Wildlife videos with Nikon D500 + Nikon 200-500/5.6

Krish6102 wrote:

RudyPohl wrote:

I have been working on my birds in flight techniques and strategies to try to mitigate this limitation. I think I have now gotten to point where I can make fairly satisfying and interesting wildlife videos with lots of action included without the benefits of autofocus tracking and I'll probably continue this way for a while yet.

Best,

Rudy

With the D500, my videos so far, have been of perched birds (using manual focus) - mostly because of the reasons you mention. Having seen your work, I am encouraged to try BIF. What autofocus mode did you use for this video ? Any other tips or pointers you can share?
Krish

Hi Krish,

That's really great that you're going to give birds in flight videos a try. I look forward to seeing your results.

Regarding my strategy and techniques for doing these videos here are a few points.

• I never try to focus on birds in flight, either manually or with the back button - I have made many attempts over the last year at doing this and all have been failures. Instead, I intentionally plan to record birds that are mostly flying side to side so they remain in my focal plain as long as possible.
  So in the case of my video posted above with the flying Canada Geese I positioned myself on the bank of the river so I could capture the geese flying from my far right to my far left. I make my initial focus when the geese are still sitting on the water using the back button focus and checking it in my external monitor with focus peaking. Then once they take off all I do is track them with my camera, I never touch the focus ring or back button. All my flights are done in 1080p 60fps and slowed down in post.
  I usually use very small aperture settings, typically between f11 - f22, depending on the brightness of the day. This deals with two issues: One I have no ND filter for 200-500mm lens, plus this gives my the widest depth of field possible. Here it's important to be far enough away from the birds so that you have as wide a depth of field as possible. 
  Lastly, when doing side to side bif recording it's crucial to have your tripod perfectly leveled or your horizon will progressively either rise or fall as your video proceeds and it's almost impossible to fix in post.

With the above method, that is, keeping distant from the birds and having a huge depth of field via small aperture, you are able to even record birds that are flying towards and away from you. I do this and I simply cut the clip once the birds that are coming towards me are unacceptably out of focus. As seen in the video below.
Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Rudy