Settings for birds of prey in flight: Help!

Last time I saw a bird handler in action was during our Disney World trip in Florida, April-May 2004.

Henry

Thanks @drj3 for the kind words and also your detailed advice. That was the first time I used MF.

Indeed, I had plenty of out-of-focus shots of the owl with fabulous wing positions but not as it passed through the single focus plane So will try your method next time and see if I can capture more shots

PistonPhotoUK -

I use my G9 with the Lumix 100-400mm lens for BIFs ... AND ... a Red Dot Sight (RDS) made by Olympus, the EE-1. Here's a two minute video on how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlzoU7KhZro

The video above shows it being used on a tripod, but I use it handheld. Just to be clear ... the RDS does NOT project a laser beam (like certain gun sights). It simply gives you a wide field of view and a red dot that (if set up properly) will match the focus point(s) on your camera. It will work with any camera that has a hot/cold flash shoe. It's not specific to Oly or Panny.

Personally, my camera skills are not good enough to track a fast moving bird and get it in focus. The RDS helps, but it's far from perfect. Sometimes the bird is not completely in the frame or the focus point is not correct. But if you shoot in burst mode, there's a good chance you'll get at least one good shot in focus. If the bird is against a background (not sky), the focus will sometimes pick the background. The G9's animal/bird detect AF modes help improve AF when foreground and background can be confused.

When shooting BIFs with my G9 + 100-400mm + RDS, I set my camera for (M)anual mode. I set for a shutter speed of at least 1/2500 and, generally, a wide aperture because the lens is slow. I set the ISO to AUTO. Because of the fast shutter and using the RDS, I turn off image stabilization.

I used to be "afraid" of shooting at higher ISOs, but I found that Topaz DeNoise AI works "miracles" in removing noise and maintaining sharpness.

BTW ... there are other manufactures of RDS, but I like the Oly EE-1 based on the ones I've used over the years.

Good luck ...

scphoto wrote:

PistonPhotoUK -

I use my G9 with the Lumix 100-400mm lens for BIFs ... AND ... a Red Dot Sight (RDS) made by Olympus, the EE-1. Here's a two minute video on how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlzoU7KhZro

The video above shows it being used on a tripod, but I use it handheld. Just to be clear ... the RDS does NOT project a laser beam (like certain gun sights). It simply gives you a wide field of view and a red dot that (if set up properly) will match the focus point(s) on your camera. It will work with any camera that has a hot/cold flash shoe. It's not specific to Oly or Panny.

Personally, my camera skills are not good enough to track a fast moving bird and get it in focus. The RDS helps, but it's far from perfect. Sometimes the bird is not completely in the frame or the focus point is not correct. But if you shoot in burst mode, there's a good chance you'll get at least one good shot in focus. If the bird is against a background (not sky), the focus will sometimes pick the background. The G9's animal/bird detect AF modes help improve AF when foreground and background can be confused.

When shooting BIFs with my G9 + 100-400mm + RDS, I set my camera for (M)anual mode. I set for a shutter speed of at least 1/2500 and, generally, a wide aperture because the lens is slow. I set the ISO to AUTO. Because of the fast shutter and using the RDS, I turn off image stabilization.

I used to be "afraid" of shooting at higher ISOs, but I found that Topaz DeNoise AI works "miracles" in removing noise and maintaining sharpness.

BTW ... there are other manufactures of RDS, but I like the Oly EE-1 based on the ones I've used over the years.

Good luck ...

I'd second the use of the Dot Sight, at least for fast and agile birds.

Mike

Barn Swallow