In-flight Birds
Camera settings
tips
- Set your shooting mode to 'continues', so you can hold down the shutter button to take multiple images in burst-mode
- Set your Autofocus to 'AI servo', this way you keep focus with a half-pressed shutter button
- Set the camera to Aperture Priority (AV), to keep enough depth-of-view
- Set your aperture to F8, to keep a balance between getting the subject in focus and have a fast-enough shutter-speed on a sunny day.
- Decrease the F-value (e.g. to 5.6) if it's more cloudy.
- Set the Auto-focus to the center-point only.
- If you have IS, turn it off (it only helps in low-light with slow shutter-speed). At shutter speeds above 1/500 it only slows down the AF.
- Set the Lens to AF (autofocus)
- Set the minimum focus-distance to the furthes (eg '1.2m - unlimited' or '3m - unlimited', set it it to the latter)
tips
- Go to your local Zoo's bird-of-prey show to experiment - in-flight fotography is not easy!
- Background: Sky: easier to keep the autofocus on the bird
- Background: Other: Can be more 'interesting' (also avoids problems with limited dynamic range)
- Easier: Try a shorter zoom (more wide) and crop the image
- Avoid shots where the bird flies towards or away from the lens (many AF systems can't keep up)
- Try to get shots where the bird flies perpendicular to the lens