Birds flying. How to take a good shot.

[Wild-Woman]

Taking a photo of a bird on the wing must be an art.
I had a golden opportunity to photo marsh harriers on Saturday but made such a hash of it I wouldn't even consider posting the shots.
Can you tell me what to do please?
We have a Canon EOS 350D and a Sigma70-300
Is ths lens not good enough?
I'm sorry to ask but I really am a novice at this. Julie
By the way the speed was 1/500 as it was a bit overcast at that time. Was that too slow?

[Beryl]

Continual shooting is what I do, doesn't always work but I captured a flock of ducks and some really good captures os seaguls

[gmsmith]

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

Taking a photo of a bird on the wing must be an art.
I had a golden opportunity to photo marsh harriers on Saturday but made such a hash of it I wouldn't even consider posting the shots.
Can you tell me what to do please?
We have a Canon EOS 350D and a Sigma70-300
Is ths lens not good enough?
I'm sorry to ask but I really am a novice at this. Julie
By the way the speed was 1/500 as it was a bit overcast at that time. Was that too slow?

I have tried taking many pictures of in flight birds myself, but having read a few threads from other WAB members and some tips greatfully received from others. I did actually manage to capture one particular pic of my favorite bird the link is below

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/ga...age-10800.html

The picture was taken as Beryls say's in her reply, using fast frame or continuous shooting you should find it in your camera manual. But I used a speed setting of 1/1600 of a second, and an ISO setting of 400 "I think" it is easier to achieve this when you have sky as the background, rather than a low level flight where the background may be trees or hills etc.

But increasing the ISO will help you achieve higher shutter speed settings. I took 33 pics of the Buzzard to end up with this one I eventually posted. I used the Canon 30D - Tamron 70-300mm lens.

I hope I have given you something to get you started. I'm sure WAB members far better qualified than I will be able to help out, I too will be waiting for their input.

Geoff

[nevets2001uk]

Shooting a flying bird is tricky. I've not tried many times but it's often hit and miss as the birds are quite unpredictable. Last week I was trying to catch some swallows (I think!) and came back with nothing. They're fast little things!!

The best advice I can give is aim to get the highest shutter speed you can to freeze the action. 1/500th sounds a bit slow to me and you'll likely get blur unless your perfect with your panning. You may need to increase your ISO and use a large aperture F4 or 5.6 to give you a quick shutter speed. On the 350D you should be able to go to ISO400 without inducing too much noise in your shot.

That brings me to my second point. Panning is the key to a decent shot. You need to keep your point of focus in the same place in frame for the duration of the shutter opening. It's best to pick a fixed point on the bird and try to track it as it flies, releasing the shutter at the appropriate time.

On the 350D you should have a focusing mode called AI Servo. Using this the camera will continually adjust focus while you hold the shutter half way down. Pressing it down fully will trigger the shutter. AI Servo is a big help in keeping a moving subject in focus. You can set the focusing to the * button as well which I find helpful on my 20D.

Another point I've just thought of and am now adding is that it's easier to photograph the bird as it comes towards you rather than as it passes as the relative movement is less.

Using these techniques I was able to achieve the following shot...



For this I used a shutter speed on 1/1250s @ F/4.0, ISO 200.

Hope this helps?

Cheers,
Steve

[paulthomas]

I'm no expert at flight shots but here goes ...

I find the hardest bit is keeping the bird centrally in the frame so I don't lose focus. Some birds are very considerate and fly in fairly straight lines. Others tend to change direction without warning

Your lens should be fine. What you may find is that, because the camera is mostly metering a fairly bright sky, it will result in the bird being an under-exposed silouette. I dial in some +ve EV compensation to overcome this. You'll need to experiment to find an EV value which works for your camera/lens combination.

Hope this helps.

[Ollie]

Julie, I use the 350D and the settings I use for in flight shots are as follows
Put the camera on AV mode. Set the Aperture value to F8 ISO value 400 if it's bright, 800 if it's dull and set the Auto focus mode to A1 Servo, set the camera to continuos shooting mode.
Get the bird in focus by pressing the shutter button halfway down, once in focus just hold the shutter button down and follow the birds flight as smoothly as you can.

No doubt others will give you different advice, but these settings work for me. I must admit it's not a foolproof method and you will get many shots that are no good but eventually with practice you will get some good ones.
Roger

[glsammy]

All good correct advice.. As Roger said, don't expect them to be perfect..A lot depends on the bird. A bird like the Heron is relatively easy, as it flies in a predictable flight path, other like swallows are just about impossible! Just keep on shooting, it cost you nothing and eventually you'll get the shot you want..Or at least that what I keep telling myself.

[chkm8]

I use the Canon 350D and Sigma 70-300 APO. There is a picture I took with it in the Gallery section birds/tits and finches (chaffinch in flight).
I am only fairly new but here is what I do.
I use TV mode and set the shutter speed to 1000.
With such a fast shutter speed I compensate by using ISO 800 unless it is really sunny in which case I drop to 400.
I reccomend doing what I am to start with and capture the pictures on a predictable flight path which in the case posted was the bird table. I sat out side at the patio focused on the feeder and with camera on above settings plus multi shot simply waited for a bird to fly in towards the feeder. The shots are all hand held (not easy with that lens but still more than happy with the outcome. I guess the shutter speed also takes out some of the shake.) Once you get used to the settings and the confidence is built up (nothing worse than spending time on a shoot only to find they are all too dark or too bright) then from there build your knowledge and experiment more with the other options. I am sure some of the other suggestions are as good if not better but this is what has worked for me and with the same lens as you have.

[chkm8]

Save you looking for the picture

[Wild-Woman]

Thank you for your valuable advice everyone. Writing down all these points in my notebook now. I'm hoping to get a chance of another practise on Saturday as we are out on the reserve hunting dragon/damselfly on Saturday and there are Marsh harriers/rooks/herons and egret there.
I'll let you know and hopefully show you how I got on,so thanks again guys. Most helpful. Julie