He and She

[Knight]

I think

Anyone have some pointers on how to capture birds i flight ? So far i have been shooting in auto mode with my D50. These were captured in Action or sport mode.

[paulnj]

Great captures here.... I don't have cheater modes on my camera, so I use AV/AP set f7.1 or F8 on open sky and F5.6 otherwise.

[OBie]

Hi Knight-
As a fellow D50 user - I think those are great and you give me hope! I haven't used the 'action' mode yet. I'll have to try that.

Paul -
If you use 5.6 to catch a bird in flight - isn't it really hard to make sure the bird is in focus? They move so fast, I find it hard to keep up with them and keep them in the center.

Maybe I should be stalking bigger, slower birds to start - Pteradactyls?

[paulnj]

Well, panning isnt easy on small subjects and gets harder the longer the focal length. I get hawks in flight mostly, because smaller birds are usually too far away to waste time with. Try ducks, geese, herons, hawks, people of bikes... to hone your panning skills.

[Knight]

I took about 20 photos of these guys from various angles to get one that was presentable From the rest some are blured or did not have nice wing position.
The in flight one was handheld well both were at 300mm so thats why there not tack sharp. I have a long way to go before i can get a half descent long range lense and a good tripod .

[Loupey]

Great job! I especially like the male in flight.

I would recommend shooting in manual mode so that your meter isn't affected by various backgrounds. Doing so will also enable you to control exactly what you want to capture (amount of pan blur, wing blur, depth of field, etc). Before you start shooting, test your exposure setting on a patch of green grass.

If you have to go Auto, then I would recommend using aperture priority (over full auto or shutter priority). This mode is better when using telephoto lenses as you would typically want to stop down at least 1 f-stop from wide open (for optimum image quality). Pick an aperture you can live with and let the camera pick the appropriate shutter speed. Again, full manual is much better.

[Knight]

Ok Loupey im waiting to C your Red Wing in flight go ahead shame me hehe! I want to C what color thier eyes are
Oh and thanks guys ill try AP first chance i get .

[dejavudu]

I think you did a very nice job on the RWBlackbird, and the other is a nice shot as well.
Tracy

[Knight]

Thanks Tracy

Paulnj or Loupey, even better if you both reply at what focus setting do you set your camera , Single Area AF, 2) Dynamic Area AF, 3) Closest Subject Priority Dynamic Area AF ? or what focusing mode have you had the most success with ?

[paulnj]

Flight shots with open BG... Closest subject priority. I usually have my camera set to get small birds in cover, so my attempts are with 1 sensor enabled(well I have 45, so maybe 3) in single shot and 3FPS. If I am going for hawks in flight . Enable all the sensors, closest subject priority and AI ( continuous AF ?)

[Loupey]

Knight, remember I just started shooting birds recently, very recently So I don't know if my advice regarding AF will apply.

However, I can tell you that my Canon 10D is quite old and the AF focusing is not very fast nor very convenient. What birds I shot already is simply with one-shot focusing (the servo mode I don't like as it uses only the center sensor). I just lock on once, keep it locked and wait for the shot to present itself.

As for flying stuff (again new to this), at least with the 10D, I think I'm better off using manual focus. It worked with the recent dragonfly shots (success ratio was about 1 in 5 for those) and the swift. The next project that I am planning (a flying RWB) will require me to manually prefocus on a specific spot over the pond that I have observed the two males passing and just timing the shot to get him as he passes through it.

Hope that helps some. Bev would also have some good advice.