Vernon Chalmers Photography: Canon EOS 7D Mark II: Low Light Shooting

20 October 2019

Canon EOS 7D Mark II: Low Light Shooting

Shooting in the fog down at Woodbridge Island, Cape Town is a typical glass-half-full optimism scenario. I'm at times hoping for the sun to break through, but know even in the sun's absence, the low light should generally bring a unique background blur against the green grass of the Milnerton Golf Course - albeit at the expense of a softer bird in flight capture.

All four (continuous) Birds in Flight images are captured at ISO 1250 - the maximum I will push the Canon EOS 7D Mark II is 1600 (but, not in the fog) - more in lower light due to background darkness and sometimes some early morning winter sun.

Auto IS0 for Birds in Flight Photography
I predominately use Auto ISO with the Canon EOS 7D Mark II and even when paired with my 400mm lens am quite confident to shoot Auto-ISO in good and variable / low light. I must admit that I rarely shoot Birds in Flight in poor / low light. With my very close and elevated proximity to Woodbridge Island I have a good view of the light and weather conditions before every possible shoot.

Equipment (Birds In Flight Photography)

Canon EOS 7D Mark II DSLR camera body

Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Lens

Lexar Professional 800x / 120MB/s 32GB CF Card

Sandisk Extreme Plus SDHC™ UHS-I Card 95MB/s 32 GB

Exposure / Focus Settings

Manual Mode Settings / Lens AF On

Shutter speed: 1/4000s

Aperture: f/5.6

Focal length 400mm

Auto ISO (ISO 1250)

Continuous shooting mode (10 fps) / AI Servo

AI Servo / AF Mode Option (Wide Zone AF / Case 1)

Lens AF On / No IS / Handheld

Post-Processing
Adobe Lightroom 6: Cropping. Colour correction / Lens profile correction. RAW to JPEG conversion.

Location / Conditions
Foggy morning around Woodbridge Island, Cape Town.

(Four Consecutive Images)