Questions regarding Birds in Flight and Birds In Shade with my equipment

I have the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II and the Olympus E-P5 with VF-4 viewfinder.

I wanted to try wildlife photography.

I am testing the Panasonic 100-300mm f/4-5.6 II lens now.

I chose to try this lens over the Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II because it is slightly faster.

I know that it is not the fastest and sharpest but I was not prepared to spend the money on

the Olympus 300mm f/4 IS PRO.

In good light I have been able to get some pretty sharp images of birds that are not

moving or moving slowly on the surface of water.

I have not had as much luck when birds are in the trees, shaded (handheld.)

Even at 1/320 sec small birds moving in branches are out of focus.

Any suggestions?

I am also trying to photograph birds in flight and that has been hard.

I have read that the Olympus OM-D EM-10 Mark II ( and I imagine the Pen E-P5) do not

focus rapidly enough.

Has anyone been able to use either of these cameras for birds in flight?

If not, what would be the most economical choice a this time?

Thanks

hockey guy wrote:

I have the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II and the Olympus E-P5 with VF-4 viewfinder.

I wanted to try wildlife photography.

I am testing the Panasonic 100-300mm f/4-5.6 II lens now.

I chose to try this lens over the Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II because it is slightly faster.

I know that it is not the fastest and sharpest but I was not prepared to spend the money on

the Olympus 300mm f/4 IS PRO.

In good light I have been able to get some pretty sharp images of birds that are not

moving or moving slowly on the surface of water.

I have not had as much luck when birds are in the trees, shaded (handheld.)

Even at 1/320 sec small birds moving in branches are out of focus.

Are you sure that they are out of focus or are you seeing motion blur? Unless it is obvious that the camera has focused somewhere else, e.g. the background branches, it is more likely to be motion blur.

If you post an image, we can give you our opinion.

I would increase the ISO until you have a shutter speed of 1/500 or 1/1000. Better a slightly noisy image than one that is blurred.

Any suggestions?

I am also trying to photograph birds in flight and that has been hard.

I have read that the Olympus OM-D EM-10 Mark II ( and I imagine the Pen E-P5) do not

focus rapidly enough.

They focus fast enough for single shots using S-AF but, when using C-AF, are not good at maintaining focus on a bird in flight. 8-9 years ago when no M4/3 camera was good at tracking BIF, quite a lot of us on this forum got reasonable results using S-AF for BIF. Track the bird in the viewfinder and touch the shutter release from time to time to make sure that the camera is focusing on the bird and not on the background. When you are ready to take a shot, just press the shutter release down fully. Use a spread of focus points - I am not sure what the options are for this on the E-M10.2.

Start off with slow flying birds that fly in straight lines. Pelicans are particularly easy.

Has anyone been able to use either of these cameras for birds in flight?

If not, what would be the most economical choice a this time?

Olympus E-M1.2.  Since you have the Panasonic 100-300mm, you could also try a recent Panasonic body that supports DfD.  The G9 would be a good choice, but even the cheaper bodies will be better than either of your current bodies.

Thanks

hockey guy wrote:

I have the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II and the Olympus E-P5 with VF-4 viewfinder.

I wanted to try wildlife photography.

I am testing the Panasonic 100-300mm f/4-5.6 II lens now.

I chose to try this lens over the Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II because it is slightly faster.

I know that it is not the fastest and sharpest but I was not prepared to spend the money on

the Olympus 300mm f/4 IS PRO.

In good light I have been able to get some pretty sharp images of birds that are not

moving or moving slowly on the surface of water.

I have not had as much luck when birds are in the trees, shaded (handheld.)

Even at 1/320 sec small birds moving in branches are out of focus.

Any suggestions?

I am also trying to photograph birds in flight and that has been hard.

I have read that the Olympus OM-D EM-10 Mark II ( and I imagine the Pen E-P5) do not

focus rapidly enough.

Has anyone been able to use either of these cameras for birds in flight?

If not, what would be the most economical choice a this time?

Thanks

BIF starts at 1/1000 with blurry images unless they are large birds gliding and for small is 1/2000 to 1/4000

Your issues may be a combination of shutter speed and focus for which your camera is not quick enough

Red Kite 1/2000

Blue Tit 1/4000

hockey guy wrote:

I have the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II and the Olympus E-P5 with VF-4 viewfinder.

I wanted to try wildlife photography.

I am testing the Panasonic 100-300mm f/4-5.6 II lens now.

I chose to try this lens over the Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II because it is slightly faster.

I know that it is not the fastest and sharpest but I was not prepared to spend the money on

the Olympus 300mm f/4 IS PRO.

In good light I have been able to get some pretty sharp images of birds that are not

moving or moving slowly on the surface of water.

I have not had as much luck when birds are in the trees, shaded (handheld.)

Even at 1/320 sec small birds moving in branches are out of focus.

Any suggestions?

I am also trying to photograph birds in flight and that has been hard.

I have read that the Olympus OM-D EM-10 Mark II ( and I imagine the Pen E-P5) do not

focus rapidly enough.

Has anyone been able to use either of these cameras for birds in flight?

If not, what would be the most economical choice a this time?

Thanks

I do a bit of birds in flight with a Pen-F and the Oly 75-300 II. My results were dismal till untiI the bif gurus here helped me out and also the video by Rob Trek was very enlightening:

Thanks. I will definitely look at that.

Thanks.

I am attaching 2 images that were my most successful, of a bird in flight and about to land. I feel that those were lucky.

I am attaching some image of my attempt to capture a goldfinch feeding in a tree.

hockey guy wrote:

Thanks.

I am attaching 2 images that were my most successful, of a bird in flight and about to land. I feel that those were lucky.

I am attaching some image of my attempt to capture a goldfinch feeding in a tree.

As you can see the shot at 1/2500 is the one that works best

Second step a camera with tracking that works well

Different problems with the two BIF shots and the five goldfinch shots.

To deal with the goldfinch shots first - very simple because you have motion bur in almost all of them.  1/100 is too slow a shutter speed to freeze the motion of the bird.  Next time try 1/500 or 1/1000.

The BIF shots suffer from multiple problems.  Firstly, you are shooting a white bird against a dark background and the camera has exposed for the background rather the the bird.  As a result, the bird's white plumage looks to be blown out and contains no detail, but the very high noise levels have destroyed much of the detail anyway.  You probably need to set EC to - 1EV, but take some shots of it on the ground to work out what exposure you need.

You will have the opposite problem if you try to photograph a bird with dark plumage against a bright sky and may have to reduce EC by +1EV.

Secondly, there really isn't enough light for you to freeze motion without going to very high ISO levels, although correctly exposing for the bird would have helped with this.  That is why you have noisy images.  I would only try BIF photography in sunlight.  Low morning or evening sunlight is the best for feather detail.

You seem to have done reasonably well at actually capturing the bird.  Keep trying - BIF is one of the most difficult forms of photography and requires lots of practice.

Thanks for the detailed response.

Gordon

Chris above has given good advice.  My advice would be stop making it hard for yourself.  Practice with BIFs and stationary birds in good light.  When you have mastered that you can move onto the more difficult stuff.  Please take some nice day shots and post the results.

Interceptor121 wrote:

hockey guy wrote:

Thanks.

I am attaching 2 images that were my most successful, of a bird in flight and about to land. I feel that those were lucky.

I am attaching some image of my attempt to capture a goldfinch feeding in a tree.

As you can see the shot at 1/2500 is the one that works best

Second step a camera with tracking that works well

... and is less grainy at high ISO...

For birds that are not flying do you shoot in aperture priority and keep an eye on the shutter speed or use shutter priority.

The bird may not be in flight, but may be hovering or preening.

Thanks.

Good light, fast shutter speed (I like 1/3200 as minimum if I can get away with it) and practice, practice, practice.

Also know what f/stop and focal length is the sharpest setting for you lens. My Olympus 75-300 is sharpest at 270mm and f7/1. My PL100-400 is best at 350mm and f7.1

hockey guy wrote:

For birds that are not flying do you shoot in aperture priority and keep an eye on the shutter speed or use shutter priority.

The bird may not be in flight, but may be hovering or preening.

Thanks.

In an ideal world, the former or manual and then you can watch both

hockey guy wrote:

For birds that are not flying do you shoot in aperture priority and keep an eye on the shutter speed or use shutter priority.

The bird may not be in flight, but may be hovering or preening.

Thanks.

First off, in my experience there is no such thing as a stationary bird unless it has been to the taxidermy shop. All birds twitch those tiny feathers all the time, and any little breeze will  blow around those tiny breast feathers. So, even if the bird is on the limb, I never have a shutter speed of under 1/1000 second.

As others have noted, I can deal with higher ISO noise, but motion blur is unfixable. In good light try shooting in manual at your sharpest f stop and the fastest speed you think you can and let the ISO float. At f/7.1 and 1/3200 in good light my ISO usually settles in about 640 which is pretty close to noise free in my cameras.

Even with a big sensor and an f2.8 lens, there are conditions where you're just not going to get nice shots.  Luckily as you're looking to get some practice, anytime you grab your camera and point it at birds you'll be gaining experience, so stick at it even if the light is horrid, you'll be better off when you catch a bird in nice golden sunshine.

For perched birds, I'd suggest using a single AF point, and to become accustomed to moving that point around quickly so you always have it over the birds eye.  Get as many pixels on the bird as you can.

Shooting in burst mode will help you catch those moments the bird is still enough to be sharp.  Shooting bursts can give you sharp results at very low shutter speeds, but you're chances increase the faster you can go.  1/320th is my default setting for perched birds because my garden is very shady.

Nothing to add about BIF that's not already been mentioned.  Minimum shutter speed of 1/1000th for big birds like herons, 1/1600th for medium birds, and even higher for small birds.

Does that mean that you shoot perched birds using shutter priority mode?

Thanks

I looked at the video. Very helpful.

I noticed that he recommended shooting JPEG LF and avoiding RAW when shooting birds.

he mentioned buffering as the reason.

Can you explain that?

Is that what you do?

Thanks

It’s possible. Don’t underestimate how hard bird photography can be though.