New to bird photography (1 Viewer)

Hello all,
I have a photography background but I'm new to wildlife. I recently have gotten really into birding and I'm trying to build my skills. I just got a 7d Mark ii and I've got a 400mm 5.6 canon lens. My shooting has mostly been confined to my backyard because its readily available and a little easier to learn in the controlled setting. I was wondering if there is any good resource for building skills in a step by step fashion that has worked well for people, i.e. starting with stationary feeder birds, moving onto capturing more action on into BIF? I don't know if something like that even exists in a linear way.

My main question for today is how to get these feeder birds in flight or at least more action. I know that small birds like chickadees and tit mice are not going to be captured in flight like the larger species but after shooting them in stationary positions for months I feel like trying to capture them landing, taking off, flying between the shrubs and feeders would be a good next step. I'm just having trouble getting the shots. I also have no idea how hard this is to gauge my failure rate? Right now I haven't really been getting any that are spot on focus wise. I was just curious about techniques for this to speed up autofocus capabilities, pre focusing, training my reflexes(I know anticipating behavior will probably be the most important part. Previously, I have shot a lot of street photography, landscapes, and architecture so high speed shooting is taking getting used to. I have a tendency against spray and pray that is hard to break but I feel like this is needed in tandem with anticipation.

I know that I also need to get more familiar with the 7d mark ii since I'm coming from a Canon 50d that has far fewer features.

Anyway, that was very long winded. I appreciate any help in improving. Thanks a lot.

Hi Jimmy,
To get the smaller birds in flight try putting a perch a couple of feet from a feeder and between the point from which they usually arrive and the feeder. Make sure the perch is exactly the same distance as the feeder is from your camera. Focus on either the perch or the feeder, since it should be the same, then switch off autofocus. As a bird arrives it may first visit the perch. If so be ready to fire as it looks to move to the feeder. Hopefully it should fly along the plane of focus so it's down to your reactions. Best of luck.

shepster said:

Hi Jimmy,
To get the smaller birds in flight try putting a perch a couple of feet from a feeder and between the point from which they usually arrive and the feeder. Make sure the perch is exactly the same distance as the feeder is from your camera. Focus on either the perch or the feeder, since it should be the same, then switch off autofocus. As a bird arrives it may first visit the perch. If so be ready to fire as it looks to move to the feeder. Hopefully it should fly along the plane of focus so it's down to your reactions. Best of luck.

Click to expand...

Agree with all of this but a remote would also help then you can see the whole seen and what's happening without using the view finder.
Rob.

You can't beat practice at the end of the day, to get small birds in flight you need to be able to track them early so if your garden is small you need to get out in the open where you can see them coming more easily, and just keep on practicing, best of luck