85mm f1.8 swallow shot

[AgingEyes]

I had my 85mm with me and so I may as well played around with it. This fellow was heading back to the nest where three chicks were waiting. The nest was to my left and behind me less than ten feet away.

f5.6 1/1250 sec. ISO 400. Cropped. Motion blurred the background. Probably should have done better :blush2:



Perhaps because of its large aperture and wide angle of view, getting a focus lock did not seem to be that difficult.

[Sushigaijin]

:thumbsup:

great shot!!

the motion blur makes it, a bird in flight needs some good background blur to indicate speed...and I find shooting birds in flight is easier with a shorter lens too.

[scott-devon]

Really tack sharp, and Erik is right, the blur adds to the shot.

[AgingEyes]

Really tack sharp, and Erik is right, the blur adds to the shot.

Thanks for the kind words !

Another reason for me to blur was to keep the focus on the bird more (the background as is doesn't help). Looking back, I think I should have applied more blur.

[frleal70]

Great shot. Shots like this one are tough to capture. I was wondering tho, if you wanted the background blurred, and you're shooting with that fast of a lens, wouldn't shooting at f/1.8 produced blur? Just curious what your thoughts were on not shooting w/ the lens wide open.
Again, great shot.

[AgingEyes]

Great shot. Shots like this one are tough to capture. I was wondering tho, if you wanted the background blurred, and you're shooting with that fast of a lens, wouldn't shooting at f/1.8 produced blur? Just curious what your thoughts were on not shooting w/ the lens wide open.

Honestly, I'm not sure why I was shooting at f5.6 now. It was a bright day. I probably could have used f1.8, a higher ISO plus and even faster shutter speed. At the same time, I probably was thinking I liked to have some DOF, too. The bird was not that far from me actually and heading towards my left fast. My experiences with the 85mm lens is if I shot with f1.8, the DOF would be very small. Even with f5.6, the background is in fact out-of-focus before I applied the blur. I just wanted to add some motion blur to make it look more like a typical pan shot (should have added more though). And this IS a pan shot only with a fast shutter speed.

I had the 85mm that day simply because I was shooting portrait in the morning.

Again, great shot.

Thanks!

[mn shutterbug]

Considering the abnormal bg, blurring it was the way to go and a little more wouldn't hurt. Great bif of the swallow.