I hadn't intended to do one more blog on Lake Kirkini, but I've had several requests to write something about the gear I used and the kind of settings that seemed to work.
I'll mention to start with that Sean Weekly was very helpful in providing notes through Wildlife Worldwide about what to take in advance of setting off from home.
I took my two Sony camera bodies: the A1 and the A7CII. It has been my practice for the better part of two decades to travel with two cameras where possible. The whole trip was based around going out on boats: if one camera ends up in the water, then a second camera is essential if the trip is not to be a complete bust.
Companion cameras: The Sony A1 with 70-200mm f/4G and the A7CII with the 16-35mm GM. Note the anchor links on each camera and the wrist strap on the A7CII.
In terms of lenses, I took the Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM, 70-200mm f/4 G and 200-600mm F/5.6-6.3 G, as well as the Sigma 50mm f/2 Contemporary. I had thought about taking my 24-105 mm f/4, but I decided against it both from the point of view of weight, and also because Sean’s notes suggested it would not be necessary. As it was, the total weight of my camera bag (which included my laptop, plus various chargers etc) was distinctly problematic relative to the 8kg cabin baggage limit of the airlines I flew on (Lufthansa and Aegean Airlines, LHR to SKG changing at FRA).
In the end, I'm delighted with the combination of gear that I took. I did not need the 24-105mm, so leaving that behind was a good choice. I only used the 50 mm lens once (in near darkness, before dawn); likewise the 200-600mm only once. I'm glad I took them, but honestly, they weren't necessary. Another time, I would leave them behind.
Three red pouches. Sony A1, 200-600mm at 200mm, f/6.3, 1/1000. The pelicans got so close nearly all the time, there was no need for this lens.
Camera bodies. The A1 was my primary camera (of course!) and it performed entirely as expected. That's to say, it gave a high proportion of sharp pictures every time. One of the reasons for having an A1 is to get high frame rates for still photography. With birds in flight, high frame rates give opportunities for getting a variety of wing positions or the exact moment when a bird touches down etc. The 70-200 mm f/4 lens is an older model that does not support 30 frames per second. However, it still gives 15fps, which, with birds as big as pelicans, turned out to be pretty satisfactory. They are so big that they don't flap their wings as quickly as a much smaller bird, so I found that frame rate adequate. On the other hand, the well-known American bird photographer Arthur Morris reckons it's a waste of time to be on anything other than 30fps with an A1: yes, that would have been an advantage had I had a lens that supported it. Even so, I don't feel I missed anything significant.
The A7CII was a revelation. I originally bought this as a street and travel camera, that could function in a pinch as a secondary camera alongside the A1. But it turned out to be much more than that. It can't match the A1 for frame rate (I was shooting using the mechanical shutter which gives about 8fps to minimise the rolling shutter effect). But its autofocus is amazing and it at least matched the A1 for the proportion of sharp shots (it has an AI AF chip, which the A1 lacks). When shooting low over the water, reaching down over the boat’s side to get reflections on the calm lake, the screen is fully articulating, which means it's easy to get pictures in portrait orientation. It is a technological miracle that it is possible to have a camera at arm's length, panning with a bird's flight using the back screen, and the camera gives perfectly focused shots multiple times per second, reproducibly, time after time.
Where the A1 has 50 megapixels, the A7CII has 33 (about the same as my Nikon D810, my high-resolution camera for nearly a decade), so that is fine.
By and large, I kept the 70-200mm lens on the A1 and the 16-35mm lens on the A7CII. That seemed to work extremely well for flight shots with the A1 and close-in landing or portrait shots with the A7CII. The exception was whenever there was going to be very fast action, in particular when the birds were being fed. When the birds were being fed close to the boat or on the shoreline, I swapped the 16-35mm onto the A1 and set the camera to 30fps (the 16-35mm GM is a more recent model and higher spec than the older 70-200 mm). This worked very well and gave me critical timing on feeding pictures. Both lenses on both cameras gave a very high rate of sharp, perfectly focused pictures.
Something I had not expected to be so useful was a simple wrist strap (see camera picture above). I tried out a conventional shoulder-type camera strap to start with, but when leaning over the side of the boat, holding the camera as close to the water as possible, it just didn't work at all. But you do need something to provide a bit of safety should you drop the camera: a wrist strap works well for that. I have Peak Design anchor links on all my cameras, including my iPhone. I had a Peak Design wrist strap on all the time and swapped cameras between it. I would shoot with one camera tethered safely to my wrist, while the other sat on a bench in the boat or in my camera bag.
The other thing is that when birds are splashing around and you are holding your camera close to the water, the cameras are going to get splashed (fortunately, they are supposed to be splash/drip-resistant). I kept a small towel in the pocket of my jacket at all times; whenever they got splashed I could wipe them off very quickly.
In terms of general settings for photography, my basic setup for birds in flight is a preset shutter speed of 1/3200 sec, aperture f/4, ISO on the rear wheel (usually set to auto-ISO, with exposure compensation as needed) and AF-C focus. I generally set exposures using zebras for highlight warnings. On the A1, I have focus areas restricted to wide, zone and small spot. I can toggle between focus areas using the C2 button programmed for this. The shutter activates autofocus and I have tracking activated by the AF-ON button. Bird priority eye-autofocus is activated. I think those are the key settings – if I've missed anything, drop me a line.
Dalmatian pelicans, blue hour before dawn, in the fog. Sony A1, Sigma 50mm f/2 Contemporary, at f/2, 1/60 sec, ISO 320.
Having said all that, the light was frequently rubbish with overcast foggy days, quite aside from the fact that we set off in the boats before dawn and encountered our first pelicans long before the sun came up. Aperture quickly became wide open, and shutter speeds went down as low as 1/60 as needed. Auto-ISO occasionally went pretty high (8000 ISO or more): noise in the age of AI noise reduction is not an issue, but loss of dynamic range most certainly is. It's a juggling process to try and get sharp images with the highest possible shutter speed and the lowest possible ISO. One way and another, I think I got it to work well enough.
You’ll notice in the picture above that the water looks very smooth. The relatively slow exposure of 1/60 enhances the smoothness of the water. This can be done deliberately. In the picture below, I dropped the ISO to get an exposure of 1/20. The water here appears much smoother than it did at faster shutter speeds.
Dalmatian pelican portrait at slow shutter speed. Sony A1, 70-200mm f/4 at f/5 and 191mm, ISO 100, 1/20 sec, hand held. The combination of image stabilisation in the camera body and lens makes these kind of shots more or less routine.
For pictures with intentional camera movement, I used 1/15 sec quite successfully panning with the birds as they flew past.
Dalmatian pelican skidding along the water surface as it touches down. Sony A1, 70-200mm f/4 at 70mm and f/16, 1/15 sec.
If you want to see detailed settings for my pictures, I have set up an album on Flickr. The EXIF data should be intact so you can see my settings for any individual pictures.