Moving Bird images

[dbozkurt]

Hi There

I have seen some wonderful pictures of birds in flight on this website. I just have a Canon Power SHot S2 IS with Tele-Converter lens to give me optical x 18 zoom. I have nearly mastered taking still pictures and as long as I have my camera balanced it takes quite good long distance shots of seabirds for example which can be cropped to bring up a reasonable image.

The question I would like to ask will me camera take reasonable flying bird shots. I have a few that came at reasonable by accident....i.e. auto focus and press but can I aspire to better shots or is this camera just not good enough.

I can't afford a SLR digital and to be honest I use the Camera to record and learn about Birds rather than be a Photographer so a very good camera would be a waste really for me.....being very very honest I have trouble working out what the present settings on my camera mean.

Thanks Debbie

[eeyore]

so long as the shutter lag (ie the delay between you pressing the button and trhe camera firing) is not too much - and most modern bridge cameras are fine for that- you should be able to take flying bird shots with your set up using the same techniques as you would on a digital slr

ie pan with the flying bird and fire as it reaches a set point but continue to pan during exposure. its best to practice with relatively slow birds such as herons, swans, and owls before you move on to the faster ones. It will help if you camera has AI servo or continuos focus but even if it doesnt you should still be able to get some good results

[glsammy]

I had the same Camera as you have, and getting birds in flight was one of the main reasons I upgraded to DSLR. I found the camera simply wasn't fast enough to get reliable shots. Shutter lag was a definite issue. The same applied the the FZ30 as well, which whilst better was still not up to the speed of the auto focus and the lack of shutter lag of the DSLR.
I'm not saying you can't get good results, you can, but I at least found my success rate not too good. Of course it may have just been me that was the problem!

[eeyore]

i'd highly reccomend chris gomersals book , photographing birds - (the title tends to give away what it is about ) he used to be staff photographer with the RSPB and knows what he is talking about