makes a difference, so the challenge with APS-C gear in particular is that still everything I said applies, but it's harder to implement. So you might be "stuck" at 12800 ISO and f 6.3, which will force you into using lower SS.
@jan_wegener with my M50ii and my Canon ef-s 55-250 lens, I try not to cross ISO 6400 (limited the range to that) because the noise is an issue beyond that although it's better at twilight. With my FF (EF) lens I can of course cross that limit a bit, maybe due to the larger amount of light that reaches the APS-C sensor
Does your histogram really tell you the exposure? I understood it to be that of a camera determined jpeg adjusted file, not the actual raw file histogram.
The histogram actually does show you your exposure whether in raw or JPEG. What it can’t show you is the latitude difference between them. But if you keep your exposures more to the right without blowing out highlights on your subject and make sure that you don’t have large areas that are all the way to the left, which would be black with no detail you’ll be fine. If you notice in his examples with the histogram, they always are within the two points. You don’t have information stacked up on the right, which is blown out no detail, you don’t have information stacked up from the left, which would be black with no detail all the important stuff is in the middle and preferably more to the right to give you better shadow detail. Of course, if you’re shooting a dark bird with a dark background, histogram ought to be more to the center or left of center. You just don’t want it to be all the way to one side or the other.
Using my Nikon Z8 and 800 f6.3 in low light doesn’t bother me because I feel the Denoise feature in Lightroom does a good enough job cleaning up the image. If need be I’ll run it through Topaz Denoise.
I have been struggling with the Dutch winter lately. Just week after week of completely overcast grey days. I use a R10 + RF200 800 and have been going as low as 1/30th, still with high ISO, just shooting lots of images to pick out the few sharp ones. I use the lightroom denoise which I feel works great to about ISO 6400 (with my gear). But now here comes to part I don't really understand. I video in 4K 30fps, which gives 1/60th shutter speed right? Then how does a 1/60th shutter speed give a high noise image, but the 4k 30fps is absolutely fine? 🤷🤷
@@jan_wegener I looked back at it, the difference is probably that the video is uncropped and the photos have a very smal crop, while shooting high ISO. But still, I am very impressed (a little surprised even) with the video quality in low light conditions.
One gear tip I had to learn for myself, even though I should have just listened to the pros, don't buy the 2X teleconverter. I had one for about 2 weeks and could not get any decent shots with it. Ruined the sharpness of all my shots incredibly. Even with many days of practicing it, on tripod, off tripod, high shutter speeds, and different approaches to settings. Had to return it, simply was not worth the price. My camera is the Sony A7RIVA and I used to the 70-200mm f/2.8, I was getting much cleaner images by cropping in alone. Will have to try out the 1.4X teleconverter, it has much better reviews. Really wish I could drop the money for the 600mm f4.
Hmmm... Now that I've seen this video, I'm definitely going to drop my shutter speeds down from 1/1250 and use the electronic shutter for stationery birds. And only use the high speeds for birds in flight.
@jan_wegener Does that depend on the camera or is that true for all cameras? I have just bought the Canon R10 and I've heard it's low-light performance isn't the best.
@@Wass_85 yes, because of the crop sensor, it gets a bit more noisy at higher ISO. Auto ISO just means that the camera selects the ISO to determine exposure, which it can stuff up, but it's a way many people use
Yes, in rifle shooting one shouldn’t hold their breath. Funny things start happening with your perception and reflexes, depending on how long you are breath holding. I’ve always tried to shoot at the bottom of a slow exhale, but I try to not actually hold my breath at the bottom. There’s a lot of vids out there on rifle shooting technique. Sniper’s Hide is a good site and they have vids on YT too. (Don’t be put off on the name…I thought it was stupid until I found out a Hide is just like a photo hide; a hidden place to stake out until the shot)
Hi thanks for these tips. From my experience I struggle with denoising. I have good shutter speed and good exposure, aperture aroung F8 but high ISO. And the result is finally bad. I’m using a Sony A7 IV with Sigma 150 600
@ I use Topaze Denoise, most of time in Low Light mode. I don’t say it is totally bad, the picture is globally denoised (especially the background) but I lose sharpness on the subject : in the eyes and fur where it is the most interesting. For me it ruins the picture.
@@jan_wegener Hi Jan i've just downloaded your raw files from your R5 Mark II : the image 12800 Victoria's Riflebird is so clean, it's unbelievable ! It's a tiff file, have you already denoised the picture before ? I,ve got a SONY A7 IV with SIGMA 150 600 Sport, and the result I obtain in the raw file is much much more noisy than this, even at only 3200 ISO. Does the difference come only from the camera : Canon R5 Mark II compared with my Sony A7 IV ? Or the exposition or something else ? I'm very very oestonished. Looking forward to reading from you.
@@damienu.2668 The downloads should be all be RAW files? I just double checked and I can see only .cr3 in there. So that's the field straight out of the camera
@2:40 Its hard to take you , or anyone else seriously that suggests ISO is an input to exposure on a digital camera. Anyone who says that, simply does not understand how exposure or digital cameras work. Even if one wants to bypass the discussion of how ISO actually works, to suggest that ISO is an input to exposure is simply just misinformation because it can also be succinctly explains in a different way.
I think in the context of explaining quickly and easily and in easy to understand terms to say that iso is one thing people can change on the camera to make the image darker or brighter is fair
It’s just semantics. Those are in fact the three elements that will affect your file exposure. What he’s saying is that you will end up with less noise by getting a proper exposure in camera than if you have to lift the shadows. And I have found that to be true. It’s better to be able to pull your highlights back a bit than having to lift your shadows too much.
Shooting a bull moose pre-dawn yep that wasn't fun. could make him out in the darkness but to get even a smidge of an image 52000 iso (haha yep) and I was able to get something out of that thanks to no noise stuff. And when the sun came up he darted. oh well and yes it was freezing cold.
My biggest problem is camera movement (Luminar calls it Motion Blur) . Even if Luminar Neo does a good job of removing "Motion Blur" I do not want to go that way....
Have you considered using a remote shutter release? Putting it on a Tripod and using a shutter release might help with what you’re struggling with. It’s not always convenient but it might be worth a try.
@@sjkay06 Thanks for reply. I got sent a link to a youtube on how to balance manual aperture, Shtterspeed and auto ISO to take bird phots in low light. My shutter was wrong. Thanks.
@@sjkay06tripods dont help if your subject is moving. I personally use a monopod to hold the lens up close to the final elevation, to save holding the camera for 20mins waiting for the bird to take off or land.
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Informative video, great tips. I'm using an old Canon 7D, 400 5.6 classic L lens. Anything shot above 1600 is a noisy mess. Wimberley gimbal mono head and Topaz noise reduction are life savers. 2 thumbs up for focusing from below the barrel. Cheers, Montreal Heather
Jan, ty for an absolutely brilliant video. With this video, you have achieved a level of instruction beyond anything else I have experienced on RUclips- a thorough master class.
Let me make my case with a few examples. Having the right tools and then using them in the right way makes all the difference. You give us a persuasive argument for ball-heads vs. gimbals- ball-head is better for these specific reasons.
You get granular when you examine the tradeoffs of tightening down the head for best stability but limited mobility- these are the crucial details that may be obvious but that we benefit so much from hearing when you point them out, if only because we are reassured that they are tradeoffs that Jan himself must master.
But you keep getting better and going deeper: you explain the pros and cons of stabilizing the lens with hand on top vs. hand on ball-head. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Your arguments are winning ones.
When one compares your methods to what we see other photographers at your level doing, with hand on top, we can imagine that perhaps when using a gimbal different rules apply, or perhaps that this is one area where Jan is a step ahead.
Your granular explanation about which fingers and how you use them for stabilization is, again, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. As viewers, no doubt we could work that out by watching you in action, or through our own practice, but minus your emphasis on your specific technique, it would be easy to overlook it- and that is where the two or three percent advantage is to be found that carries us closer to the place we want our skills to be. We don’t need to figure out the best technique because you are explaining it to us, the how and the why of it.
Brilliant and masterful.
As another example, you step us through your thinking about safety shots. This lesson by itself could stand as a rich and worthwhile video. This is valuable insight into the way a master such as yourself thinks and decides. This is a protocol that we can apply with greater confidence and success (and modify it as circumstances dictate) because you have so thoroughly laid out your thinking for us. Brilliant.
Along these lines, one of my favorite parts of your Bird Show with Glenn Bartley is the Tweak of the Week- I only wish it were every single week! I could watch endlessly to how the both of you think and decide and apply your esthetics. You would have to go a long way before you went too far in your drilling down-- throw away your brake. What percentage of skillful technique vs. percentage of esthetic sensibility goes into producing a Jan Wegener image? Once one reaches the level of technical proficiency that you have, I don’t know if the majority vote goes to skill or to esthetics. (Of course, there is the skill and proficiency that you share with us in your PS/LR products-- but there the esthetics are even more decisive-- and more discussion on your part where the esthetics are concerned will always be welcomed by me.)
I wouldn’t expect every future video of yours to reach the same outstanding level you have attained in this video, but I want to register my most profound wish that you continue along this path for as long as you want to- I will be following behind you with greatest appreciation. You are a Yoda to us padawans.
Wow, thank you so much for the kind words! I truly appreciate your thoughtful analysis and enthusiasm for learning. It's my passion to share what I've learned and help others improve their photography.
@@jan_wegener seen no one getting into these details and these are the real world scenarios, challenges that photographers face in across geography. Thanks for inspiring and sharing your insights!
Great video Jan. I agree with your comments about safety shots. Good idea if stationary but never if you are expecting movement.
Thank you. Very useful as usual. I wish you a Happy new year. Health, happiness and many many stunning photos.
Thank you, same to you
Thanks for a heap pf helpful reminders Jan! I made a lot of changes in my gear over the last two years. From the old EM1.1 to OM-1. I have to stop going that low with SS after taking insurance shots. Last weekend I lost an amazing battle sequence between rainbow lorikeets and a little wattlebird because I took my SS down to 1/160. I got something still (action shota), but I would have easily recovered the ISO noise in DXO, even at 1/1000s in that situation and the shots would have been much better.
Yes, the newer cameras do allow for higher ISOs with a lot less noise, so there's no need to go that low on the shutter speeds.
I am still struggling on low light, I am in Costa Rica with my canon r7 100-500mm and I try sooo much! I think still don’t get something and that I am to slow to get all a good perception of the environment and configurations 😣. Thank you I will try to do my best and apply more of your tips: it is rainy, cloudy.
Hopefully it can help you. R7 AF is a bit jumpy in low light
Por experiencia le digo, cambie de cuerpo una R6ii o R3 son monstruos de bajas luces e isos altos
@@ericusjtm28Canon R6II only when mechanical shutter is used
Find out the slowest shutter speed for your lens, to get sharp pictures. In the past there was a rule of thumb of 1/(focal length) - so in your case 1/100-1/500 (dependent on your current focal length). Because of image stabilization, you could use slightly longer exposure times. I guess you can work at 1/250-1/500s at maximum aperture and Auto ISO
@@airb1976 I am glad you mention this. I own both the R5 and R7, which I use with the RF100-500. I find the "reciprocal rule" still applies, perhaps because high resolution sensors are particularly sensitive to motion blur, especially at the long end of the range. For the R7 (800 mm equivalent), I try to stay above 1/640s. For the R5 at 500 mm, I try to stay above 1/400s. Even with image stablization, good support, and electronic shutter. I was in Costa Rica in 2020 - the birds were gorgeous, but it rained incessantly 😊
Jan, Very helpful suggestions, thank you! I just bought the Canon 100-500, coming from the ef 100-400 and hope to get into this practice better.
nice!
Thank you Jan!!! Great tips. Wishing you a great 2025
Thanks, same to you!
Excellent info! It seems like our bird blind in the woods is always in low light! Thanks for taking me along!
Glad you found it helpful!
Great tutorial I really like the explanations of slow and fast shutter speeds at the trade offs.
Great to hear!
Jan, your RAW Prosets are my must-used every time I post-process my birds images. Excellent editing adjustments kits. 5-stars.
Can you buy comments for your videos nowadays? Crazy world
someone likes something and it must be fake? The last thing I would do or recommend doing is buying followers or engagement
Thanks, Jan. Quite a few great tips. All the best for the New Year.
Same to you! Glad it was helpful
Great advice, Jan. Some of those I already do, others I'm going to add to my repertoire.
At first, I didn't understand your use of the term "safety shot" and how you advise against them. As a biologist, we use the term to mean get a (usually for documentation) photo (arthropods & vertebrates) before the subject crawls, jumps, runs, flies away, or (for plants) before the winds come up.
Yes, that’s another way to use the method
Great video! I think my greatest challenge is just distance from subject and how to improve sharpness in low light situations. Happy New Year Jan and thanks for the content! Cheers!
Distance matters a lot!
Excellent advice Jan! Because of you, I bought DXO Pure RAW. It's incredible!
Glad it's helping!
A fab video and a much sought after one Jan - low light shooting is a highly sought after topic. The tips are fantastic and I use some of them regularly - they work very well. One additional tip is to change to the metering mode sometimes when shooting a bright / light colored subject - that will give us a stop or two more shutter speeds if used with Spot Metering mode. Also, your point of spray and pray in low light is interesting. I thought it was better the other way - reduce the shutter speed (Don't mean single shot!), so that the camera can focus better - I had quite a bit of good luck this way.
I just feel like the less you shoot, the less chances of a good and sharp pose you have
Excellent.... alway more to learn. Please keep it up!
Thanks, will do!
nice, useful tips! as someone in the UK, the light is often not ... optimal :D
Glad it was helpful!
Soo much knowledge ! Thanks so much for sharing your personal experience!!. Will check your courses.
Great to hear you’re keen to learn more!
Great tips! Before digital cameras, tripods were almost essential for photographing birds in low light (without flash). I used a wooden Miller tripod which was heavy but very stable. With a relatively still subject, sharp photos with exposures of a second or more were possible.
yep!
Thx for that video. First measure I am going to take is increase the maximum ISO from 12,800 to 25,600 on my Sony A7RV. Could have even figured out this myself as DxO Photolab does a really good job on denoising the 12,800 ISO pictures and my main problem on dark days is underexposure, not the noise. Well, sometimes you need a Pro to steer you into the right direction.
Frohes neues Jahr für dich und alles Beste from Germany.
Danke, dir auch! 25600 ist schon extrem, aber manchmal braucht man es
Thanks, Jan. Great video as always. I like to shoot birds in flight which presents even more challenges in low light situations. Based upon your video, I’m going to experiment with higher ISO settings. I need to improve my post processing skills. I mainly use Lightroom and I also have Topaz Photo AI. Please let me know if you have any videos or workshops that would be helpful. Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Hi,
my best recommendation would be my Lightroom Masterclass where I teach you step by step everything you need to know to create a great and easy to follow editing workflow and make you images stand out!
It's linked in the description or you can visit my website janwegener.com
Thank you for your good tips. I also prefer a shorter shutter speed and therefore I need higher ISO up to 25800 or higher when necessary. Another Alternative is to change the lens (I have a 105 mm 1.4) hand make some shots with more landscape around the animal. Best wishes for the new year 🍀🍀🍀
same to you :)
Thanks Jan for the very important topic; Shooting in east Himalayan region where birds are very skittish and stays in undergrowth. They also move very fast; only resort is high iso and high shutter. Also distance is also high, cant go without cropping- what could be the viable options.
Sometimes, once you have exhausted what you can do, you just have to go with it. Sounds like your doing it right
Jan,
First of all we are huge fans and have been following for many years. Many thanks to your shared knowledge and resources. If you could help address this problem it would be much appreciated! One thing I’ve never seen covered in any video is why you’d get a lot of noise in an image that is bright. For example we went to the Galapagos recently which sits on the equator. The lighting was very intense. We’d stop down on the f-stop and have a lower ISO and we were still getting an absurd amount of noise in our photos. This isn’t the first time this has happened either. It’s happened more often than not over the years. Both my other half and I shoot with the same gear with the same results and we’ve encountered this numerous times over the years with no explanation. So now we have all these photos with tons of noise (currently no way to reduce the amount in the images as we are on an iPad Pro only at the moment). PS I wish you’d release a Photoshop and Lightroom master class for the iPad Pro. Programs like DX Pure Raw Denoise do not currently exist for iPad Pro users.
Are you talking about the image looking noisy in the background?
What you are describing sounds a bit like distortion from heat haze
@@jan_wegenerit’s definitely not heat haze. The images are sharp but look like someone threw sand over the entire images, not just the background.
I second the iPad Pro request!
Hi Jan, thanks for this great overview of details which may turn out to be crucial ! My biggest issue is to resist underexposing the image while hunting shutter speed, certainly with 'active' little birds ;-)
I agree holding the lens foot (flexshooter) tight helps to stabilize the lens, and this also helps to move the lens subtle to follow the bird.
I now really enjoy the register/recall focus point function in the R5ii, allowing me to asap getting back to the right focal plane by hitting the Set button with my thumb. No more needing to grab the focus ring!
This Friday we had a great session with bearded reedlings .. but at first I was disappointed my shots looked too soft. But this is simply an extremely fluffy bird, and the eyes and close reeds were plenty sharp .. so the to be expected sharpness differs between birds !
Yes, we all love fishing for that extra SS, but usually it gets annoying when trying to edit the photo.
@@jan_wegener heheh, don't we all dream to be a kingfisher ?
The shutter shake is a real thing with the R7. I have had a number of low light shooting sessions where I came back and found that only the first image in each burst was sharp. Now I always try to remember to shoot full electronic in any low light situation. The image wobbles with that sensor are frustrating but still much better than the effects of the shutter shock.
Yes, it's a tough trade off, but probably the better choice in low light
Great video, I especially like the tripod tips. I use the same head and it works great, also for landscapes or macro but especially with big lenses like the 4/600TC or 800PF.
it does!
Whenever I get to the end of your videos, I think, "awe, it's over already!??" lol thanks for the tips, Jan!
That's good to hear! Glad you are enjoying them
Lots of good tips well explained and justified.
Glad you liked it
Followed you for a while. The work is impressive. I’m a Canon shooter using both an R5 MkII and R6 MkII.
I’m not proficient with PS but consider myself seasoned in LR Classic. Def love the way you cover material in the YT vids. My big question/concern: Your courses on PS and LR seem to only be targeted at “bird photographers”… or Am I missing something?…while I shoot flying birds, they are larger, faster and louder - I’m an Airshow/Aviation Photographer and although quite different… the low-light challenge is never ending especially as the show moves into late afternoons. … and using an RF100-500L MOST of the time, wide open is limited. Thanks
I think what I teach can be applied in many different ways, I just like birds as my subjects. In the end we all have the same tools available in the programs, just need to use them slightly different to fix whichever problems we encounter
Yes, 7.1 can be tricky
I also photography in low light situations here in Brazil and I usually don't like to carry a tripod. Usually, if the bird allowed I try to to as much photos I can to get 1 or 2 sharp enought. I use the R7 and usually I use a maximum of ISO16000 and work in DxO Pureraw to reduce the noise. My last trip I was photographing a Bornean Banded Pitta, an amazing bird almost in the end of the day and I was able to get just 1 sharp shot, but I'm very happy with the result.
awesome!
Thank you for your content. You asked for us to share low light frustrations. Perhaps my biggest are birds in flight whose flight path alternates above/below the horizon line. This occures frequently. An example is a small body of water surrounded by tall trees of varying height. An incoming waterfowl background may alternate quickly between open sky and trees. This usually occures more quickly than I can work exposure comp up or down.
Manual mode will fix that for you
@jan_wegener Thank you.
Great video, thank you so much!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for another great video! You didn’t mention anything about shutting off IS when on tripods or using self-timer. I played around with the IS on and off when recently shooting a stationary owl, where it looked like it could benefit having the IS off when on a tripod, though off course it is very sensitive to any tiny movement. And I’m guessing self-timer is not interesting for you as it will make you too slow to react to any action happening, as when people try and do the HQ picture settings.
Keep up the great videos 🤩
I would only turn the IS off when using fairly long shutter speeds, much longer than I would wanna use for a bird
Thanks Jan, great video as usual. Great tip with respect to shooting bursts and then refocusing rather than keep shooting continuously. However, would I do this under the following situation. A while ago, great grey owl started to fly towards me. I had the eye locked in with the auto-focus and shot continuously as it approached. It actually landed on my lens which shocked the hell out of me (an incredible moment). I did get some amazing shots (lots of keepers), but was also perturbed at seeing some images slightly out of focus when I thought I had the eye locked in for every shot. I shoot with an R5 and 600 F4 Mark II. Question, should I have shot this in bursts and refocus or simply keep my back button eye tracking auto focus pressed and fire continuously? My gut tells me to keep shooting and hope the camera will do its job. Cheers mate.
You, could, but once the action happens it's a dangerous game. A bird coming right at you will likely never have every short in a burst sharp
I always enjoy your videos. I shoot the R5 with the RF100-500 and the RF200-800. Low light shots (early morning and late afternoon) continue to give me trouble. I will be trying your suggestions very soon. Thanks for the tips!
Yes, on the slower zooms it's a challenge
Fantastic video
Informative video for a hobbyist like me, who want to be an enthusiast soon 🙂
great! :)
Great solid & useful tips ! . . . Thank You
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great tips, as always!
Glad you think so!
Brilliant Jan...
Exceptional bird images. Always thanks for sharing. Do you have a general rule for vibration reduction? Which mode do you use for static subjects and which for moving subjects? Are there times you do not use vibration reduction?
I always leave it on and usually mode 1
Unless you’re on a tripod…
Muito boas dicas, me fez abrir o olho sobre o Obturador eletrônico, nunca tive coragem de usá-lo, por medo do efeito gelatina, minha próxima passarinhada com toda a certeza irei utiliza-lo
Muito obrigado pelas dicas e pela dublagem automática para o português!
Forte abraço e feliz ano novo!
Glad I could help. It’s worthwhile using.
I hope my Portuguese me sounds alright 😆
@jan_wegener Assim ajudou muito!!!
Excellent tips. Thanks, Jan !
Glad it was helpful!
👍👍👍 EXCELLENT
Thank you! Cheers!
thank you. Excellent video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
As always, a great and informative video, Jan. As my main place to do birdphoto is in the Atlantic rainforest, low light is a very common thing, so there was many good tips here. Specially in the areas where i use to photograph the ant pittas is very dark, so it's difficult to go under iso12800. I have been thinking about putting up an artificial light source to get more light in this areas, because the birds are not very jumpy there. Often comes as close as 2-3 meters distance. Don't know if you ever tried it? If so it would have been nice to hear your experience about that.
Wishing you and your family a wonderful New Year, with a lot of joyful moments.
Cheers, Bjoern
The main issue is that for a light to be effective at like 3-5m, it would have to be quite bright, probably brighter than most portable LEDs, unless it's very dark outside
Great video. What’s about the Camara/lens Stabilization On/ Off when going up speed, like 1/1000? Some photographers said that turn off … 🤷♂️
I never do that. I find it much harder to track subjects then because the EVF becomes very shaky and I have not had trouble getting shots with it
a great video once again! in fact, the main problem I encountered was to bypass the psychological barrier of getting in very high isos... there are so many people around still talking of iso the lowest possible....
it is tough sometimes, but the amount of shots you miss are not worth it for me
@@jan_wegener fully agreed! :)
Shifting the histogram to the right by raising the ISO does not reduce noise (and ISO is not part of exposure which is only controlled by the aperture, shutter speed and scene brightness), but it might increase the risk of blowing highlights. Set the ISO to the value where the gain shifts (in cameras with dual gain sensors) and set the shutter speed and aperture for example as suggested in this video. Shoot raw and adjust the lightness of the image when it is developed.
It doesn’t reduce noise but it makes the editing and noise reduction easier with most cameras
Jan , one of the big problems a lot of the Bird Photography locations are now putting on photographers here in the US especially in Texas no more use of flash photography , they do that at High Island photo blind and It also includes the entire refuge .
I was talking about flash in this video, but left it out. I have not been using flash as much anymore, but sometimes it can help a fair bit.
The biggest issueI find is that the mirrorless cameras can shoot at much higher frame rates than the flash can most of the time
Another great one Jan!
thanks!
Thanks for the great video Jan!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Always informative!
Thanks for watching!
Hi Jan. Always love your videos. Are there any other menu settings that can help get less noise in low light? “Standard” vs “faithful” or other style, using spot metering, battery more than 60% charged, does the pre shooting affect noise?
Not really, the picture styles only affect jpegs. Higher battery charge can affect fps in some camera like original R5 with the mechanical shutter.
Pre shooting doesn't affect IQ
Thanks Jan. I never realised that EVFs make a dark location appear brighter than it really is. This explains why I've underexposed some images taken in the rainforest canopy (O'Reilly's; Maiala). Sadly, I'm using a 1st gen EF 500mm f4 prime, and the IS on that is very limited (the lowest I can safely go is 1/400 from my experiences). The same lens means I have to drop my FPS from H+ to H on my R3 (I get 14fps in H+ mode and obviously less in H mode). Canon CPS advised to lower the FPS to help with AF accuracy with such an older lens. I can't wait until I can retire in 13 years time and use my super to buy a RF600f4 LOL!
My newly purchased RF200-800 is well, garbage. Sorry, I know you recommended the lens, but my personal experiences with my copy are well, not good. I still need to do more testing, but I am at the point of sending it back to Canon for testing and if they can't fault it, I'll just sell it and recoup as much of the cost as possible.
It seems odd with the 200-800, there's some people who struggle with it, which makes me start to think there may be some bad copies.
It should perform very well on the R3
@@jan_wegener I know it should, but it isn't. Some of the softness was due to heat haze (my assessment and Duade kindly checked and he felt the same way too). Other images, which shouldn't have any heat haze, are also soft. I'm also noticing some AF pulsing like with the R7 + Sigma 150-600c combo where in a range of images taken at burst, 1 is sharp and the rest are soft to varying degrees. My old 500mm prime does not do this.
The RF200-800 has fast and silent AF, but it seems vastly inferior to my old 500mm prime. That is my assessment after near 3 weeks of limited testing. I'm hoping to set up both lenses on my tripod/gimbal in the backyard and do some test shots on Wednesday to mitigate any effects that might impact on the image quality. The lens appears about 90% as sharp as my 500mm prime when AF does grab the bird correctly. I'm not too fussed with that as I knew it was never going to match the 500mm prime for sharpness.
There's 1 post on the Canon US forum that sounds similar to my issues, but they never posted a follow up post so I'm not sure what their resolution, if any, was.
I want to love this new lens, but so far, I am hating it.
Should be a setting on your camera that turns off the “view assist“ or something similar when shooting them all light. The setting you want will show you the actual exposure in the viewfinder as you change your shutter speeds or aperture. Where that “view assist“ comes in handy is when you’re shooting indoors in a flash situation and there isn’t enough available light to see anything in the scene without it.
Outdoors, you want what you see in the viewfinder to reflect the actual exposure so you have real time feedback on where you are
@@jeffellis6544 pretty sure I have that enabled.
Another banger vid, Jan
thanks!
Hello !!! Please make a video for Canon R1 settings
This is where i set my register recall to a custom button so that l can set a low iso and slow shutter speed but if the bird does it's display or whatever l can go straight to my register recall button set to a higher iso and shutter speed, anyway that is Canon's terminology for it l not sure what Nikon and Sony call their register recall but l sure they would have something similar. By the way l did pick up in the No More Shock section you said to set your mirror less camera shutter to electronic first curtain or electronic so as not introduce extra shake from the mirror.😱
Excellent video!
Thank you very much!
Great video. Do you ever set your ISO to auto to make sure you get the shot?
Not typically, I prefer full manual mode most of the time for max control
Thx👍
Thank you.
You're welcome!
Thank you Jan for the awesome video. I would like to ask, during the burst of shots , do you continuously press the contiuous focus button? Th you ❤
yes
Great video! What lens is that on your thumbnail? The red ring is throwing me off lol
It's a Nikon 600 TC with a golden ring, probably reflecting something
What tripod and ball head are you using? Also the equipment you are using to go from vertical to horizontal shot? Thank you
PromediaGear TR344L and flexshooter pro
My computer is too slow for lightroom classic and dxo pureraw. I’m stuck with lightroom mobile :/. I’m excited to try some of these tips though!
Me too, can’t afford a faster computer
What’s your opinion on the nikon z6iii pre release capture feature?
JPEG only so quite limited use
Buenas tardes desde España, soy un seguidor empedernido de tus videos, he aprendido mucho en ellos, megustaria muchisimo seguir tus clases magistrales en Photoshop y Lightroom pero tengo el problema que no domino mucho el ingles, asi que no se como hacer para seguir dichas clases, muchas gracias, un saludo.
Yes that can make it a bit tricky. ATM I only have the classes available in English
Gracias, un saludo. Seguire viendo tu videos.
I once worried about noise in my images and didn't want to pay the Adobe subscription. I found the Affinity Photo 2 editor and is currently subscriptionless, but I'm being told that may soon change. Thanks for your thoughts and experience!
Most softwares are likely gonna go that way, the advantage is that you always have the latest copy without having to rebuy
@@jan_wegener I know, and I'm a hobby photographer currently and only get the odd job from time to time, so subscription doesn't make sense for me.
Hey sir,
I am thinking between the Nikon Z8+Z pf 800mm vs Canon Eos R1+100-500+1.4x/rf 200-800,What is the better kit for wildlife out of the 3?
Let me know
It's two completely different set ups. It will highly depend on what you want to photograph
@@jan_wegener Actually I asked you about 3 kits.Anyways I photograph wildlife like birds and sometimes mammals also.I included R1 cuz my friend said that the low pass filter in it is so good in facts sometimes it retains as much detail as the r5ii.Let me know.
Great video....👍
I still use Canon7D mark ii and Tamron 150-600 G2. My biggest problem is that the Tamron lens has a tendency to refocus resulting in lost shots. How to get around this problem?
Yes, that's a tough one. You could use one shot instead of continuous which may help
Thank you....👍
Any AF advice for Nikon in low light?
pre focus
Try separating your shutter release from the focus.
Set your camera to use the back button (AF On) for focusing and the shutter release only to snap the picture.
That way you can pre-focus using your thumb and even let go of it if the bird is in a stationary position and when you press your shutter the focus won’t try and move because it’s already there.
I always wonder if there's an advantage in balancing a sandbag on top of a big lens on a tripod. With all the friction between the sand grains it should damp down any resonant vibration. The grain size or using a rice bag might make a difference. Has anyone tried this out?
How do you keep it stable on top?
Very well said! I completely agree with safety shots. I abandoned that practice as well. BTW my husband bought me your master class for Christmas! I’m super excited to dive in and learn more!
Awesome! Enjoy. I remember speaking to him :)
Great tips and really appreciated. I shoot the R5 100-500 and do struggle in the early mornings with low light. I hike and shoot whatever I find. Could be perched birds or BIF, or deer. I feel autofocus struggles in low light. I shoot bbf with 1 eye detect button, and 1 spot, 1 fast action button. Do you change your focus point settings in low light? I also shoot the lens in mode 2. I never change mode, and maybe that’s a mistake. Thoughts?
I always shoot in mode 1, which should be better for what you do
@@jan_wegenerThanks Jan! Do you also change focus points? I’ve yet to find a way to cycle these effectively. I tried the lens ring, which will cycle them, but not change/ engage them. As soon as I hot a back button it reverts to that programming.
@@KellysherI have spot on one button and eye tracking on the other
Looks like you used mostly full frame cameras and RF lenses which can tolerate high ISOs. It's more challenging with APSC sensors and lenses which cannot be set to higher ISOs without introducing noise in low light. Any tips on the best way to use APSC sensor cameras in low light? Thanks
The issue is that in low light gear really makes a difference, so the challenge with APS-C gear in particular is that still everything I said applies, but it's harder to implement. So you might be "stuck" at 12800 ISO and f 6.3, which will force you into using lower SS.
@jan_wegener with my M50ii and my Canon ef-s 55-250 lens, I try not to cross ISO 6400 (limited the range to that) because the noise is an issue beyond that although it's better at twilight. With my FF (EF) lens I can of course cross that limit a bit, maybe due to the larger amount of light that reaches the APS-C sensor
What tripod head did you change to? Name and part # please. Thank you so much.
It's linked in the description Flexshooter pro
Does your histogram really tell you the exposure? I understood it to be that of a camera determined jpeg adjusted file, not the actual raw file histogram.
close enough in almost all cases
The histogram actually does show you your exposure whether in raw or JPEG.
What it can’t show you is the latitude difference between them. But if you keep your exposures more to the right without blowing out highlights on your subject and make sure that you don’t have large areas that are all the way to the left, which would be black with no detail you’ll be fine.
If you notice in his examples with the histogram, they always are within the two points. You don’t have information stacked up on the right, which is blown out no detail, you don’t have information stacked up from the left, which would be black with no detail all the important stuff is in the middle and preferably more to the right to give you better shadow detail. Of course, if you’re shooting a dark bird with a dark background, histogram ought to be more to the center or left of center. You just don’t want it to be all the way to one side or the other.
Using my Nikon Z8 and 800 f6.3 in low light doesn’t bother me because I feel the Denoise feature in Lightroom does a good enough job cleaning up the image. If need be I’ll run it through Topaz Denoise.
Nice
All the best for the New 2025 Year.
My biggest challenge in low light is having a 200-500 f5.6 zoom. One way I deal with that is to take environmental shots with my 70-200 f2.8.
Yes, the slower zooms have a hard time in dark conditions
I have been struggling with the Dutch winter lately. Just week after week of completely overcast grey days. I use a R10 + RF200 800 and have been going as low as 1/30th, still with high ISO, just shooting lots of images to pick out the few sharp ones. I use the lightroom denoise which I feel works great to about ISO 6400 (with my gear). But now here comes to part I don't really understand. I video in 4K 30fps, which gives 1/60th shutter speed right? Then how does a 1/60th shutter speed give a high noise image, but the 4k 30fps is absolutely fine? 🤷🤷
Just different ways to record. Although if you have to shoot at 1/60, your video would need reasonably high iso too?
@@jan_wegener I looked back at it, the difference is probably that the video is uncropped and the photos have a very smal crop, while shooting high ISO. But still, I am very impressed (a little surprised even) with the video quality in low light conditions.
Great tios, Jan! Thanks!
One gear tip I had to learn for myself, even though I should have just listened to the pros, don't buy the 2X teleconverter. I had one for about 2 weeks and could not get any decent shots with it. Ruined the sharpness of all my shots incredibly. Even with many days of practicing it, on tripod, off tripod, high shutter speeds, and different approaches to settings. Had to return it, simply was not worth the price. My camera is the Sony A7RIVA and I used to the 70-200mm f/2.8, I was getting much cleaner images by cropping in alone. Will have to try out the 1.4X teleconverter, it has much better reviews. Really wish I could drop the money for the 600mm f4.
The 2x TCs basically only works with the big primes
Hmmm... Now that I've seen this video, I'm definitely going to drop my shutter speeds down from 1/1250 and use the electronic shutter for stationery birds. And only use the high speeds for birds in flight.
If you can accommodate 1/1250 that's amazing, but on many occasions your files will be very dark
Can you just use auto ISO?
You could, but especially in low light it can get confused
@jan_wegener Does that depend on the camera or is that true for all cameras? I have just bought the Canon R10 and I've heard it's low-light performance isn't the best.
@@Wass_85 yes, because of the crop sensor, it gets a bit more noisy at higher ISO. Auto ISO just means that the camera selects the ISO to determine exposure, which it can stuff up, but it's a way many people use
If you’re going to stop breathing - exhale first. Much more stable than holding inhaled & will also reduce your pulse for 5 seconds too.
good tip!
Yes, in rifle shooting one shouldn’t hold their breath. Funny things start happening with your perception and reflexes, depending on how long you are breath holding.
I’ve always tried to shoot at the bottom of a slow exhale, but I try to not actually hold my breath at the bottom.
There’s a lot of vids out there on rifle shooting technique. Sniper’s Hide is a good site and they have vids on YT too. (Don’t be put off on the name…I thought it was stupid until I found out a Hide is just like a photo hide; a hidden place to stake out until the shot)
👌👌👌👌👌
Hi thanks for these tips. From my experience I struggle with denoising. I have good shutter speed and good exposure, aperture aroung F8 but high ISO. And the result is finally bad. I’m using a Sony A7 IV with Sigma 150 600
What software do you use to denoise?
@ I use Topaze Denoise, most of time in Low Light mode. I don’t say it is totally bad, the picture is globally denoised (especially the background) but I lose sharpness on the subject : in the eyes and fur where it is the most interesting. For me it ruins the picture.
@@damienu.2668 have you tried our raw or enhance?
@@jan_wegener Hi Jan i've just downloaded your raw files from your R5 Mark II : the image 12800 Victoria's Riflebird is so clean, it's unbelievable ! It's a tiff file, have you already denoised the picture before ? I,ve got a SONY A7 IV with SIGMA 150 600 Sport, and the result I obtain in the raw file is much much more noisy than this, even at only 3200 ISO. Does the difference come only from the camera : Canon R5 Mark II compared with my Sony A7 IV ? Or the exposition or something else ? I'm very very oestonished. Looking forward to reading from you.
@@damienu.2668 The downloads should be all be RAW files? I just double checked and I can see only .cr3 in there. So that's the field straight out of the camera
@2:40 Its hard to take you , or anyone else seriously that suggests ISO is an input to exposure on a digital camera. Anyone who says that, simply does not understand how exposure or digital cameras work. Even if one wants to bypass the discussion of how ISO actually works, to suggest that ISO is an input to exposure is simply just misinformation because it can also be succinctly explains in a different way.
I think in the context of explaining quickly and easily and in easy to understand terms to say that iso is one thing people can change on the camera to make the image darker or brighter is fair
It’s just semantics. Those are in fact the three elements that will affect your file exposure. What he’s saying is that you will end up with less noise by getting a proper exposure in camera than if you have to lift the shadows. And I have found that to be true. It’s better to be able to pull your highlights back a bit than having to lift your shadows too much.
what do you do if it is so low light that the camera/lens will not even focus manually :-)
Go home 😂
@@jan_wegener Nah, that would be too easy :-)
Shooting a bull moose pre-dawn yep that wasn't fun. could make him out in the darkness but to get even a smidge of an image 52000 iso (haha yep) and I was able to get something out of that thanks to no noise stuff. And when the sun came up he darted. oh well and yes it was freezing cold.
Fun 😂
Being to far from my subjects. I need to use hides more and prepare my setups better. This casual walk-around approach clearly does not work.
Unfortunately, most lenses aren't sharp enough wide open.
Johnny pink got 50,100 iso with his R1 ......
a 13.000$ lens is what i have been missing.... All the rest i do as instructed in this video... So now at least i know...
Low light is one of the cases where grea does make a difference, in particular the widest capture one can use
@jan_wegener I'm just trying to justify the expense. Only possible for the 300mm f2.8 GM at the moment and probably in a year or so after saving
@@zampination Yes bit can be tricky. 300 works best when you can be pretty close
Thank you for the great tips! What was the name of the tripod head alternative to a gimbal?
@@briancampbell5243 I use a Flexshooter Pro, I think it's linked ind description too
$249? 😢
less than most memory cards :)
My biggest problem is camera movement (Luminar calls it Motion Blur) . Even if Luminar Neo does a good job of removing "Motion Blur" I do not want to go that way....
Have you considered using a remote shutter release? Putting it on a Tripod and using a shutter release might help with what you’re struggling with. It’s not always convenient but it might be worth a try.
@@sjkay06 Thanks for reply. I got sent a link to a youtube on how to balance manual aperture, Shtterspeed and auto ISO to take bird phots in low light. My shutter was wrong. Thanks.
@@KingsleyGeorgePouponeauhi could you put that link up.
there's a very easy fix to camera movement - higher shutter speed
@@sjkay06tripods dont help if your subject is moving. I personally use a monopod to hold the lens up close to the final elevation, to save holding the camera for 20mins waiting for the bird to take off or land.