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Birds In Flight (Swallows & Martins)

Started Sep 26, 2015 | Photos thread
drj3 Forum Pro • Posts: 12,632
Re: Birds In Flight (Swallows & Martins)

Jozef M wrote:

Great photos!
I think you must have 1/3000 sec. or maybe 1/4000 sec. to be really sharp, so it must be ISO 1250 with this light. Only the last bird is sharp at 100%.

Jozef.

You are panning with the bird and there is typically little wing movement. 1/2000 should easily be sufficient and probably as low as 1/1250 or 1/1600. The problem with all long telephoto lenses is the very shallow depth of field which often results in only part of the bird being in good focus. Increasing the shutter speed would result in a wider aperture, further reducing the depth of field and the amount of the bird in good focus.

With sitting birds or very large slow flying ones, you can focus on the eye so that the bird looks to be in good focus. Unfortunately with small fast moving ones, you take what you can get.  I think they are all good.

In the first image, the far wing is in focus (the E-M1 tendency to focus on verticals), but the depth of field is not sufficient to cover the birds body.

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drj3

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