distance required for birds in flight shots (1 Viewer)

S.O.S.....

Equipment: Rebel XT, 100-400 IS lens, New bird wanna be photographer (birder for many yrs).

OK. I just purchased my equipment 3 weeks ago and loving the static pictures and understand that I have to be close to my subjects to fill the frame.

I have been birding for many yrs and know the raptors behavior (don't let you get close, take off against the wind ect...). I can't seem to get satisfying shots (feather detail ect) when shooting these birds. The photos i've senn on this forum blow me away and was wondering how you fill the frame?

Do you just sit on the side of the country rd waiting for a close fly by? Or do you go to hawk observatories during migration where your sitting in a blind 200 feet up?

I'm new, not frustrated but would like to have all the tips in hand to improve the technique.

Any tips will help.

Marc

Hi Marc,
any flight shots I manage to fluke are invariably of birds that are close enough (or more) to fill the centre focussing ring. I use a 20d with the same lens as you and my wife has the exact same equipment as you and this seems to ring true for both cameras.
Ofcourse, you can't beat siiting somewhere discrete and letting the birds come to you. It's all about developing your field skills and that is only something that will come with practice.
Keep at it and good luck.

hi there,
My flight shots tend to be opportunistic or in other words, I take them when the bird I was just about to photograph flies away! But seriously, if you do find yourself in a situation where you can predict the flightpath to some degree then you just have to take a lot of shots and hope that the odd one is good. To state the obvious the faster the bird the harder it gets. Try to anticipate the moment when a bird will glide more slowly and if possible try to arrange your position so that the bird is flying either directly towards you or accross you i.e. pan _or_ tilt - not both. If you're trying to do too many things at once it gets far more difficult.
All that said just keep trying. You've gone digital so you're mistakes cost you nothing!

It isn't essential that you fill the frame. Take a look at my Eider in flight shot in my gallery. That picture has been cropped to about a sixth of the original size of the photo! In fact, i only just managed to get it in shot!

Link to my gallery

Most of the pictures in the gallery are heavily cropped.

It's only if you're going to be enlarging to A3 or bigger, that you need to fill the frame, with a 6 to 8 megapixel camera.

I think you'll always have problems with raptors, unless you're lucky. And luck plays an important part. I tend to snap a few quick shots, then, if the opportunity arises for a better shot, i start to consider composition, lighting etc. On most occasions though, that chance never arises.

I would say - just keep practising. Technique develops with practice. My first bird shots with my DSLR from 6 months ago, were appalling (despite being a keen amateur photographer for years (i used to do mainly landscapes). But i've been pleased with my progress (i've still a lot to learn!) - and it's all due to practice.

Most of my birds-in-flight shots I took with a Novoflex 640mm follow-focus lens, designed decades before the invention of auto-focus.

Somewhere I have a nice shot of an African fish Eagle with fish... but the first thing I photographed with it was a dragon fly in flight (in Scotland)!

If you want feather detail try filling the frame with a 22Mpx camera, and using flash.

Cheat by pre-focusing and setting up a shutter beam to trip the flash and camera when the bird approaches a perch or feeder.

When I sell my house I intend to buy a 22Mpx camera and do just that: I can see my feeder - 10 feet from my computer!

Marc, to expand on what several people said earlier, a LOT of pictures you see on the internet that "fill the frame" do so because they have been greatly cropped from the original picture - in the original picture, the bird was quite small and didn't nearly fill the frame. The reason this is possible is because monitors are very low resolution devices - on an 800x600 display, a small 800x600 picture will fill the whole screen and look huge. Try printing a picture like this with reasonable quality (200 dpi) and you get a very small (4x3 inch) picture.

Hi all,.

Tks for the detailed replies. Since my post I decided to save up for a 1.4x converter to add to the 100-400. I know it won't fill the frame but it will give me that much more play when cropping.

There are many frustrations in bird photography and many rewards (when you get the shot you desired). Still I'm hooked!

Last evening I photographed my first "difficult" subject....a ruby crowned kinglet. Trying to follow this little pack of nerves through branches made auto focus useless. I managed to get a good laugh while trying to follow it from branch to branch. Finaly got 2 shots in. Not the greatest but keepers for my efforts.

Truly enjoy photographing these animals and love the learning curves!

Thanks again for your replies.

Marc

RAH said:

Marc, to expand on what several people said earlier, a LOT of pictures you see on the internet that "fill the frame" do so because they have been greatly cropped from the original picture - in the original picture, the bird was quite small and didn't nearly fill the frame. The reason this is possible is because monitors are very low resolution devices - on an 800x600 display, a small 800x600 picture will fill the whole screen and look huge. Try printing a picture like this with reasonable quality (200 dpi) and you get a very small (4x3 inch) picture.

Click to expand...