Nikon D5500

I'm playing around a bit more with my D5500.

I've mostly been using manual focus but getting some bad images. A few good ones, but most are not brilliant. I'm going to use auto focus for a while now to see how I go.

I took a cockatoo with a bit of zoom and manual focus, and it wasn't too bad. It was early evening grey light when I took this shot.

I managed to get a reasonable shot of a ferry, again on manual focus, which was moving pretty fast towards me.

I'm now taking everything on RAW plus jpeg (at the maximum fine setting). I played around with the ferry RAW image using Corel Aftershot software and tried to make the blues and reds a bit brighter, and the image a bit sharper. I'm not sure how I succeeded. The water is definitely more blue. I also notice the green trees in the background are brighter and have a lot more detail. Peter said RAW would enable darker areas to be revealed and he was right. The software has a steep learning curve which I need to master in addition to learning the camera.

I'm looking forward to catching up with Peter soon to have some in person tutorials. You always learn faster when someone shows you.

Comments

[Thygocanberra]

my signature pic on this blog is one of my better 'catches' for moving target AF.

It was Nikon D90 with 18-200VR lens of FA18s heading over Kambah en route to Anzac Day (I think) flypast a few years ago. I shot a burst (til the buffer filled ...) and not all were in focus. They were going pretty fast.
[side observation, although the D90 and D3300 apparently have the same 11 point AF module, my anecdotal suspicion is that the D90 AFs better]

Shooting moving targets in burst - check the D5500 specs - how many shots in RAW vs jpeg fine vs jpeg basic can you get before the buffer fills and you have to wait for it to process?

For my cameras, if I wanted to get maximum frames to try to 'get the shot' I would be tempted to go for lower resolution jpegs to get maximum number of shots in the burst (if I was preprepared).

[Thygocanberra]

nice shot of the Corella (we see them in Canberra periodically too - I think they have changed habits and come to urban areas more frequently. Gentler and less boisterous than their bigger sulphur-crested cousins). Still chewers though. I have a shot of one chewing the power cable ...

Manual focus of moving targets is not easy, especially if they are moving towards or away from you, and the faster they are going the harder it will be. If they are moving horizontal to you, you can pan with them. A trick for (some) moving targets is to pick a spot the target will go through and prefocus there (eg for racing cars, bikes etc) and shoot as they enter the 'zone' [I haven't really tried this yet]. Your on the water example would make that difficult.

I haven't shot a lot of moving targets, except for soccer and floorball, or panning for birds or aircraft in flight but have always relied on the AF. I think the AF-C (for moving targets) should work very well on the D5500.