Life over the lake.

[Bevb]

Thought i would have a go at getting some shots of the crows that live around the lake and in between a couple of mallards came over.

[Knight]

WOW Great Inflight Captures Now for the easy part what can you add to the info Paulnj and Loupey gave me on inflight camera settings

[Bevb]

Hi Knight, well the lense that i use is 70-200L f2.8 IS USM which is quite a fast lense, which helps in any action/moving shots, i always use AP (Aperature priority) mode instead of TV (shutter priority) as i have control over the aperature as well, in my shots here they were all at 1/1500 which doesnt give motion in the subject (blurring in the wings etc) unless panning slightly faster, but this is only my preference in photographing moving subjects, to blur just lower the shutter speed, i use just sligtly above my max lense focus i.e 250 to anything above to blur,and i just move faster in my panning. Obviously aperature settings vary according to light conditions,and DOF i want, and on AP mode if the light is really bad i can up the ISO to get a good shutter speed , but i dont rarely use above 400 and this way i dont get noise in my picture. As advised in the other posts, practice on larger, slower birds ie pigeons etc, i spent hours in my garden just focusing on the static bird, and then the art of it was to get the first shot timed just right, and iv learned that slight anticipationin pressing the shutter button is required, just as the bird is pushing to take off, i push the shutter button, using continuous shooting mode, probably 3 out of 5 shots are usuable. Well Knight i hope this of some help, its probably covered what you know all ready, but i have no magic tips just one main ingredient, practice, and more practice!!! Good luck and look forward to seeing your pictures after your hard work and determination "WILL" pay off.

[Knight]

Thanks for the info Bev . With what you just gave me and with the info i got from Paulnj and Loupey my shot`s should improve . Now if i could only get some nice weather , it`s been raining here for the last 2 days .

[poker]

Amazing!! Very beautiful shots!

I took my first bird photos yesterday and I was looking at the ones flying. I told myself, how the hell do people take pictures of birds?? They are so fast.

I'll just read all the tips here and hopefully I'll get my first bird in air photo.

Thanks!

[dejavudu]

Lovely shots, great eye on that Mallard shot!
Tracy

[Loupey]

Interesting stats, Bev. I've been using the 2x TC almost exclusively for bird shots so my 70-200 now becomes f/5.6 at best. Since I typically stop down 1 to 2 stops to improve image quality, that means f/8 to f/11. On cloudy days, I'm shooting at anywhere between 1/125s to 1/350s (if I'm lucky) since I try to shoot everything at no more than ISO 200. I like your "stop-action" rendition.

As I said before, it's great that people are using the 70-200 IS for things other than sports

[Bevb]

I sometimes use my 2X TC for bird shots but i tend to find that the image is left soft, and often or not i have to post edit my shots in CS and i am a great fan of as little post editing as possible, i prefer to hand hold my camera instead of using a tripod which i just get frustrated with when trying to pan moving birds/subjects. I actually used the 2X TC today whilst out searching for Crested Grebes, the birds were in the centre of the lake as they are very timid, and especially so now they have young, but with the 2X, and tripod i still think the shots are too soft, il be posting them later. Bev.