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    BIF photography questions

    Now as some of you may be aware, I don't take a lot of bird photo's, especially bif.
    My nephew has decided to take up photography, as "Uncle" is always busy or out at weekends taking photos....and he likes birds of prey, so we are off to a local sanctuary to take a few snaps.

    So, to my point, any tips? I have researched online, but as usual, there is a lot of contradicting tips, back focusing being one example, some say it's the way to go, others say it's of no use...
    I.S is another example, some say it slow's down the af, others that you cant do without it.

    Yes...I can do the usual trial and error, and I shall, but if anyone can give me a couple of "must do's" or "do not's" I would be grateful. Also, I have a 5dmk3 now, and not the 7dmk2 so no more spraying lol, but i'll rarely be doing bird photos.

    #2
    Re: BIF photography questions

    I would read Colin's post on here

    Canon 1DX, 50D, EF500 F4.0 L, EF100-400 f/4.5-5.6L I , EF100-400 f/4.5-5.6L II, EF70-200 f/2.8L II, EF180 f3.5L Macro, EF 24-105 f/4L, EF17-40 f/4L, EF2.0X III, EF1.4X III, 430EX II, MR-14EX...

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      #3
      Re: BIF photography questions

      For birds in flight you need to consider three aspects: Settings, Panning and anticipation.

      You need a fast shutter speed. 1/2,000sec for smaller faster birds and you can go as low as 1/1,000 for larger Eagles, Owls and Vultures. Best advice for starting out is 1/1,600 sec to cover you for most things, perhaps upping the speed for Falcons etc. Stop down the aperture by at least 1 stop, 2 if you have the light, to give you some depth of field. Invariably with the light in this country, that means you have to compromise the ISO and use a much higher setting than you would wish to. However, much better to have a slightly noisy very sharp shot, than an out of focus high quality shot. Any noise will normally be confined to the sky and easily rectified with your editing program. I shoot manually, exposing for the bird, not the background. If you aren't comfortable with this, expose normally when there are hedges and trees predominating the background and use exposure compensation between +1 and +2 for when the bird only has sky as the background. You will need to experiment a little with this, depending on the lighting conditions, but shooting in RAW and +1 at the very least will give you room to manoeuvre with your RAW converter. Don't forget to return exposure compensation back to 0 when you finish shooting. You will probably find you are switching to exposure compensation and back for different birds, so it would be a good idea to practice switching settings before you get to the venue, so you are comfortable with the procedure.

      If you are used to panning, all well and good. If not, stand with your legs at least a foot apart for good balance and hold the camera/lens so that your elbows are braced against your chest. Keep them in that position and use your waist for any sideways/ up and down movement. You are now using your back muscles to control movement, which results in smoother movement and greater stamina than your arms, which are short term power muscles which can over react and also tire easily. When you pan, don't shoot and stop. That way you will often end up with sky, or just tail feathers. Keep panning even when you have finished shooting, for a couple of seconds. Bit like following through with a golf swing.

      Always try to anticipate the shot and when you are panning, start with the bird at an angle away from you, hoping to press the shutter just before the bird is square on to you. That way you are facing forward and not at an awkward angle when taking the shot. I squeeze off three shots at a time, which provides three wing positions for effectively the same shot. Some birds look odd with their wings at some angles and also some wing positions may obscure the head, so three shots gives me some options.

      I shoot with both eyes open. Right eye through the eyepiece for a magnified image from the telephoto and left eye to give a normal view of the scene. A bit strange to master, but birds move fast and you can't always keep them zeroed in the viewfinder, so my left eye shows me where I need to point the camera to re-aquire the bird.

      I also use Back Button Focus, but if you are not comfortable with that, don't worry. Some people take just a few days to master it and some much longer. It took me two attempts and nearly three months before it came as second nature.

      Most importantly, relax and enjoy the experience. If you make some mistakes, so what, visit the Sanctuary again and put them right.
      Colin

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        #4
        Re: BIF photography questions

        One final thought: you don't need IS.

        The accepted advice to counter camera shake without image stabilisation is to set a shutter speed at least the reciprocal of the lens. So for a 300mm lens at least 1/300sec, 1/500sec for a 500mm and so on. As you will be shooting at around 1/1,600 sec, you are shooting well above the reciprocal, so Image Stabilisation isn't of any benefit to you.
        Colin

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          #5
          Re: BIF photography questions

          thanks Tony, a very helpful read.
          Colin, just what I was looking for, the 5dmk3 has pretty much the same layout as the 7dmk2, and I could pretty much whistle through all the settings blindfolded, so I will give the back focus a go, I can see the theory behind it. I'm used to shooting with both eyes open, so that should come in handy. I've done a little panning, when I used to shoot motor-sport, though it was often hit and miss for me! I had guessed that I.S "shouldn't" be needed, because of the shutter speeds, but I like to cover all bases. It looks to be a sunny day on friday, so hopefully i'll be able to keep the shutter speed up and the iso at a sensible lvl. Everything you said makes sense and i'm confident of making it work...thank you for a very detailed response, this is why I enjoy the forum.

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            #6
            Re: BIF photography questions

            And totally overthinking it for panning



            though you can pick u a holographic sight for about £20 on evilbay and a mount

            Canon 1DX, 50D, EF500 F4.0 L, EF100-400 f/4.5-5.6L I , EF100-400 f/4.5-5.6L II, EF70-200 f/2.8L II, EF180 f3.5L Macro, EF 24-105 f/4L, EF17-40 f/4L, EF2.0X III, EF1.4X III, 430EX II, MR-14EX...

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              #7
              Re: BIF photography questions

              There is always something that you never knew you didn't need!

              Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

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                #8
                Re: BIF photography questions

                A wonderful solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
                Colin

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