Taking Birds in Flight

Bird photography has always been popular but more so now than ever people want to get the bird in flight, The smaller fast birds like swallows and hummingbirds may need a specialist set up using multi flash and even beam triggers to catch the moment, For the rest of use that shoot the more common birds like wildlfowl and raptors things are a lot easier, The basics are still the same i.e get a good exposure and use a shutter speed fast enough to either freeze the bird or slow enough to give the effect that you are after, I tend to use Manual mode when shooting birds in flight as long as the light is constant, If the sun is in and out then i use AV mode, Aperture wise i will use a long lens either wide open or stopped down a bit, So in my case the 600VR is attached to my gimbal head/tripod and set at either F4 or F5.6, This will give the maximum shutter speed and then its down to the ISO which would be 400-800 as i want a shutter speed over 1/500 and preferably over 1/1500 to really grab and freeze the action, It depends on the bird as large birds like herons and swans are big and slow so you can easily get away with a slower shutter speed whereas a small fast duck will need a very fast shutter speed if you want to freeze the wings, Its not always necessary to freeze the wings completely and some movement/blur can add to the image, Get some images in the bag and then experiment with fast and slow shutter speeds, I have my cameras set up with continuous focus and i use either 9 or 21 assist focus points on the Nikon D3s or D300 (now D70000),Using just one point on a fast moving bird can be difficult and easy to loose focus, The assist points will grab the bird if it drifts off of the main focus point, If you are using a lens smaller than a 600 then its possible to handhold the lens, When i shot with the Canon system i used the 500F4 and would always handhold for birds in flight, The 600F4 is just to heavy for holding more than a few seconds at a time so it must be tripod mounted,
To sort your exposure i either take a reading off of a white subject like a gull or even a cloud and add compensation until the histogram looks good in the same way as you would meter for snow, I like to compensate until i get blinkies showing over exposure and then take 1/3 stop off, That way if you are shooting a white bird you will not blow out the feather detail and if you are shooting a black bird you will have good detail in the feathers once you have processed the image, Its basically exposing to the right, You can take a meter reading from grass in light which will be about mid tone or i sometimes take a test shot of half tree and half sky, As a general guide +2/3 will give a starting guide to get your exposure,
You will get better results if you track a bird from distance, It will give your AF system a chance to calculate the speed of the subject, I normally have my camera focused on the horizon as i find its quicker to focus from far to near than near to far, If you have a flock of birds coming towards you then just concentrate on one bird, Follow it in from distance and start taking shots when it looks a good size in the viewfinder, Set your camera to high speed continous shooting but dont spray and prey just take shots when the bird looks good, Take into account of the wing position so that you get wings up and wings down images,

Don't forget that the bird doesn't need to be big in the frame

Once you have a good selection of one species try to experiment with shutter speeds

Start with a common subject like gulls or local ducks which can be attracted with some food

Shooting birds in flight is great fun and can be a real challenge, the possibilities are endless and the more practice you have the better and more consistent your results will be

Dave

Backgrounds-Birds in flight

The background to the subject is just as important as the subject itself and before pressing the shutter its important to look through the view finder and see if the background is clean and uncluttered and if needed press the DOF preview button to see exactly what the image will look like and save yourself some time when processing the image, I am processing images of birds in flight from my recent Florida trip, Some of the nicer images dont have a perfectly blue sky, They infact have some clouds in them which i feel makes the image more interesting, The shots were done one particular morning when the sky was mostly cloudy but there was a small area of blue sky with some nice cloud breaking up the solid colour, I carefully positioned myself so that i could get birds flying in and out with this as a background and didnt bother shooting other areas where the sky was white with solid cloud, The added cloud seems to give the image more depth and interest, Its worth keeping in mind the next time you are shooting birds in flight

Dave

Florida diaries 6

Like all good things holidays come to an end, Whilst you will be reading this i will be making my way back to North Carolina. Its been a great 2 weeks shooting the Manatees being the highlight i guess and i cant wait for the winter to return and shoot these magnificent giants again, I got some great images of birds that i have long wanted to shoot like the Skimmer and Laughing Gull and have thousands of images to down load and sort through, This week in Orlando i have still managed to shoot some wildlife at the Gatorland rookery and even in the theme parks i have been surprised at how close you can get to wildlife, In the Animal Kingdom i came across a pair of nesting Spoonbills with chicks, I had written these off of my list as i had visited 3 other places for these images and non had any chicks,I was lucky that the nest was near the path and could easily shoot them with a 70-200 which was the longest lens i had on me, I went to Busch Gardens and Typhoon Lagoon and had birds come close as i was eating and i am not talking about sparrows, I was amazed to see white Ibis and Cattle Egrets begging for food and walking around your feet looking for some crumbs, Last night i made my way to the Magic Kingdom to photograph the firework display, The weather was perfect and the world and his wife decided to join us, I set up hoping to get the fireworks over the castle and managed to get quite a few half reasonable images using a tripod/release and Bulb, On the way to the Magic Kingdom we spotted two armadillos on the grass, I only had a 24-70 with me and even after some careful stalking where i got a good view of this strange animal i spooked it and it was gone, This is now one of my 'wants' as its a great looking animal and you rarely see any images of them, So thats it, A great holiday/photographic experience and one that i intend to return to time and time again, One thing i will say is that the camera gear has been faultless, Its been out in hot sun all day and has not missed a beat, I mainly used the D3 and hardly used the D300 at all as alot of the shooting was in lowish light i.e ISO 400 and over, I took the D3 and a wide lens into the parks and tried it on some of the captive animals-see the cuttlefish, This was taken at ISO 5000 and yet still gives a usable image, The flecks in the water are not grain just water particles, I must say i was impressed when i downloaded it

Along with the Manatees its been an interesting trip, Both above and underneath the water, Birds in flight and on the nest as well as some scenics

Dave

Trip Report-South Carolina 2

Hot and Extremely Humid that about sums up the last few days, I have just arrived home and its nice to be back to less humid conditions, The South Carolina coastline is very pretty but a very busy place,Wildlife only getting a look in in designated areas, The area i was first in was better for photography and its a shame i didn't get more time there but its noted and i will make it back at some time, I managed a couple of sessions there and it was very successful and you had chances of shots every couple of minutes so you could get the standard shots and have plenty of opportunities for arty farty shots as well, As i said before i chose the D300 over the D3+1.4x as the AF is faster without the extender and D3 combo and IQ is great under ISO400, I am old school and still try to keep the ISO as low as possible although last week i processed a couple of images taken at high ISO with the D3 and its very impressive and i will come to this in a later blog,The skies were clear so only the first hour or more after sunrise would be worth shooting in as the light after this was harsh although i did some back lit flight shots that worked OK in Bright light, I set the D300 to ISO 400 which is the max that i use it for and this gave a shutter speed of 1/500 or more which was adequate for what i wanted and the wimberley Gimbal head worked perfectly with the 600 F4 making my life very easy for tracking birds, The birds were feeding in the mud next to the river and with the sun behind me i could focus on the trees next to the river so as soon as the birds flew over the on the way back to the nests i was already focused and could track them from distance and shoot when i felt they were a good size in the frame, Even if the birds were closer than the trees by the time i saw them the AF snapped on to them, I would rather focus at distance and then lock onto something closer than focus close and then try to grab a distant subject if that makes sense,
So that's another state pinned on the map and a big thank you to my buddies for allowing me to stay with them and show me around

Dave

Trip Report-South Carolina

Finally-Internet access, I have just spent a couple of days in Southern South Carolina, My friends had the chance to use a house free of charge and were kind enough to ask me along, So a social/photographic trip in one,Very much a splash and dash, No real time to search for places to go but i did notice a sign to a wildlife preserve close to the house so spent a couple of mornings there,First thing as the light rises quickly and gets harsh, The preserve had a couple of lakes/ponds with egrets/herons, Ospreys etc, The egrets and herons were very densely populated so lots of squabbles and fighting, Birds constantly flying in and out so bird in flight shots were the order of the day, I did try to get some original type shots not just a bird against a blue sky but tried various things both front and back lit, I used the Nikon D300 as i feel this still to be the best camera body available for this type of work, I shot in manual mode all the time metering off of the tress or sky and used the 600F4 VR, Image quality from this combo is very sharp and the AF is quick to grab the subject and stays with it,I have now moved to Northern South Carolina and will be here for 2 days so time to get out and explore ready for the morning session, One thing i will say is that South Carolina is a beautiful place but so far extremely humid, The first morning i made the mistake of having the AC on in the car and the camera/lens took an hour to de mist as soon as i got out of the car it was a wall of heat-probably 85% plus humidity, I haven't been anywhere like that since being in the jungles of Sumatra, Today i didn't make the same mistake and could shoot almost straight away

Dave