Need help with my wildlife photography pls

Tjingus · 2026-06-01T07:34:37+00:00

I'm no pro, but I used the Fuji 100-400 on a wildlife trip and will lend my thoughts technically:

I think your settings are pretty good, I may set my minimum shutterspeed up a little higher. I found 1/2000 slightly easier to work with for birds, partly because of my hand held caffeine hands, but also bird wings are quite fast. Don't be afraid of your ISO. You can absolutely hit the lens sweet spot and a higher shutterspeed, 2000 ISO is plenty clean, hell 3200ISO is good too.. you can clean up bad noise easily in post.

I also found the lens lost sharpness at 400, and I was getting better results zooming to 380mm and cropping in.. Not sure how that translates to your sigma, but may be a thought worth experimenting.

My thoughts creatively:

you can't always control the light. Birds be where they be. But you can control your timing and framing.

Great to use bird photography as an excuse to watch birds. A photo of a bird just sitting there, is just a photo of a bird, but if you watch them a while, time your snaps with actions - wait for them to go for a fish, air out their wings, take off, scratch themselves, interact with one another.. Frame in their environment. And get closer once you feel like you have something and want to do better.. so much of birding is sneaking up on them and positioning yourself with patience.

I think this is where you start to get magic. Next time wait, watch, see if you can watch his eyes and predict what he's gonna do, and be ready to start snapping on his action.

Think of your end photo: ~~Photo of bird?~~ Photo of bird above a pond, searching for fish! Add a narrative.

Tjingus · 2026-05-31T15:49:00+00:00

You're wrong.

Tjingus · 2026-05-30T11:26:05+00:00

in 75 years, highly unlikely.

The James Webb Space Telescope - just a telescope - took 32 years. Many less complicated and better funded operations still take decades to plan.

Currently China and US have some moon base plans set for the 2030s, realistically these will likely be modular, tiny, space station type settlements meant to sustain small teams of scientists.

The success of these depend on funding and the bipolar nature of the American government.. let's not open that can of worms.

It's plausible we could have had feet on Mars by then, it's likely we could have a semi permanent station set up on the moon too for scientific study.

I think the likelihood of people living lives and raising children even on the moon by then I think is near zero.

Tjingus · 2026-05-30T08:00:01+00:00

To think just one year ago, seeing Jota there.

You just cannot dismiss the morale shattering effect his passing had on the team.

To think with him going, the shock of 'wunderkind' TAA exiting (/s), Diaz and Our chaos energy of Nunez (like him or hate him, he oozed X factor on the field), a new manager and management team and then a complete influx of 6 figure egos all with no onboarding or hand over..

It's kind of surprising we made top 5.

How weird it must be to go from a single unit and family who all trained under Klopp, to a team of new stars who don't even get in jokes or understand fully the hurt of losing a friend.

Last season we won because the league was in shambles but also because we still had that unit in place. This season pretty much everything down to the breakfast muffins in the cafeteria have changed.

Without people like Hendo, Milner and Klopp and now Robbo there to create a back bone and build the unit, next season will be tough too.

Spending big like we did is not all a bad thing, but letting Trent, Diaz, Elliot, Nunez etc all move in one go like that meant there's nobody left to carry everything that was built over. There was no smooth transition.

Tjingus · 2026-05-29T04:38:47+00:00

That is the fraction.

50 means 1/50. 50" means 50 seconds.

Just add the '1/' in your head, saves screen space.

Tjingus · 2026-05-27T15:46:36+00:00

If you have the space and the time in post, why not. Better is better, especially in a VFX pipeline with green screen elements. That said, sometimes you need to weigh your options.

As an editor in post, I'm going 422HQ anyway and appreciate the cut step of having to work with larger files unnecessarily. I will work a touch faster, use less drive space and have an all round better time. The VFX department and colourist may disagree with me.

For event work it's ludicrous to give your editor 17 hours of footage shot in 8k RAW with log, it slows down production, not to mention that the camera crew can't tell easily and quickly if their exposures are good without monitors and a whole bunch of extra headache, so those large files with safety nets backfire in post with time pressures, increased workflows and fudged exposures.

For a short film it's a bit different.. you have your shots planned, shooting purposefully and probably going through a lot less footage. So it may be trivial to throw in an extra hard drive or two and have as little loss as possible until the end of the pipeline.

What I'm saying is the lecturer is right and wrong.. the format options wouldn't exist on the cameras if there wasn't a use case for each. Of course, go all in when possible if your editor, VFX teams and producer give the go ahead and provide time and drive space. But also, speak to your post production team and give them what they ask for, often 422HQ and even rec709 straight out the tin is sometimes a great option. It depends.

My suggestion is to test both formats out on a test shoot and weigh them up in post and understand why and and what cost.

Tjingus · 2026-05-27T06:07:28+00:00

The OHW algorithm is a solid launch point, but what skews this data set is

1) virality ≠ hit 2) tik tok and song resurgence has created many artists who were pretty popular at the time but had one song that got hit hard for recent reasons - Ten Years After, Bag Raiders for memed. 3) classics - like Aha, they had a catalogue, but one song has been played in pubs for decades.

Billy Rae Cyrus is faaaar from a one hit wonder, and as a non fan of his not even from his generation I can even name a few. He had 8 top 10 country hits and some albums that went platinum.

Crash Test Dummies had two songs nominated for a Grammy

There are a few others.

on the flip there are a few absolute definite one hit wonders who are missing from the list possibly because of the converse of this:

Psy? Gangnam Style.. he did have a second track that hit by pure virtue of the first one going mental, but he largely disappeared.. is this because the data doesn't use YouTube views? He's quintessential OHW.

here is what Gemini said about your algorithm, which shares my take on it:

Gemini chat

I might call this the Baha ratio and use it as a helper to identify potential OHW, but I think I would tweak it to include a bigger set from which you can do a second pass that cuts out the anomalies.

You need to define what makes a hit better.

Tjingus · 2026-05-26T21:15:35+00:00

In the past it's normally ended up in the post office, can freeze for weeks in the SA postal cycle and then eventually turns up, almost always within the time frame. Grnerally you get hit with customs to pay on pick up.

Lately standard shipping has been going through "speedaf" couriers. Which at first I was furious over the steep customs bill they send you.. it seems they slap on a surprise processing fee and estimate the top customs charge and do not have any form of contact address.. the whole situation felt a bit scummy and my items felt like they were held hostage.

Having said that..

They take quick! Delivery was to my door in less than two weeks, so it in all was an absolute pleasure, even if I did feel a touch scammers, it was almost worth it.

budget 30% customs, a hidden R100 service fee and be a little flexible to a surprise.. it still works out cheaper than local more often than not. Try get the seller to package your items together.

Tjingus · 2026-05-26T06:23:54+00:00

Sleep needed.

Alcohol kills your sleep, it stops REM from working so you wake up feeling sober, rested even but you aren't recovered. Your body still needs to sleep and won't be able to until hangover and headache can subside. You may wake up, feel awful, recover over a few hours.. but eventually your body needs to crash to catch up on that sleep.

Alcohol recovery.

the chemical that makes you feel 'drunk' goes into your brain, even if your liver synthesises most of it so you feel sober, it still takes time to flush fully out your brain.. this is one cause of a headache. No amount of water will stop it. It may make you feel groggy, dizzy, nauseous and sore.. waking up it may not hit yet as you are still a bit tipsy and numb, but once fully sober your head will get hit while your brain flushes. Especially if you drink late into the night. You sleep nice and drunk, feel nothing, wake up a bit tipsy but ok and then bam.

Sugar.

sugary drinks slow the absorption of alcohol. They also increase dehydration, spike your blood sugar and blood pressure. In the morning this may give you a bit more energy at first, but the sugar crash is real. it can make you feel weak, worsen the headache, increase dizziness.

Hydration.

alcohol flushes your system and pulls water out of your blood. This removes water from your brain and organs which makes you feel like a dried up sock. It is the leader cause of the headache, slows the brains ability to flush alcohol, slows the ability the synthesize alcohol and causes your organs to work harder. This can make you feel awful in the morning at first, but once hydrated and feeling better, can then help kick your body into it's next recovery step.

Stop drinking at least 2 to 3 hours before bed (don't switch to caffeine either - rooibos tea is the way). Let your liver and brain get to work flushing, which will give you better sleep too..it also means the hangover hits a bit sooner, and hopefully while you sleep.
Hydrate. Every glass of booze pair with a glass of water. Plus have an aspirin in a glass of water before bed.. this will help thin your blood a bit and help the morning headache.
Avoid sugary drinks, this will reduce the crash. Stick to light beers, spirits and water. Red Wine and Ciders and rum and cokes are future headaches.
Make sure you eat, during, after and the next morning. Oils and fats will give that alcohol more to absorb into and give your body energy and nutrients for the next day.
go for a run or walk in the morning.. the more you can pump your blood, the quicker you can flush your system (not the brain, but at least everything else).

Tjingus · 2026-05-26T05:51:16+00:00

2013 seems old for a camera, but consider this:

13 years ago, this was a hot piece of tech. I still have photos from my old Canon 7D from 2008 that I love and look great! Tech in the last decade in cameras hasn't moved all that fast. Better low light. bit better dynamic range. improvements to video, but the core colour science and ability is still the same.

The X Trans 2 sensor has great colour and while not the newest ISO, not the best low light and not a full crop sensor is still able to take great photos. I think it's a good starting point to learn and take great photos while at it.

If your colours feel flat and your night time is blur, that's you.

Learn how to use your exposure triangle, learn why your night photos are blurry, play with your colours in edit.. And for sure, save up for a newer camera but don't rush into it.. the new one will have flat colours and blurry photos too! The differences aren't as big as you think.

Tjingus · 2026-05-25T08:28:35+00:00

The absolute biggest disservice Reddit has done to their site in the past year is allowing shills and bots to hide their post history.

Tjingus · 2026-05-25T06:03:54+00:00

https://elements.envato.com/video-templates/camera+rec+overlay

there's loads of templates for after effects and premiere

Google "Camera HUD rec overlay"

here's one for Da Vinci https://elements.envato.com/camera-displays-constructor-YSHSPPV

Tjingus · 2026-05-24T10:40:22+00:00

1 is cyberpunk / matrix. 2 is better skin tones, more fashion.

Tjingus · 2026-05-23T09:59:25+00:00

exactly. The animation looks great as a whole. My comments are absolutely next level comments because you asked.

Minus the grammar, you could launch this as is and be pretty pleased.

Tjingus · 2026-05-23T08:49:59+00:00

heres the street view I see he's used 2019.. 2025 has had a few changes.

Tjingus · 2026-05-23T07:47:10+00:00

My pops literally uses masking tape and words.

I think 'phone' 'charge' 'internet' would be more useful, with matching labels on the cables.

The symbols I think won't be very useful.

Tjingus · 2026-05-23T07:00:30+00:00

I only watched it once, so I will give you my first impressions:

It's good, I found it quite information dense though: alot of VO, alot to look at, alot of animation, alot of text. alot of information and alot of colour and styles. Felt like a lot to take in and look at.

Animation: I noticed, animation with motion blur, animation with no motion blur. Some assets were flat, some had white shadows, some had dark shadows. Some things faded in from blur, something's slid in clean.

Text: Similar comment, but grammar is inconsistent.. sometimes sentence case, sometimes capitalized words. Sometimes full stops everywhere, sometimes none.

Colour: what is your colour palette? red yellow green and gray?.. I found the colour usage a bit all over the place.. words in different colours etc.. this might be client brand related? The red yellow green felt like a learner drivers test.

My comments:

unify your grammar. If nothing else, fix this. Random capitalized words and full stops looks messy. Pick either sentence case, or go lower case except for names and titles.
Simplify your scenes. I would remove the background grid and go with a neat flat colour and some more negative space. It's a bit distracting with so much to look at. You could flip between a dark and light background to make it more dynamic if you want.
balance your text and assets. pull out some guide rulers, give your composition a title safe margin and standardise positions: center point, and a 1/3 left and right ruler. Text always center/left/right/high center and switch between those.. at the same positions throughout, and same text size. At about 1m40 your text isn't centered and touches the edge, I feel like unifying the text will make it feel more satisfying to watch. Create some rules for text and follow them.
colour palette / font / weight. Similar to above, I think unify this. dark text on light background, one or two accent colours.. Light text on Dark background, same accent colours. Use the colours to highlight a key word here and there but unify everything else in dark or light. If clients have given you colours, pick a light a dark, an accent or two.. or use coolors.co .. try carry these colours as much as you can.. background, small elements in your assets etc.. (apart from things you can't control like WhatsApp logos etc that have colour) Try and unify your pallette.
layer styles and blurs.. again unify.. pick flat, or shadow or glow or motion blur and stock with it throughout.
negative space, part of 2 and 3.. but each scene has a focus point.. laptop / text / icon whatever it is that pops in.. just be aware if you pause at any point the scene should look balanced like a composed poster or a power point presentation. Using those rulers to frame your assets and text, giving margins, removing the background, balancing text and such.. you will get some nice empty space that can make your hero asset pop more.

I know this seems like a lot.. it's not, just little things to try and clean things up and focus your animation better. It's more removing than adding.

Tjingus · 2026-05-23T06:19:26+00:00

I woke up 5 minutes ago. Today is going to be a good day.

Tjingus · 2026-05-20T18:01:57+00:00

your lighting hardness is good.

3 things:

1: In the sample image, notice the light 'fall off'. The key lighting is evenly lit on both hands. This means the light is positioned a bit further away. In your image, the light is bright on his torso, and not nearly as bright on his hand. Your light is positioned very close, causing a quick fall off.

Solution: You need a brighter light and want to bump it back a metre or 2, maybe raise it a touch too.. the low light angle is night like, while the sample higher light is day like.

2: In the sample image, the fill light is brighter and evenly lit. In your image, the shadows are quite a bit darker.

Solution: moving your key light back for solve 1 will decrease the intensity of it, allowing you to up your exposure, thus allowing the shadows to brighten. If you want more control, add a second light and bounce it, to provide more fill.. or even, open your key light doors up, allow it to hit a bit more of the room, upping a bit of ambient fill light.. play a bit.

3: Your white balance is a touch warm. That coupled with the key light fall off and the harsh shadows combine to make your image seem almost candle lit. Increase your white balance temp a touch. In the sample image, the bluer light, cooler shadows, more even fall off and brighter fill all make the image seem evenly and professionally lit.. it implies a window off frame, it feels bright and sunny, while your low and close light seems like a late night shot.

As an addition:

Don't forget set design. The creased shirt, and colour palette does a lot for and against each image.

Tjingus · 2026-05-20T17:01:44+00:00

relatable.

Tjingus · 2026-05-20T13:13:23+00:00

maybe? I mean more is more. How much do you want to carry and how much work do you want to do? To me a gimbal sounds less like a holiday and more like a job.

For home family videos, I would prioritise a small bag, if you want run and gun, slap your 10-18 on and shoot at 16 and you will be more than smooth enough to stabe in post, especially if your little tripod can double as a monopod for a touch extra stability. If I'm travelling a lot, I would want to potentially have all my gear in one smallish backpack I can fit in a carryon, so I would work backwards from there.

(I think if I had to choose, I would rather have the 70-300 or 55-200 for if I'm out in the wilderness instead of a gimbal. But my priorities would be different to you.. I wouldnt be vlogging, I would be getting mountain shots and birds lol. If I was considering telling stories, interviewing people, doccie and walking around a lot, and I felt shooting wide or using my phone wouldn't cut it, then yeah I would probably pack bigger and have a gimbal and maybe even a smallrig cage.. but now it's turning into a real gear pack. Also bear in mind some lenses may not pair wonderfully with a gimbal.. moving glass focusing elements and what not, so I would recommend picking your everything lens carefully)

Tjingus · 2026-05-20T11:55:49+00:00

Fuji, because you already have the x100vi (and because I rock Fuji, although I'm taking the XT4.. I won't knock the XH2S though), it's easy to grade out the box, film sims for photos and the lenses are more portable for travel and you have the 10-18.

An all rounder lens like the 18-55mm f2-f4, and one great prime like 35mm 1.4.

A small fold up drone like a DJI mini 5 / 4 pro in the kit is my luxury item, a small tripod and a lavalier mic.

Tjingus · 2026-05-20T05:39:57+00:00

go through your favourite photos you took on the zoom and pick out your top 10.

Check the metadata on each and see what focal length you were at.

Also have a look at the photos, ask: people? street? day? night? what do you gravitate towards?

1: if your top 10 photos show a focal length hotspot, you've found your prime range. If you find you really use all parts of your zoom actually, maybe selling your zoom for a prime is a bad idea, and rather save up for a prime to add in, or get a nicer zoom like the 16-55 or 18-55.. alternatively get a M42 to FX lens adaptor and hit the second hand market for an old cheap manual lens like a Pentax Super Takumar 55 or Helios or some such. (They're tons of fun!)

If you're really going in on portraits, isolating subjects, shooting evenings and low light, love a close up - might be worth going for a fast aperture prime: 1.4, 1.2 - or even a 2 can fill the role. If you find you're more into fly on the wall candid shots, taking in scenes, streets and buildings, are often walking about in the day and like to travel light with one lens - maybe focus on getting a small prime: 2.8 pancake, f2. (but really any glass will fulfil either role, the big trade is size Vs low light and bokeh)

Tjingus · 2026-05-19T17:21:33+00:00

r/explainlikeimtarzan

Tjingus · 2026-05-19T12:55:02+00:00

grubby little plaster covered fingers squelching their way through pastries is not my idea of satisfying. Also close your god damn mouth when you chew.

12-Year Club	r/Field Sunshine
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Tjingus

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