Birds in flight - found the technique.

[Sushigaijin]

today on the way to Where the Birds Are, I practiced in-flight technique. For those of you who don't know, I shoot with a Sony DSC-H5, which is an image stabilized super-zoom digicam. Autofocus can be frustrating at best.

anyway, I've figured out the settings and conditions that must be present for BiF on my camera, although I must admit that these are probably subject to change.

I usually shoot center point autofocus - this focuses on center point of the frame, recompose, open shutter. For BiF, I switched to standard AF, which has a very large reticle for focus - much easier to keep on target than the tiny crosshairs of center AF.

I turned IS off to prevent the camera from attempting to stabilize itself during panning.

I put the teleconverter on, and zoomed as far back as it would allow without vignetting - about 245mm or so. With the Tcon, that puts it out at over 300mm. I'll have to do the exact math later. In any case, it's plenty of telephoto for birds in flight. When zoomed this far back and with the AF setting changed, the AF works fast!! who knew that it could be fast? I certainly didn't. I was surprised and delighted to be able to get focus on something moving. I'm still working on the pan+shoot, but I did manage to nail a few today. These would be better if they were exposed properly, but I was just happy to get focus today. Exposure is tommorow's project :idea:











then some lady's dogs scared all of my seagulls into the lake, and I had to move on. Bummer, but at least it gave me more time Where the Birds Are.

[Copy_Kot]

Some great shots here too! The more you watch 'how the birds fly,' they easier it becomes. Something that I've noticed over the last month and a half or so is... each species of bird seems to have its own pattern or way of flying, which I think is especially true of ducks.

[karen m.]

Thanks, Erik I to have a h5 and found that was very helpful, I have the IS on all the time, now I will try it with it off when i pan for shots.
great photos in this thread and where the birds are thread.

[Loupey]

Well the technique definitely works! Love the first image but the 2nd is great!

You have been pushing your Sony to new levels while here. My hat's off to anyone who can fully utilize what they already have :thumbsup:

I bet Sony would love to show the world what their product can do with your images

[Bevb]

Great shots with clear details.

[OBie]

Love the shots. Glad you're able to utilize what you have.

[Sushigaijin]

Thanks guys, I'm really excited about the possibility of getting some in flight shots of something other than seagulls - that black to white dynamic range is terrible for exposure! I'm reasonably sure I can get clear shots of other medium sized birds, I'll have to experiment a bit to see exactly how big the subject needs to be for quick and responsive autofocus. I did the math, and with tcon attached the focal length at max zoom-out is 442mm, which might even be a little long for in flight shots. The AF was fast though, definately fast enough...but we shall see if it is accurate enough.

Another word of advice for superzoom P&S shooters (especially sony H5 ): Hold the camera out at arms length, taut against the neck strap and shoot with the LCD. I NEVER shoot with the LCD, I always compose through the EVF - If you don't already have one on your EVF, get the orion eyecup (Google it) for $3 so that glare isn't an issue - but there is no way that the EVF refreshes fast enough or is clear enough for in flight shots. I closed the aperture to what I knew was small enough, trailed the birds until they were on screen, half pressed the shutter, and if the reticle turned green finished the shot...that was the only way I was even coming close to getting them in frame and in focus. I always shoot in manuel mode (he's pretty handy) and I am not sure I would like the results in auto mode - the camera simply has no way of knowing the settings I need. I just with that manual focus was more than just a selling point - it's impossible to set manual focus when it is an up/down BUTTON and you only have the EVF or the LCD to compose with!!

I don't know if I'm the next sony spokesperson, but I'll gladly force my camera to take the shot I want it to - it's not like I just won the lottery and can afford a 5D, or that saying "my camera isn't good enough" excuses me from taking good photos - I'll just take the ones I can, and figure out a way to take the ones I can't.