Bird in Flight Question

I've been seeing a lot of great bird in flight pictures here lately. I've been having a hard time mostly with camera settings. I should probably start with shooting RAW but I use JPG. I try to find something gray in the sun and set the exposure to that and put the camera in M mode. Most times for everything else I shoot AV. I get some good shots but more throw aways than keepers. How do you folks set your camera?

Thanks,
Mike

My tip... + 3/4 for dark birds and -1 for white birds.
I also try not to use anything under 1250 ss

I am still learning, so I'm eager to hear others.

Yeah, manual modes and RAW captures.

A mid-day, no clouds, white subject against blue sky - I set my camera at ISO 400, 1/2000s, f/5.6 for fast moving birds (ISO 200, 1/1000s, f/5.6 for slower birds).

Closer to sunrise/sunset or if there is a thin layer of clouds or if the subject is slightly back-lit or if the subject is dark, go with ISO 400, f/5.6, and 1/1000 or 1/1500s.

Nice thing about manual is that you will be able to flick the shutter speeds on-the-fly as the subject flies around different parts of the sky.


I rarely need to stop down more than f/5.6 (one stop from wide open) for small BIF's and/or far away BIF's.

I always shoot in Av mode and am more concerned with the density of the sky than I am of the bird. When I'm shooting birds in flight, the sky always uses up at least 67% of the frame. I shot a pelican today, which is mostly white, and adjusted the EC to the plus side, and didn't blow any highlights. I also use evaluative metering. It would be different if I was using spot metering. I also try to maintain a ss speed of no less than 1/1250 sec.

Some good advice here so far, but I'll key on what I believe is the biggest mistake I see people making on BIF images. Plain and simple....Bad light angle! The rules are no different for BIF than they are for any other type of nature photography. Get the light behind you. Your shadow should be pointing directly at the subject for perfect light angle.

A second problem most novice nature photographers have is that they don't know how to read conditions very well. I don't decide for sure where I'm going to shoot each day until I step outside and read the conditions! Birds take off and land into the wind in most cases, so if you really want to nail those BIF shots, get the light and the wind behind you! Learn the charachteristis of your shooting locations, so you know when you walk outside and see a wind out of the west at sunset, you know exactly where you're going to go for the best BIF opportunities. You also have to know the patterns of the species in many cases. This will increase your chances significantly. For example: I know that if it's 3 hours before high tide, and I step out the door to find a wind out of the SouthEast at sunrise....I want to be on the third lagoon at Ding Darling NWR because the spoonbills will be feeding in ankle deep water, and as the tide comes in will be taking off and flying into the wind (and going right over my head) giving me perfect light angles for 80+ percent of the shots. If the wind is from the other direction, I'm wasting my time going there because they will be flying away from me. Doing it any other way significantly decreases your chances of great BIF shots, and relegates everything to dumb luck. If you need an example, look at my recent Woodstork thread. I arrived on location BEFORE the birds started flying in, because I knew they'd be coming, and with both the wind and sun at my back, I made a killing of a three day period there.

BTW - Put me in the "manual mode/RAW" camp. You'll never get consistently good BIF shots in auto modes because the metering systems are not smart enough to understand what you want exposed properly (the bird) as the background lighting changes on a BIF.