Birds in Flight - The other end of the scale

Hi There

Looking for some advice on shooting birds in flight with the EF500 on a 1DMKIIN. Those of you who follow my various posts on OPF will be aware that i spend a lot of time at the Hawk Conservancy taking pictures of the various birds of prey that they display there in various flying demonstrations.

I have had some success with my Barn Owl shots, and i am now trying to get some nice action shots of both black Kites and Falcons (Lanner & Peregrine).

Having only just got the 500mm i have had only limited time to practice with it and have been using it handheld with some degree of success. The sort of shots i am trying to get are the Falcons flying near the ground in high speed passes, wings spread and sharp on the eye.

Does anyone feel that i would stand a better chance with this sort of shot with the lens on a wimberley type head or am i better off handheld and just shooting lots of frames in the hope i get a good one ( The old spray and pray technique).

I may well be asking the impossible of both the camera and the lens and or a tripod and wimberley, but i would be grateful to hear from anyone who has had any experience of this sort of thing

I post below a shot showing the sort of shot i am after, but tend to find you either get the framing right but no focus, or focus and lose the framing, or lose both!!

John

Tech Details

EOS1DMKIIN EF500mm F4L 1/5000 @ F4 ISO 800 Handheld IS off AI Servo CF4-3 Focus set to * button center point only.

I'm not saying you can't get decent results handholding the 500, but that is definitely a lot of weight and bulk. I would think you'd have better results tripod mounted, with Wimberley or other gimbal-type head. You have much greater stability to begin with, and framing will be more precise.

With fast-moving birds, it is still going to be challenging, and requite time and practice, but I'm inclined to think your yield of good shots will be higher with better support.

I do my flight shots with the 600, and while there are a few who will handhold this, I can't imagine doing this for more than a few minutes at a time, and trying to keep a small bird in the frame is going to be much harder.

I've heard some people speak of a "gun-stock" type approach which might be worth looking into. It would give you a little more stability, but still allow complete freedom of movement.

My $.02 worth, anyway.

Falcons fly at speeds in excess of 200mph. Using longer lenses (500+) your going to have to be some distance from the subject, say 20m+ to give the AIservo a chance.

Pre-emptive manual focus will help get you there, so will a smooth follow through technique but once this type of bird gets within 10m of a lens this long it really does become pot luck.

Using AIServo will help maintain focus with the medium distance, if the bird is gliding at ~30mph, but shorter lenses (<300mm) will yeild a better hit rate.

Playing around with CFn 20 also helps improve AIservo capabilities depending upon the contrast difference between subject and background / foreground. Lowering this setting will prevent it being thrown off by contrast differential. Likewise switching off Pfn 14 can help.

I suppose our challenge is wanting to fill the frame with the bird in flight, and this really is down to technique and practice.

A good exercise is to put up bird feeder in your garden or find seagull ridden beach , (mudflats or estuary at low tide) and practice.

I'd also recommend Art Morris' new book - Art of Bird Photography II, Oops, that the 2nd plug in as many posts. Great book though!

John_Nevill said:

Falcons fly at speeds in excess of 200mph. Using longer lenses (500+) your going to have to be some distance from the subject, say 20m+ to give the AIservo a chance.

Pre-emptive manual focus will help get you there, so will a smooth follow through technique but once this type of bird gets within 10m of a lens this long it really does become pot luck.

Using AIServo will help maintain focus with the medium distance, if the bird is gliding at ~30mph, but shorter lenses (<300mm) will yeild a better hit rate.

Playing around with CFn 20 also helps improve AIservo capabilities depending upon the contrast difference between subject and background / foreground. Lowering this setting will prevent it being thrown off by contrast differential. Likewise switching off Pfn 14 can help.

I suppose our challenge is wanting to fill the frame with the bird in flight, and this really is down to technique and practice.

A good exercise is to put up bird feeder in your garden or find seagull ridden beach , (mudflats or estuary at low tide) and practice.

I'd also recommend Art Morris' new book - Art of Bird Photography II, Oops, that the 2nd plug in as many posts. Great book though!

Click to expand...

Hi John

Thanks for the tips, i certainly get a better hit rate with the 400mm because it is soooo much lighter. However when the 500mm nails it.. the pics are gorgeous.

I will persevere with the 500mm (if only to build my biceps!!) but may well go the wimberley and Gitzo route for the slower stuff.

Have a good holiday by the way.

John