HOW DO WE GO ABOUT SHOOTING BIRDS IN FLIGHT?
It differs to a great extent from other genres of photography, closest being wildlife photography. Still, birds in flight are more challenging, after-all we are dealing with wings compared to legs.
We start with the general basics, assuming that all have read the manual and learned his exposure triangle, depth of field etc, which can be found discussed in detail according to your camera model all over the internet.
WHICH GEAR?
That is the most common question being asked, and the short answer is, any camera and lens capable of giving you a reasonable reach and autofocus would do. Entering this field is going to get more and more demanding, with experience, you’ll soon find out what are your needs.
CAMERA MODE ?
There are many ways of setting your camera for shooting birds in flight. Mainly three modes can be used, the best out of three being the one that fits your needs most and feels comfortable to you.
These modes are Aperture Mode, Shutter Mode, and Manual Mode.
As the names imply, Aperture mode is to be used when the depth of field is your priority, while you can adjust your camera to make the shutter stay at a certain range, auto ISO will be used here to compensate for the equation.
Aperture mode is used by many experienced photographers, so don’t assume that the most experienced photographers use only Manual mode As mentioned earlier the mode selected should be according to needs and not on the years of experience.
Shutter mode is the way of telling the camera that your priority is getting the shutter speed fixed and compensating will be done through Aperture and ISO values.
Manual mode has two options, one with the Auto-ISO, in which you will set your Shutter and Aperture to your taste, the camera will compensate for your exposure using the ISO. You can also control its range according to taste, if you don’t want the ISO to go way up and introduce noise and loss of details. Second is going Manual with manual ISO, here you control everything and requires that you keep track of the light changes, which effects your exposure. You have to do a check-up shot once you think that the light is changing.
IMPORTANT FOCUS MODE AND POINTS
Shooting moving targets requires a continuous auto focus drive from your camera. Check the manual on how and which continuous auto focus mode is suitable. Points of focus are different from one camera to another, basically you want to start with a fairly good number of active focus points to help you get a lock on a moving target. Experienced photographers might use one focus point as that will give more accuracy and speed to the Auto Focus module.
GOING TO THE FIELD
Now that we are done with the boring but important tech info, things will start to get more interesting. Go to a place where you can find birds, for a start you can visit your local zoo. Ponds, lakes, seashores, forests are all areas where birds are expected.
APPROACHING AND COMPOSING
There are mainly three situations, a perched bird, flying bird, and a moving bird – be it on the ground or swimming in the water. What we need is to be able to get as close as we can to these birds in order to fill at least 25% of our frameso that we can crop and get out with a decent image. A tiny target in your frame will not be a nice thing to look at, so get closer as much as you can.
Now that we are close, we want to be at eye level with the bird, which makes a big difference. Avoid shooting birds from high to low or opposite. If possible, try to sit down or even to lie flat to do that. For a bird on a tree, the further you move away from it, the better the level will appear, instead of shooting it from right underneath where it is perched. Don’t try to chase birds around as they will fly away and might not return when they feel uncomfortable. Instead study their behavior, most birds will have a route that they fly on, or an area where they feed, try to get in closer without disturbing them, find a good spot with the sun behind your back and remain still, it won’t be long before they get used to you. At first you want to train yourself on finding the birds in your viewfinder, takes time, but the wider your lens is, the easier it will be., you can zoom in later. Start with big targets, slow moving birds, get used to following the birds while keeping it within your viewfinder so that your Autofocus will be able to lock and track it.
You might want to pay attention to the backgrounds, a bird is best looked at when it has a blurry background, it pops out of the frame when there are no distracting subjects around it. Try to keep it as wild as much as you can, building, electricity poles, fences, cars, boats are not going to look good in the picture and might be a hassle to get rid of in post processing.
Always try to get the birds eye sharp and would be even much better if it is looking towards you. Avoid shooting a bird that is going away from you, best is to have it incoming or perpendicular to you. Once it goes away, stop shooting, unless you are trying to show an artistic view of the wings or another artistic idea that you want to specifically show.
Try to capture something interesting, a perched bird might be a dull thing to look at compared with one that’s preening or catching an insect, or flapping its wings, making that bird shot alive with some interesting actions.
Birds in flight can have an interesting look if you avoid having the empty sky as your background. You might want to position yourself and anticipate the moment they fly into a more colorful interesting background.
Practice with Gulls, they are very good targets and usually in abundance.
There are more details to this subject, but for now, having the passion and determination would be the key factors along with practice.
Any questions will be gladly answered through Instagram @uaebif
