[andyv1968]

Hi can anyone recommend the best settings for bird photography please, these were taken from my window and on factory settings.

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[Jonathan Mac]

You're using a very high ISO. You need to reduce that by either opening up the aperture further (not really possible if you're using a lens that's ~f/5.6 at 300mm) or a longer exposure, for which you'd really need a tripod at that focal length. Either that or shoot when there's more natural light around.

[kypfer]

Personally … TAv Mode, 1/1500sec @ f/8, centre-spot a/f and AFS.
The shutter speed to freeze most subject movement, the aperture to give a modicum of focus error, let the camera choose the sensitivity.
Except in relatively low light situations, these settings will work perfectly for the sort of pictures you've posted
I seem to be less "sensitive" to high-ISO noise than some, so I'm usually happy with relatively high ISO settings.
The K-70's low-light high-ISO performance is very good … don't be afraid to stretch it's limits and find how far you can go and still get acceptable images!
Enjoy

[marcusBMG]

Birds are tricky in dull light - your exif says only 1/200th even at 3200 iso, particularly small twitchy fast moving ones. And the focus is ticklish, the depth of field is so small most of your pics will have only part of the bird in focus. You want to get the head and eye in focus but all the pentax dslr's I have used are a bit hit and miss, even with spot focus*. Basically don't be surprised to have a large quota of blurred and/or oof rejects! IME this is normal when I take pics of birds on feeders, it seems easy, the birds are there, and close, but it ain't. The 55-300 is a decent lens but being slow doesn't help for these circumstances.

Otherwise your settings are quite reasonable, shutter priority with auto iso is a typical way to go. It's all a matter of personal preference. I usually use spot metering, you want the exposure on the bird and you usually have the bird centre frame.

One thing you could try is flash in these circumstances.
*always a good idea to tune the focus for your lens - see threads on that.

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Last edited by marcusBMG; 12-31-2021 at 09:02 AM.

[CBM]

First the disclaimer, I am not so experienced with my K-70 and/or bird photography to make any definitive statements about what you should do differently, so take all of the following as "your mileage may vary". That said, comparing EXIF data on photos 1, 2 and 3, I see the following:

Photo 1 looks "pretty sharp" which considering the size of the bird and the shutter speed of 1/125 is pretty good! Any quick bird movement at all contributes to blurriness at that speed. So, if he was balancing in a breeze and you were hand holding, this could have easily been a lot blurrier than it was.

Photo 2, same shutter speed, higher ISO, not nearly as sharp, but the feeder is sharper than the bird, so what was your auto focus doing? (as also stated by Kypher above, single point, AFS ). I have tried different patterns, but the single point, on the bird's eye with higher shutter speed gives me my best results.

Comparing photo 3 to photo 2, same relatively high ISO at 6400, but this bird is way sharper, it looks like the eye is sharpest. The depth of field is another story, at this range you are wide open at 6.3, understandable in low light conditions, but that's the trade off, an f8 setting would have helped the birds beak and body come in sharper. The cameras auto settings wouldn't change the aperture for you because they are trying to balance out the variables to determine speed, aperture and ISO.

All that to say for these subjects you need to get off of the auto settings and into controlling things on your own. I started with aperture priority mode, then compared the results as I went along. If these birds are regulars you have a good lab set up right outside your window - as others mentioned - low light conditions and quick bird movements make things more challenging, so don't expect too much from auto, but the K-70 and 55-300 PLM will deliver good results with your input. Hope this helps...

[cdw2000]

Apart from Iso, speed and aperture, why do you have such a low resolution? You should choose for the full amount of megapixels, that is 24mp. For JPG set it to fine (3 stars? on the K70). High iso large aperture and low resolution makes the K70 perform below its powers. It is a bit of adding insult to injury, so please help this K70 to perform to its best abilities.

I think the EXIF data is showing the pixels for the reduced image needed for uploading the images to the forum. OR these are are heavily cropped.

I think these images are very good given the extremely flat light. I think they could benefit from some post-processing to bring out the colors and detail a little better. I would suggest shooting in RAW so you have more creative control over the final image. Affinity Photo is a good, inexpensive RAW processing software option that does well with the Pentax RAW format. I also like using Topaz De-noise and Topaz Sharpen as plug-ins.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

I think the EXIF data is showing the pixels for the reduced image needed for uploading the images to the forum. OR these are are heavily cropped.

You are right, so I removed my post!

[ChristianRock]

Personally … TAv Mode, 1/1500sec @ f/8, centre-spot a/f and AFS.

Well, with the light he had, considering he was at f/6.3 and 1/200s and ISO 3200, your setting would need an ISO of 51,200, or whereabouts 40,000-something. Not quite ideal.

Honestly, I'll differ from everyone else here and say that I think the camera did the very best it could, under the circumstances. ISO 3200 in the K-70 is not to be feared. and 1/200s with SR is good enough if these birds are in between movements, so to say.

But the photographer still needs to learn his job Mainly, focusing. You need to make sure the focus is on the eye of the bird, not on the seed feeder behind it, for example. Some of the pictures are out of focus and it's the photographer's job to make sure the camera is focusing on the right stuff (admittedly, that job gets easier with the K-3 III because that camera has eye auto-focus that apparently works with birds, but that camera's just about 4x as expensive). When you get that focus confirmation on the bird's eye, press the shutter. Maybe start with center-point focus only so that the camera doesn't keep changing its focus randomly while you're trying to get the bird.

Most of all, take lots of pictures because some will be good, a lot won't, on some you'll think you had the focus but didn't, and so on. You pay nothing for the pictures you throw away. Good luck and I look forward to seeing more of those pretty birds!

[c.a.m]

Hi @andyv1968, welcome to Pentax Forums!

It's always entertaining to watch a variety of birds at the feeders. You managed to capture a starling (?) in its usual gruff-looking manner!


Just a thought... If the shots were taken though a closed window, the glass probably reduced the image quality a bit, even if the window was very clean.

- Craig

[kypfer]

Well, with the light he had, considering he was at f/6.3 and 1/200s and ISO 3200, your setting would need an ISO of 51,200, or whereabouts 40,000-something. Not quite ideal.

Absolutely, but the OP did ask for recommendations and I did quantify my suggestions by saying "Except in relatively low light situations"

[Wasp]

Your shutter speed, ISO and aperture are right in the ball park. SR should compensate for the slightly slow shutter speed.

Do go for center of frame AF so you know what the camera is doing. Or switch to manual and focus on the eye.

It must have been a dull day, judging by the high ISO numbers. With garden birds, you have the luxury of waiting for a day with better light.

[clackers]

Yeah, I think the shutter speeds are too low - IMHO need on APS-C north of 1/500s handheld with that lens and moving subjects like birds, Andy, and the ISO too high. Noise reduction kills details, and birds are all about the textures.

For this size bird, f8 can get you the sharpness along much of its body instead of part. In the final picture you can see the feet are nice and sharp, and the head isn't.

These settings have real consequences - without a flash, you need the light to be good.

A tip with that consumer gear is, if you can see your own shadow in front of you, the sun conditions are good and your camera position is good.

There is an art to positioning feeders so that they're conducive to photography, rather than simply bringing birds to your yard.

[Paul the Sunman]

For small birds, 1/200 s is slow. Anything you can do to push it a little higher will give you improved results. It is easier to fix high-iso noise in post processing than motion blur!

If you are going to be using fairly high ISO, I suggest shooting Raw rather than jpeg. There are now products that do absolute wonders with Raw noise reduction: Topaz DeNoise and ON1 NoNoise AI for example (the latter is now incorporated in ON1 Photo RAW 2022 but can be purchased as a stand-alone too). These will allow you to work at higher ISO, which is a boon for bird photography.

This is at 1/800 s, ISO 5000, f/8, and uses ON1's NoNoise AI.


However, the focus is not quite right for many of them. If you are using Auto Area focus, the camera won't necessarily make the choice you would have. I would recommend spot or very restricted AF, centred on the eye if you can. You may like to experiment with AF.C instead of AF.S, which I would certainly use for birds in flight, but it may not make much difference for a bird on a perch.

[Des]

the focus is not quite right for many of them. If you are using Auto Area focus, the camera won't necessarily make the choice you would have. I would recommend spot or very restricted AF, centred on the eye if you can. You may like to experiment with AF.C instead of AF.S, which I would certainly use for birds in flight, but it may not make much difference for a bird on a perch.

This is the main problem. By default the K-70 uses Auto 11 point AF. The trouble is that the camera doesn't focus on the eye - it might focus with any one of the 11 points. For birds you generally need to use a single point, whether centre point or select AF point, and focus on the eye, as Paul says. Change the default to one of these.

With a centre point only, you will need to learn to focus and recompose: that is, half-press the shutter to focus on the eye, hold it half-pressed to keep the focus and reposition to compose the shot. Alternatively, if you set the camera to focus only with the back button, take you thumb off the button when you have focus, then re-compose and shoot.

The only situation where auto selection of AF points can work effectively for birding is with birds in flight. Like Paul I would use AF.C for this, and shutter priority with a speed like 1/1250th or 1/1600th. I save my birds in flight settings as a user mode for quick access.

If you focus with the rear screen (LiveView), there is an option for EyeAF. But I don't think it works on birds in the K-70. (Maybe in the K-3iii.)

As for the settings, ideally you want bright conditions where you can use a fast shutter speed, low ISO and f8. But don't give up or wait for mid-summer when you might get those conditions. Make the best of what's available. You often need to shoot wide open (the 55-300 PLM is fine at this). Sometimes you need to drop the shutter to 1/125th or even less. Sometimes you need to raise the ISO to 6400. Sometimes you have to do all three. The odds get worse with each compromise but if you have good technique you can still get a usable shot, This is with the PLM at 210mm, f5.6 (ie wide open), 1/100th sec, 6400 ISO

But as Paul said, to use a high ISO like this, shoot RAW and use good post-processing (PP) software. (I use DxO PhotoLab, which uses AI for its NR and is excellent.)

In fact shooting RAW is essential to get the best from your birding photos. Here is a before and after as an illustration. (First shot is a straight conversion of the RAW file, the second after processing.)




When shooting with a slower-than-ideal shutter speed, focus as best you can and try shooting a burst (put the drive mode into Continuous shooting high) of 5 or 6 shots, maybe more. Often one will stand out - just delete the rest.

A couple of people have mentioned using flash. This can help to bring out colour and detail and even up the light (e.g. bird in shadow against a bright sky). The key is to use it only as fill, not as the main light, and keep the contribution to 1 or 2EV. Ideally, the only indication of using the flash should be a nice little catchlight in the eye.

Use an external flash, not the popup in the camera, unless you have no other choice. If you get redeye or steel eye, it's usually fixable in PP if you shoot RAW.

My other key tip for a newby is to work on your technique for handheld shots. This really helps. Great article here: Making the Most of Long Exposure Handhelds - Introduction - In-Depth Articles

[Paul the Sunman]

As for the settings, ideally you want bright conditions where you can use a fast shutter speed, low ISO and f8. But don't give up or wait for mid-summer when you might get those conditions. Make the best of what's available. You often need to shoot wide open (the 55-300 PLM is fine at this). Sometimes you need to drop the shutter to 1/125th or even less. Sometimes you need to raise the ISO to 6400. Sometimes you have to do all three.

However, the professional bird photographers all wait for an overcast day. Even though the light is obviously brighter in full sunlight, the dynamic range is more taxing with a mixture of full sun and shade.

By the way, you are very fortunate indeed if those shots are from your window! I'm sure you'll get some great shots with a little more experience.