Birding - why I choose manual exposure mode

Breeding plumage European starling

Yesterday, I was out with my camera and long lens, photographing wildlife on my walk.  As is my habit, I had my camera set on manual exposure mode, my long lens at its minimum aperture, and an ISO value to allow me to achieve a decent shutter speed.  In this case, as there was a heavy overcast sky, the ISO was 1600 and I ended up with a shutter speed of 1/320.  

I use manual exposure mode because I am much more likely to obtain a proper exposure when shooting backlit scenes.  I look for a well-lit area, nothing with significant backlighting, and select my settings.  Then, as I go about shooting, anything with the same incident lighting will obtain a proper exposure.  A starling, sitting on a rooftop, had only the bright sky as a backdrop.  An automatic mode would have resulted in a significant underexposure for the bird.  I took one shot on automatic to prove the point.  You can see it below.

European starling photographed using auto exposure mode with heavy backlighting.

The sky is noticeably gray.  The camera may be able to compensate a little for the notorious backlighting, but not nearly enough to produce a proper exposure.  The image is 3 1/3 stops overexposed (10 times more light than it should have been).  By using manual exposure mode, I can keep the camera set to values that will render a proper exposure regardless of the background.  The assumption here is that the subject is in the same lighting.  If there is less light falling on the bird, I would have to either increase ISO or reduce shutter speed.

I find this works most of the time.  Another advantage of this system is that even if a photo is underexposed, it is far better to compensate for an underexposure than for an overexposure.  It's the same for slide film; it is easy to blow out highlights if a subject is overexposed, while details can still be pulled out from an underexposure.  In the above case, I played with the very underexposed shot to get the following image.

Same shot as above with corrections in post - an underexposed image can still be salvaged.

I find manual exposure mode the best for photographing wildlife shooting for the incident lighting rather than whatever is coming from the scene.  Snow, backlighting, and even harsh foreground lighting will all turn out much better than if you used automatic.  Yes, you can use exposure lock and exposure compensation, but it is just more mucking around and your eye isn't on the subject.  Shoot in manual exposure mode and check your images to see if the settings are right.  Adjust accordingly.  And if you are going to make a mistake, make it in the direction of underexposure.  The good news here is that you will end up with a higher shutter speed.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com



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