Photographing birds in flight

On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 21:37:55 +0930, jmc wrote:

I think your style for the most part might work better for me, 'cept the
shifting autofocus bit. I'm still learning my camera, and definitely
can't manage that without looking. So I've been using the center
autofocus. Good point about the eyes, but for now that's a bit beyond
my skill with moving animals, I'm happy if I can just keep the birdie in
the frame.

I guess that your camera's autofocus sensors are all equivalent,
so eventually you'll want to become proficient shifting between
them. My D50 on the other hand has its most accurate and sensitive
AF sensor in the center of the frame, so photographers should at
least be aware of their camera's capabilities and limitations to be
able to know how to use them most effectively. It's going to take
me some time getting up to speed in this area, I think.

Ken Lucke wrote:
In article , change username to rnclark
wrote:

First off, Roger, don't take any of my comments below as arguing with
you - I agree with virtually everything you said (for someone of your
skill level), I just want to clarify and perhaps justify the reasons
why I said what I did.

Hi Ken,
OK, no problem

When following moving animals (birds or 4-legged critters)
the mere fact they are moving often means the light is changing.
Thus I do not like manual.

Agree 100% here - it's too hard (at least for me) to be adjusting that
AS you're tracking and panning and trying to keep up with an animal.

It's hard for me too. Sometimes I just blow it. I'm still
learning too. And since I don't get to photograph every day,
I get rusty. On a big trip, like a birding trip, I find
I get my best shots starting 2 or 3 days in, as that is when
a have had enough practice that I get it right more often.

I would rather use exposure compensation
to adapt to the situation. An example is an animal moving
between shade and sun, another is rising or setting sun where
light levels are changing fast.

Second, auto-bracketing, assuming 3 shots means only one is correctly
exposed. That means you have 2/3 chance of missing the peak
action.

I guess that's true - unless you've got the 1D Mark III at 10fps g.

No matter what speed, auto bracketing still means you could miss
some peak action.

I still do it myself, and I only have 3fps - so I get one chance per
second, which is OK for me at this point. However, this (as were most
of my suggestions) intended to help him get a feel for whaqt settings
are going to work for him - then he can stick more closely to just
those - with exceptions, of course.

That's a good point. It could help one learn what is a better exposure.
With large pixel size DSLRs, the signal-to-noise ratio is good enough
that if you are under a little it is no big deal.

Autofocus point should be set on the animals eye(s), not necessarily
the center (and in my style rarely the center) autofocus point.

I was thinking of his trying learn to track and pan, that it would be
easier to keep the bird centered with the center autofocus. Your
skills are much higher than his (or mine) at this point, so you're good
at switching autofocus points and tracking and panning all at the same
time - that's definitely a learned skill, and the tracking and panning
are probably the parts he should learn first, IMO.

I agree. One needs to start small and work up, but in order to
work up, one needs to know the higher goal in order to make
that next step.

During action, I follow
the subject, constantly shifting the AF point to keep a good
composition, and adjust exposure compensation as needed
and keeping the AF point on the eye(s).

This is the hard, learned part that you've obviously got down pat, and
probably should be the secondary step for him.

Unfortunately, I don't have it down pat (you haven't seen
the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of mistakes
I've made, as I don't put them on my web site).
Although I am getting better. When I first started
with DSLRs I probably got less than 50% of my shots in focus.
Now with better DSLR (1D Mark II versus a D60) but with the
same lens (500 mm f/$ L IS), I probably get 90% in focus.
The problem is I still cut off wings, feet, tails, heads
when trying to follow the action.

I also keep monitoring the exposure time and adjust ISO
up or down as light levels rise or fall. I use the lowest
ISO that the conditions will allow. You need to know
your camera well in order to do this in a split second,
never removing your eye from the viewfinder while following
the action.

I also don't agree with the "need" to have the sun behind you.
While this is a fine strategy in many situations, lighting
can be more dramatic and show texture better when the sun is
not directly behind you. It does become more of a challenge
to keep the eyes well lit if the sun is not behind you,
but I feel many images are more interesting this way.

That was meant to address his "dark body against a light background"
problem with the underexpsuure of the bird's body - I agree it's not a
necessity, but it I thought it might help him out a little with that
problem. Didn't really mean to make it sound like an absolute.

Ok, no problem.
Unfortunately these days I think there are too many how-to
books and web sites that say you gotta do this. While they
are certainly good guides, e.g. landscape photography near
sunrise of sunset, there are often great pictures under other
conditions too, and I think that needs to be pointed out.


and few enough animals (like one or two).
As animal count goes up, the image just looks cluttered until
the animal count gets huge, like hundreds.

Even then, I love the images where the camera is zoomed in on one
animal in a packed herd of hundreds or thousands, with one animal
picked out and the rest of the bodies pressed around it. Zebras
epecially look good this way - maybe some day I'll get to go shoot one
of those images myself.

Yes, I agree.

Roger, your pictures always make my efforts seem so lame. :^(

Just keep trying. It wasn't that long ago that I took pretty crappy wildlife
images. Knowing what can be done, and a route to get there is a large
part of the battle. Then persistence and practice can take you
there. We are all learning. I am still learning. I missed
some nice shots on my recent Africa trip because I wasn't
good enough. Oh well, I'll just have to go back ;-).

For wildlife action, equipment does make a difference. My images
got much better when I moved from consumer zooms to fixed focal
length lenses. Not only are they sharper, they tend to auto-focus
faster, and they tend to be faster aperture too (there are exceptions,
like the 70-200 L IS). But in the above 200 mm range in the Canon
line, the fixed focal lenses are better.

Roger

On 2007-04-01 02:58:17 -0400, jmc said:

I've finally purchased a longer lens for my XTi - the Canon 70-300mm DO
IS ISM. Nice lens, the shorter physical length is a lot more stable in
my small hands. I have been getting some very good pictures with this
lens, so I'm quite happy with it, despite the high cost.

I've been practicing taking pictures of birds in flight - raptors, for
the most part.

Not surprisingly, all of the ones taken with the sky as background,
came out with very dark birds. Also, for non-soaring birds, I'm
finding it very hard to follow them, and get decent pictures.

Is there a tutorial on the 'net somewheres that'll help me learn how to
take better bird action photos? How much do I compensate when the bird
is silhouetted against the sky?

Pictures where the bird's not silhouetted against the sky come out better:

http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/view?id=1959314

Thanks for any advice or information!

jmc

A much longer lens.. a 300mm lens is hardly enough to get a decent shot
of a bird in flight unless you are extradonarily lucky. Good God, a
200 mm is hardly enough to get a decent pic of a bird at my bird
feeder, a mere 15 feet away. However, if you try and we must all, use
spot metering, aperature priority or manual and take lots of photos, at
leasy with digital, thats cheap.
--
Jim

I've been practicing taking pictures of birds in flight - raptors, for
the most part.

Not surprisingly, all of the ones taken with the sky as background, came
out with very dark birds. Also, for non-soaring birds, I'm finding it
very hard to follow them, and get decent pictures.

A few tricks:

1. Set the exposure manually. You can use the "sunny 16" rule (e.g.,
f/16, 400ASA, 1/400; or, better, f/8, 200ASA, 1/800), or just
meter something that's about as light as the bird. Then take a
few shots and check the histogram to make sure you've got the
exposure right.

2a. If the birds are far away, set the FOCUS manually, too. Use
infinity minus a bit, and you'll get perfect focus with absolutely
no hunting.

2b. I know the 30D can follow soaring birds and keep focus. (Take a
look at:

http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/

In particular, take a look at the owl series that begins on:

http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/Page1.html

and the hawk series that begins on:

http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/Page2.html

) I assume the Xti can keep up, too. Make sure you're only using
the middle focus sensor, and keep the bird in the middle of the
frame.


3. Some people turn off IS, but I don't think that's a good idea. I
also don't think exposure bracketing is a good idea. You've got
at least a 66% chance of mis-exposing the shot you want.

4. Shotting RAW will help if you get the exposure wrong, but with (1)
that really should never happen.

Good luck.

-Joel

Examples:
No exposure compensation needed, AF on bird's eyes, and
a good example of the impact of the animal directing its
vision towards the camera:
http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries...8715b-700.html
[...]

Beautiful gallery! According to the EXIF data, these are scans. Yes?

-Joel

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EXIF data for any image or web page: http://exif.posted-online.com
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A much longer lens.. a 300mm lens is hardly enough to get a decent shot
of a bird in flight unless you are extradonarily lucky. Good God, a
200 mm is hardly enough to get a decent pic of a bird at my bird
feeder, a mere 15 feet away. However, if you try and we must all, use
spot metering, aperature priority or manual and take lots of photos, at
leasy with digital, thats cheap.

Yes and no. I took these shots with a 28-125 (equiv):

http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/

including one of my favorites:

http://posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/pix/IMG_0359.jpg

I like the context, and I couldn't have done that with a longer lens.

-Joel

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EXIF data for any image or web page: http://exif.posted-online.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2b. I know the 30D can follow soaring birds and keep focus. (Take a
look at:

Sorry to follow up on my own post. In response to people who have
asked, I've posted some close-ups on:

http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/Page1.html
and
http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/Page2.html

and moved the other pages, so the owl- and hawk-series pages are now:

http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/Page3.html
and
http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/Page4.html

BTW, for a good reason NOT to use JPEG, take a look at the bottom
picture on

http://www.posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/Page1.html

( http://posted-online.com/ArizonaBirds/pix/14.jpg - 100K ). Notice
the blue hues around the green leaves. There was no blue in the
original picture. Sigh.

-Joel

Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote:
Examples:
No exposure compensation needed, AF on bird's eyes, and
a good example of the impact of the animal directing its
vision towards the camera:
http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries...8715b-700.html
[...]

Beautiful gallery! According to the EXIF data, these are scans. Yes?

Thanks. No, they are all digital, mostly 1D Mark II. There should be no exif
data as the jpegs are stripped to reduce size.

Roger

Beautiful gallery! According to the EXIF data, these are scans. Yes?

Thanks. No, they are all digital, mostly 1D Mark II. There should be no exif
data as the jpegs are stripped to reduce size.

There's lots of EXIF data, with fields such as "Progressive Scans,"
"Device Attributes," etc. I don't know much about the EXIF fields; I
thought those looked like scanner attributes.

BTW, as a reminder:

http://exif.posted-online.com

will display a web page and add EXIF-data boxes for all the images.

-Joel

You remove the EXIF purposely to reduce the size, or reducing the size
removes the EXIF?

I just went through this dilemma. When I created a web page for my
birds from Arizona, I decided to keep the EXIF data in the
thumbnails. This increased the size of each thumbnaim from about 7K
to about 22K. That's a really big difference, especially for people
using dial-up connections.

-Joel