bigma 50-500 advice

[denn]

hi all, a little advice if possible, i am having great difficulty in catching small birds in flight and stopping the action, i do not seem to be able to get enough shutter speed, i use av mode, central focusing point, i feel as though i have exhausted my ideas, as how to achieve the above, i also use the canon 400d, it may well be the limitation of the gear, or myself., any ideas would be much appreciated.

denn.

[LoveT]

Hello Denn

I don't expect you're doing much wrong - photographing any size bird in flight is difficult to do successfully.

I am sure to be shot down in flames (again - I'm not having a good day on here today ), but this is what I saw in a film (Chris Weston wildlife photographer, so he can't be totally wrong!), and I follow these basic steps: Use aperture priority auto and set the aperture at it's widest. Use a fast shutter speed (minimum 1/500 sec) - increase your ISO if necessary. Use continual auto focus (and set the camera to centre weighted metering).

Then practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice - you get the picture . And expect to get a great many more 'losers' than 'keepers'.

Thea

[Darley]

There's a knack to capturing moving objects, and I suspect it's not the limitations of your gear or the settings, but how you track them. Tracking takes a lot of patience and practice - so basically, just keep trying

This might help:

Photographing birds in flight

[glsammy]

The best advice I can give is to choose a nice sunny day. You will then have plenty of shutter speed to play with. Also start with larger birds, Geese or Herons for example. These tend to fly in a more predictable manner than smaller birds. If your using average metering, of partial, you'll probably have to apply some exposure compensation or else you'll have some lovely silhouette shots!
Good luck!

[PeterD]

Originally Posted by glsammy

The best advice I can give is to choose a nice sunny day. You will then have plenty of shutter speed to play with. Also start with larger birds, Geese or Herons for example. These tend to fly in a more predictable manner than smaller birds. If your using average metering, of partial, you'll probably have to apply some exposure compensation or else you'll have some lovely silhouette shots!
Good luck!

All the above is good sound advice. I use the Bigma with an Olympus E3 and my preference is for action shooting e.g. birds in flight.

In general I use a shutter speed at least 1/1000s and aperture priority. This takes into account the focal length I use and if you do not have IS then this speed should be a minimum.
To achieve a high shutter speed either the ISO has to be raised or the aperture size increased. The down side of increasing the aperture is that the dof is reduced. If the subject were a flock of birds then this would not be desirable. Noise is the issue when raising the ISO but that at least is manageable at the post processing stage.
I am not sure what Av mode is but I guess its the same as C-AF which I use for action shots. Another tip is to use multiframe shooting. I go for 5fps. It increases your chances of getting that desirable shot. When going for multiframe, make sure that you get focus confirmation on your target before pressing the shutter all the way. The camera will not be able to guess correctly what it is that you are following. If your camera has a setting that avoids rapid changes in focus, use it. This will avoid misfocus as you pan.
Choose multiple AF targets. I use 5 point centred about the central target. This will ensure that one of the AF targets is on the subject as its imposible to keep the subject on one target alone whilst panning.
Thats enough of the technical stuff for now. Now to the practical things.
Study your subject first and check how it behaves in flight. You will see a pattern and this information will tell you when the best opportunity is likely when you start to photograph it. Its very hard to keep a moving target in the viewfinder due to the focal length and distance to the object so being able to have some insight into what to expect is a great help.

I have included a couple of shots here to illustrate what I mean.



This was taken at fl 500mm from about 200yds away. it was one of a sequence of 10 shots. I watched the flight pattern for about 5 minutes and found that the swallows were returning to a similar point each time to catch insects at the waters surface. They seemed to be using a consistent flight pattern. Most of the exposures were good but this one was selected because it was obviously feeding. I could not get any closer as the lake is enclosed by fencing.



This was also taken at fl 500mm. I had been watching the previous behaviour of the swans and the Canada geese and could therefore predict what would happen. I watched the swan start to approach the geese and took a total of 18 frames - all came out good. This image was selected because the geese and the swan were in such a position that the composition was acceptable without any cropping.

I hope the above is of some help to you. Keep at it and I am sure you will get the sorts of results you are hoping for.

Good shooting

Peter

[dunlin]

Originally Posted by denn

hi all, a little advice if possible, i am having great difficulty in catching small birds in flight and stopping the action, i do not seem to be able to get enough shutter speed, i use av mode, central focusing point, i feel as though i have exhausted my ideas, as how to achieve the above, i also use the canon 400d, it may well be the limitation of the gear, or myself., any ideas would be much appreciated.

denn.

Hi denn,
As graham has said choose a sunny day and practice focussing on predictable targets ie birds that fly slowly and in a straight line, i practiced on cars.
select the centre auto focus point and use ai servo mode.the centre af point in your camera has a number of invisible af assist points that help you stay in focus when the subject moves away from the centre slightly.
set camera to av mode aperture priority and then choose the largest aperture to ramp up the shutter speed.(if the shutter speed is still to low increase the iso setting). choose spot metering or which ever one meters for the centre of the frame(might be called spot or partial )not sure.
Try resting your elbows on a wall or lean against a tree to help keep yourself steady.
With the above settings you can try focussing with the shutter button, but in my view a better way is to focus track a subject with the star button on the back of your camera using your thumb. To do this you will have to go into your custom function settings menu and set custom function 4.3
custom function 4.3 lets you focus with your thumb on the star* button and then take the picture normally with the shutter button. the correct exposure is set when you take the picture. Try it you can allways change it back if you dont like it.
One more thing try focus tracking without actually taking a picture it may help you get used to it.

Hope this helps
Regards mark

[denn]

wow, thanks so much for all the information, i will have to keep coming back to digest it all im afraid, but i will take it all on board and work through it, thanks for the photo,s really informative, i will let you all know how i get on in the near future,
many thanks,
denn.

[PeterD]

Originally Posted by denn

wow, thanks so much for all the information, i will have to keep coming back to digest it all im afraid, but i will take it all on board and work through it, thanks for the photo,s really informative, i will let you all know how i get on in the near future,
many thanks,
denn.

Its a pleasure denn. Good luck with your trials. I am sure you will get the hang of it and tell us about it - with some image evidence of course.

I f you need to, add to this thread to post any other questions as they arise. I am subscribed to this thread so will see any future posts from you about this subject.

Cheers

Peter