The Right Moment

THE RIGHT MOMENT
A few years ago I worked on several documentary projects in Panama.
One of them was about livestock.
This image shows three young cows jumping off a small truck in the Cocle province.
 
In this image I handheld the camera to be able to shift my compositions fast according to the action going on. When you are working on images like this you have to be prepared and you must adjust the camera settings in advance.
 
What types of settings are important in an image like this?
The number one is shutterspeed. I wanted to freeze the action so I selected ISO 640. That setting was sufficient to achieve fast shutterspeeds according to the strong midday sunlight.
 
I also used aperture priority. Why did I do that?
Through aperture priority I can control the depth of field in the image, and I used f/8 in this case. I used the Carl Zeiss 18mm lens on a Canon EOS 5D camera, and at f/8 setting I have depth of field from about 1 m to infinity.
 
The shutterspeed was then controlled by my ISO settings as mentioned above. The shutterspeed I achieved by these settings was 1/2000 second. That is sufficient to freeze the action.
 
This image is in sunlight, but what if it was cloudy weather? What about the fast shutterspeeds then?
In cloudy weather you just adjust the ISO settings to a higher value, and the shutterspeed will adjust according to the new ISO setting.
 
I very often use the same settings in wildlife photography, and you can also use this method in sports photography.

If you want to learn more about Outdoor Photography, check out my Online Photo Cours in the menu to the left.
 
 Best regards
Øyvind Martinsen