Photographing birds in flight

[scouse007]

Hi
Soon to go with my partner to a bird of prey place were my partner will be having birds land on her arm , I would love to catch some nice shots of the birds swooping and coming in to land on her arm, I have a canon 70D so any advice will be appreciated, I had some nice advice with night shooting from CIC and I am beginning to enjoy this site...

Colin

[Shadowman]

Hi Colin,

I've been to a few excursions that offer this type of event and tracking the bird can be lots of fun and also capturing the look of surprise on your partners face can also be a treat. Is it possible to setup two cameras, one on a tripod aimed at your partner and another for tracking the bird? You can do both with one camera but consider the arcing swing you'll be doing, fast shutter speed for the pan and then getting good capture after the bird lands. If you want to get good blur of the background during the pan you could use shutterspeeds between 1.60-1/250sec, for the landing you might want shutter speeds even faster.

[Geoff F]

What lens, Colin?

For birds coming in to land I would be looking for a shutter speed of at least 1/1000 (1/800 as an absolute limit) but you can drop right back as soon as the bird has settled.

This could mean having to increase the Iso. Obviously use as low a setting as possible, although you will probably get away with Iso 800 if it is a bright light.

Getting the best angle and working out a suitable aperture to have everything in sharp focus will also need to be considered. Which may be another reason for needing a higher Iso.

[rtbaum]

When I do BIF, I plan on a shutter speed as the reciprocal of my focal length...actually, I hedge ny bets and halve that as well. For example, if using a 400mm lens, I shoot at 1/800 sec.

You have an advantage, your partner will be stationary. I suggest prefocusing on your partner and firing a burst as the bird approaches.

[NorthernFocus]

Is the priority to shoot the bird in flight and hope to get your partner in a shot or vice versa? I ask because I'd shoot differently for the two scenarios.

[IzzieK]

I am with Dan here...and I'd like to see the results too if you may want to share with us. There are quite a few birders here so we'd all be interested in what you can come up with.

[scouse007]

Hi
I failed to mention the lenses I have to use, I have a 300 mm canon and a Tamron 200 mm xr lens I am thinking of using the Tamron as I have had more success with this one so far in nature landscape and macro, not really used my canon 300 mm lens as much yet.

[NorthernFocus]

A lot depends on what perspective you plan to shoot. If you're going to shoot from the side it will be easier to track the bird in flight from farther away with the longer lens. May seem counter intuitive but the relative motion is slower. If you plan to focus on the person and fire a burst as the bird comes in to land, then being closer with the wider lens is likely easier.