Canon EOS 20D 1/8000th/sec settings?

[rkw624]

Anyone have any experience shooting this camera at 1/8000th/sec? Best settings for best results? Best lens? Any advice would be most appreciated.

[robski]

What is the subject ? Hummingbirds ?

[rkw624]

Yes, humminbirds, sports, things like that.

[robski]

We don't get hummers in the UK so can't help there.

Have you seen this thread and maybe search on birdforum.net

http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ghlight=hummer

[rkw624]

Yes, I'll try there. Thank you. Anyone else have any experience with this setting?

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by rkw624

Yes, I'll try there. Thank you. Anyone else have any experience with this setting?

I'm really not sure what it is you are asking, or want to hear. Have you had problems using this speed? I should think you will need a lot of light to be able to achieve this sort of speed. Essentially it is going to the conditions that determine the ability to work at that speed, and a combination of wide aperture and high ISO may sometimes be needed, but I'm sure you know that

[rkw624]

I just seem to have a lot of trouble at that setting. I was hoping there were a few photographers out there that shot at that shutter speed and could relate their experiences, lenses used, ISO settings, subject, etc. I guess I'll just keep experimenting.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by rkw624

I just seem to have a lot of trouble at that setting. I was hoping there were a few photographers out there that shot at that shutter speed and could relate their experiences, lenses used, ISO settings, subject, etc. I guess I'll just keep experimenting.

Well I'm still unsure about what trouble you are having Lets take a simple scenario. On an average sunny day a typical exposure at ISO 100 may be 1/250 @ f11. Now if you wanted to achieve 1/8000 you would need to be shooting at f1.8. Now for every increase in aperture you would have to increase the ISO by 1 EV. So at f8 you would need ISO 1600 You can no doubt see you really need more light. So is this the sort of trouble you are having?

[rkw624]

I am not really having trouble. I just wanted to get shots in sports, birds, etc. but it seems as though that setting on the camera is of not much use. You need a lot of light and a very good lens.

[robski]

Using 1/8000 sec does seem extreme for most sport and bird photograph. I suspect 1/8000 sec will never be fast enough to completely freeze the wings of the fastest hummers that beat their wings at 200 times a second. ( the bird would of move it's wing 1/40 of a cycle in 1/8000 sec ) I believe photographers resort to high speed flash photography which could give you an effective shutter speed of 1/10,000 to 1/20,000 sec.

For general bird photograph I have used speeds as low as 1/50 Sec but prefer to keep it faster than 1/200 Sec to freeze bird movement. Keeping a long lens still is another set of problems