วีดีโอ

Very good. No nonsense.

I am an amateur/enthusiast wildlife photographer and it took me quite some time to understand the exposure triangle when I got my first 'proper' camera and wanted to get out of all the auto settings. This video has confirmed that I now have 'got it'!! I liked the presentation - no messing, no umming and ah-ing, just straight and to the point. Easy to understand, and for those who were getting a bit left behind, as I noticed in the comments, don't they know there is a pause button they can use?!

Just remember that the "manual " mode is in fact an automated exposure mode when using auto ISO.

Thank you but your video and your website gear list does not list the sand /bean bag you use for Photos when on safari in your car

Superb video. Informative & pacey. Subbed!

Go for 300mm Olympus .. and E-M1II (second hand) or newer OM-1 or OM-1 II .. compact and fast …. The best lens you can get is the 150-400 mm F4.5 Pro but if you do not have the finances for that lens there is a very good 150-600mm . Best for birding too ..light and fast.

Lucky you .. Went for a week around the S56 , and game yes .. Cats only one Leopard for 20 secs on returning trip around the high road before the H1-6 crossing heading Letaba , by the H14 to Phalaborwa was also a beautiful area .Better on game that the one going to Letaba . Also the Shinwedse S50 was quite silent. on cats . I miss the howling of the hyenas and Jackals at night which before i heard in KTP ..but now all of these fantastic sounds after the COVID time KTP Park closure have disappeared ….i wander why .

Great overview, funnily enough, IS is hardly ever turned on, on my Canon 600F4 V2, I get sharp images without it. Just got the R5 and getting more into video, so may have to utilise it more...

My Canon M6 has FV mode. I set ISO to auto. I control Speed, Aperture and Exposure Compensation.

You mentioned watching the fundamentals of Masks first. I searched everywhere on your sight but cannot find this one. Please advise.

Another great contribution Mark. The ability to see the histogram in mirrorless and the use of exposure compensation (EC) have made the task of getting a correct exposure much easier. One thing to remember when using EC is to reset it after after taking the image(s). If this is overlooked it will affect subsequent images. My wish is for camera companies to include a setting that will automatically reset this function (and perhaps others,) when moving on to another image ;-)

This vid is GOLD. Thanks for it!

Straightforward and to the point. Sounds good to me. Thanks.

Hi Mark. I enjoyed the video, but I want to point out that manual with auto iso is somewhat more difficult if you're using a dslr as I am. For example, consider the following scenario: An Osprey is sitting on a branch high up on the tree, some distance away and against a bright sky. I dial in +1 EC ( to prevent under exposure) and take a shot...all is good. It's exposed correctly. The Osprey then flies down and lands on the mud flats, so I take another photo, this time using negative EC (to prevent over exposure). That's good too. The problem comes if you want to take a series of shots of the Osprey leaving the tree, flying down with green foliage behind it and then (for example) diving for a fish. It's very difficult to decide on what EC to dial in, and made even more difficult as you don't have access to the histogram in the viewfinder on a dslr. Using live view I think would be quite difficult in this situation, despite having the histogram in sight. Mirrorless cameras fair much better it would seem in this situation.

I HATE Auto-Iso - and when you use exposure Comp with an Auto-ISO setting - the compensation only adjusts your ISO, so, you just as well do it manually. However, this can work if you know you're shooting an all-white or black subject with zero chance you'll encounter anything else, can be useful for birds in flight as well. Otherwise, I think you're better off going Full manual.

3:00 I am a bit confused with the suggestion of setting aperture wide open as a default. Wouldn't it be better to set the aperture at the sweet spot for the specific lens (usually around f/8) unless you are specifically going for a blurred background?

This is a brilliant tutorial, very easy to follow

Well ISO still does matter and meanwhile we have not seen much improvement in Out of Camera Images for YEARS. In fact, I would argue that for stacked sensors, Out of Camera quality has declined. Then we have the continually improvement over the years in Software. So unless folks are getting Right Out of Camera and not using the latest advances in Software, I just won't be buying into some Myth that ISO doesn't matter. It still matters along with proper Light, Technique, etc.

Nice video, however, I'd like to add a bit :) This is not a criticism in anyway. To start with I'm a professional portrait/Studio photographer so never use auto anything for that work as I have complete control of the lights. In the video, you said ISO doesn't matter because of modern technology (noise reduction better sensors etc) then you said, you don't want to let it get to high as it degrades the image. I understand what you mean but others may get confused. If a beginner photographer asked me for wildlife or any outdoor photos where reactions to change have to be done quickly. Control the shutter, for wildlife, open the aperture as wide as possible (for wildlife this is inevitable a minimum of F/4 but probably F/5.6, F/6.3 or F/8 as they are more than likely to have a $1500 lens not a $15,000), (if they are just shooting on the street then settings would depend on the weather and may not need to be wide open) Set auto ISO but know the limits of your camera. As all cameras the higher the ISO the lower the Dynamic range. at the base ISO you may have 10 or 11 stops of dynamic range but at ISO 6400 you may only have 3.. my ISO rule is set it as low as possible but as high as needed. For metering I'd use spot metering and link it to focus point (if the camera does not automatically do this ) so the subject is always exposed correctly. I also ask what is the desired output? If it is to be shared quickly then making sure the most important thing is exposed correctly e.g. the animal. If you have time to edit and know what you are doing in post production, shadows can be recovered etc. So you may care more about the highlights and shadows in the background... but personally, i'd rather have a great photo of a correctly exposed lion and have the highlights in the background blown, than have an underexposed lion, protecting highlights which are not important to the subject of the photo

The part about iso is true for most genres except night photography, there it becomes very much a creative choice, giving you control over the strength of reflections and highlights.

Really enjoying your tutorials Mark. Only problem Mark I am missing a lot of them as I am not being "notified" on my lap top...... I have a lot to catch up on......

Are you allowed to get out on that bridge?

Great, kept my attention and concentration 🙂 Metering technique is something I suspect many overlook.

Great video once again, Mark. The negative comments are typically from some togs that always know better but it doesn't show in their work! 😉 Setting your ISO limits according to your specific camera, is something I use. My D850 is limited to ISO32000 max.

I think you could have made 5 videos from that amount of information and the break neck pace. All good info and enjoyable to watch though. One more time from the top 😜

This video is fast AF! All I heard was "blah blah shutter speed" "blah blah exposure" too damn jumpy to make sense of things I already know. Let alone for the new shooter. I clicked this video in my feed and it sent me straight into mind melt as though a professor was grading me on what I learned so far . Slow your roll, OP!

Good info. We have virtually the same workflow. However, I prefer spot metering as opposed to matrix. I use back focus, as I’m guessing you probably do as well, leaving the shutter button free to set the exposure value before releasing the shutter. I feel like this would be faster for you in a wildlife scenario, as you wouldn’t have to evaluate the shot you’ve just taken only to find that the bird flying away was under/over exposed, because you weren’t afforded the time to adjust exposure compensation. Of course, assuming you’re also shooting raw, you’re probably close enough to end up with a usable file, but, just food for thought.

You squeezed in a lot there and hit on all my errors.

Wow, what time does your flight leave? You race through your videos without giving the viewer time to absorb what you are saying. Chill bro, slow down so we can appreciate your expertise.

Great video Mark, one thing worth mentioning is ISO invariance, Nikon is quite known for it. A image underexposed by 3 stops at ISO 100 for example and pushed by 3 stops in post would like the same as in camera ISO 800 Of course, with such an extreme underexposure, it can be difficult to ensure you have nailed your focus/composition if you cant see the subject. I like your approach, rather apply gain (ISO) than leave it underexposed/difficult to see Its such a pity that the image preview that we see isn't even a representation of the "true" raw data. I remember testing my Nikon D800 metering and pushing the exposure (according to the meter) in camera past 3 stops at native ISO, I was able to recover the raw data with no clipping, I figured it was safe to at least "overexpose" my shots by 2 stops The Z6 is much the same and I can bet the Z8 is even better. I think overall this applies more to landscape shots when you want to get the most "juice" into the sensor before clipping, but with Adobe Denoise AI and other tech only getting better, it does not matter so much anymore, tech is making things easier, letting us focus more on the importance of capturing the right scene etc.

The biggest issue I have is that when my edit looks exactly how I want on my macbook pro... I send it to my phone (samsung s22) the colours and blacks/highlights appear different. It never looks as good as my macbook when I view them on my phone. Extremely frustrating. How do you deal with this?

Great video mark and i’m going to give it a go. Also let me be the first to congratulate you on 10k subs. Can’t wait to see you at 100k. Hard work pays off bud 🎉

Thanks for this Mark, has really helped me with my wild bird editing. Can I ask do you add a little blue tone to the shadows on all your images or does it depend on the colours already there? If it’s a really sunny summer image would you add a different colour to the shadows? Sorry for all the questions but am at the beginning of my photography journey 😊

what month were you there ?

Thanks for the in-depth introduction to point colour Mark. Dramatic difference in outcome.

Excellent tutorial as always. Is this image shot with the Z 180-600mm ?

really helpful video - thank you

Beautiful editing!

Brilliant, thanks for showing that. Gonna use on my next still life project.

Hello Mark. Fantastic video!! I might be going to Mashatu. I am a Canon photographer and I was thinking of bringing the lenses 400 f4.0, 100- 500 and 16-35 for landscape and Widén angle for the Hide. Is it a good gear, or should I bring someother lenses?

Love the tips you give in your videos, they make a world of difference. Appreciate your time, thank you

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. Keep sharing Lightroom tutorials 😊

This lightroom feature is amazing! I'm gonna start using it in my photos, thanks for the tutorial 🙌🏻👏🏻

Great video again and i can see why using it at a specific time in your workflow is very important. Thanks for that.

Excellent tutorial as always Mark. One would almost think you’re not a big fan of greens 😉

Thanks for the video. I think LR does quite a poor job overall when it comes to handling contrast. I find all of the "canned" LR profiles are too aggressive, which makes working on contrast (and colour saturation) more difficult. For the past few years, I've used linear camera profiles and I find they're much easier to work with. There is a bit more work involved at the outset because when you apply a linear profile, your image with be underexposed, extremely flat and the colours will be sucked out. But I find the linear profiles are much easier to work with and when you get used to working this way, you have much more control. It's pretty easy to build camera-specific linear profiles, but there is a learning curve (excuse the pun) to using them because you need to restore exposure, contrast and saturation. The benefits are significant though, in my opinion, because those Adobe profiles can be hard to work with, especially for wildlife work (and portraits). My workflow now is - apply a linear profile, rebuild exposure, global contrast and saturation with quite aggressive settings and then use masks to refine selected areas. Another benefit of using linear profiles is they allow you to recover blown highlights that would be almost impossible to get back with any of the Adobe profiles... Cheers

Thank you for this Mark, I live in UK and don’t do wildlife but love to capture our native birds and also my three dogs! Do you think I could apply your techniques to my images?

I'm so glad that I landed on this channel. Now I am gaining more Lightroom knowledge.

Excellent! Thanx