TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT

Robin was confident using her EOS 80D, and only needed a few minor tweaks to her technique

MANUAL MODE FOR LIGHTS

IN MILES Herebert’s studio he has three lighting heads set up to ensure he’s in total control of the lighting: “For Robin to boss her exposures she needs to shoot in Manual,” suggests Miles. “This enables you to set the aperture and shutter speed to get the results you want, and is essential when shooting with lights. With your exposure fixed in Manual, you can then adjust your lights for different brightness. By doing this, you control which parts of your wildlife subject and backdrop are lit and which areas are bathed in shadow.”

WHITE BALANCE SETTINGS

MILES ADVISED Robin to set her white balance manually to 5500K: “From experience, I know that when shooting with my Elinchrom lights, this white balance setting produces the best, most accurate colour temperature for images. You could set the Flash White Balance preset, but that can mean your white balance varies from 5500 to 6000K. We’re shooting in Raw, so you can always change the colour temperature of shots later, but it’s useful to see on the LCD more accurate colours, and it also means less things to tweak in post.”