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Birds in Flight : Bee-eaters (40-150 pro)

Started Jan 3, 2016 | Photos thread
vass
OP vass Senior Member • Posts: 1,929
Re: Kudos, and a question on focusing

Thanks Boxerman

I got pretty close to them on some occasions there which means thinner DOF. I try to focus on the front of the bird, head and neck area which is why the body is in focus when it is. I find the lens with tele has a very narrow DOF, guessing teleconverter doesn't help here.
I'm pretty sure on shot 7 the wings are in focus, just slightly blurred from movement. Not sure if you ever seen a bee eater fly but they are very fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhrhLb1EDcY this will give you idea of how they fly

boxerman wrote:

Brilliant shots!

Technical question: Assuming your high shutter speeds can stop the outer reaches of the wings (where I see de-focus), it seems the depth of field is only a body-width or two. So, it's STUNNING that the camera (and you) manage to catch the body, only a fraction of the scene, in focus. How much of this is luck...that is, is it shot selection that gets you the body at the center of focus? Or, is the camera focus that good, technically? Very hard for me to imagine. With wings nearly vertical (shot 7), why wouldn't the focusing system prefer the expanse of the wings, over the body?

With the apparently narrow DOF, I was surprised the f-stop was mostly 5.6-6.3.

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