Photo by Vic Berardi
Although there are many lens choices for photographing birds, our discussion will focus on the medium length hand-holdable telephoto lenses.
When using the medium length telephoto lenses (e.g. Canon’s 300mm f4, Canon’s 400mm f5.6, Canon’s 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 and Nikon’s 200-400mm f4), it’s always advisable to use a tripod for the sharpest photographs possible. However, one type of photography virtually renders a tripod useless: photographing birds in flight and in particular, fast moving birds like raptors!
How to hold your camera
Photo by Ann Berardi
Photo by Ann Berardi
The two photos above show the proper way to hold your camera and lens. It’s important that your hands and entire body are in a relaxed position and that your position allows you to pivot easily. Confine your position and you’ll compromise your ability to move accurately as a bird weaves across the sky.
You will see in these photos that I have one hand firmly on the camera and the other hand relaxed at or near the end of the lens. This is the best way to have full balance and control of your movements.
In the first photo, I’m holding the camera in a somewhat level and horizontal position. Many times you’ll encounter a bird perched, and this position will allow you to not only take sharp photos of a stationary bird but also be ready if it takes flight and flies close to the ground.
In the second photo, I’m holding the camera for a bird in flight. You will notice that the position of my hands is virtually identical to the horizontal position. Again, it is important that your stance allows you to move in multiple directions, even to the point of almost turning around completely. Fast moving birds like hawks and falcons allow very little time for adjustments. So, being ready for their sudden shifts in direction is vital.
How to setup your camera
The next thing to consider is what camera settings to use. There are two mandatory requirements for shooting birds in flight:
Use a fast shutter speed, but don’t compromise good exposure or depth of field. Shutter speeds of 1/1000 or faster are recommended. Using high shutter speeds helps compensate for any minor unsteadiness and will also freeze the motion of the bird.
Maximize the burst rate on your camera. To maximize the amount of photos you can take in a burst, switch your camera to JPEG mode. Since JPEGs are significantly smaller than RAW, they won’t fill up your camera’s buffer as fast as RAW. Here’s a series of six photos that illustrate why a fast burst rate is important:
This sequence of six photos was taken with the camera set at the highest possible burst rate of 6 fps. The entire sequence of this shot lasted only 1 second total.
In general, there are three things to look for in a good bird image: sharpness, exposure and natural pose. Although all these shots were perfectly exposed, only one photo (#3) was both sharp and with the bird in a natural position. Had I not used a high burst rate, I may have missed this shot completely. And trying to get a bird in flight with a natural pose with only one shot being fired is pure luck. Take most of the luck out by using a high burst rate. This photo was shot with a Canon 300mm f/4L IS USM lens with the camera set at ISO 400 and f/4 at 1/2000 second. Oh, by the way, the bird is a juvenile Northern Goshawk.
Photo by Vic Berardi
Personally I like to set my camera in manual mode and use JPEG only.
Manual mode allows me to not worry about the camera changing settings as a bird moves past visible terrain of various shades or when the camera’s light meter misreads the scene such as when a bird moves in and out of your frame across a bright sky.
Shooting in JPEG lets me use the highest burst rate without any chance of the camera stalling as it sometimes does with RAW bursts. But keep in mind these are just my personal preferences. Plenty of bird photographers use either aperture priority or shutter priority along with RAW and achieve amazing results. Experiment and see what works best for you.
Just remember that your time of opportunity with a fast moving bird may only be a second or less!
Oh, and if you’re interested in learning more about raptors, please check out my new blog, The Raptorphile.
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About the Author: Vic Berardi is a raptor lover that lives in the Midwest. He is the founder of the Illinois Beach State Park Hawk Watch and every weekend of the year you’ll find him searching for hawks and photographing them. Several of his photographs have been published in a leading raptor journal and in articles he has written. During the year he gives presentations teaching others about hawks and hawk migration. Vic also photographs dragonflies and wild flowers and is always respectful of nature and its creatures.
Hi, I have just bought a 5D mark II and I am using my 100-400mm lens as I am specifically wanting to shoot birds (we have hawks and Bald Eagles currently making regular appearnces in my local park!). I am mostly doing handheld for the very reason you point out-it’s almost impossible to shoot these moving targets on a tripod or monopod. My question is-which setting should I have my camera on if the shutter is to be set at 1/1000 and the ISO 400 ie TV,AV or M ? And how do I set my camera to take a “burst”? I used to own a Rebel and it had the litle “sports” setting which when you held down the shutter button gave you a burst. There is no such selection on the 5D and I am struggling to figure this out even with the manual?? Thanks ps I love your hawk photos:)
@ Mac, thank you and yes “practice and more practice” is great advice!!
@ Ian, thank you too! Not sure I would be able to help you but if you’d like to send me the photo, email me at VBirdman@aol.com
@ Caroline,
Excellent camera and lens! I will try to answer your questions as best as possible.
1) Setting your camera for burst mode:
On page 85 of your manual you want to follow the instructions for setting the camera in the “Continuous shooting” Make sure you see the image for this setting which looks like a staggered stacked deck of cards. Your camera shoots at a maximum of 3.9 frames per second which will be fine for birds in flight.
2) The question on how to set your camera is difficult to answer. Settings for proper exposure vary depending on light conditions. This is true no matter what mode you use, AV, TV or M. However, only in “M” do you have immediate full control. In “TV” or “AV” you’re bound to the camera’s metering of a scene unless you employ the exposure compensation feature. The “M” mode requires more thought but also gives you full control. Simply put, there is only one setting for exposure that is accurate!
Personally I shoot in full Manual exposure mode (M), which requires much patience in learning, to the point that your confidence level is very high that you can accurately set your camera at the proper exposure. I select my aperture first depending on the lighting. I select the smallest aperture I can that still allows me to have an acceptable shutter speed for birds in flight (for me that’s a minimum of 1/800 second.) Then I set the shutter speed.
I think Steve has previously posted something on learning Manual exposure here on the PhotoNaturalist. There is also info on the web and in books.
Hope some of what I said helps!
Vic
I appreciate the tips. You covered a lot, but left out focusing. Do you recommend AF or CAF (continuous AF)? I can’t see trying manual focus in this situation…
Thanks,
BGenie (shooting with Olympus e620)
Hi Vic,
Enjoy you site very much.
Bought the Canon 7d in January’12. Using with my Canon400mmf5.6 and its getting me great BIF shots. I now use jpeg with this camera and manual exposure in place of AV. Although I do go back to AV on occasions
Reasons for going back to jpeg are:
a. Downloading and editing Large Raw takes about 4mins a shot in DPP(Canon software)
b. As you say more burst shots
c. Cannot see much difference in Raw and jpeg shots for me to worry about!.
Regards
John
@ BGenie, I recommend CAF when following a bird in flight.
@ John, in the article I do recommend shooting in JPEG, but now that I’ve gotten used to my Canon 7D, I now shoot in RAW only mode and find it to be fine. Just make sure if you use RAW you don’t have the camera set for RAW and JPEG, that slows the burst rate down considerably But you’re correct, a well exposed JPEG image is usually all you will ever need and the burst rate is fastest in JPEG only mode.
Hi Vic,
I never set camera to take Raw+JPeg, only to check when I bought 7D.
I would like to go Large Raw but Canon DPP software takes far to long to edit (approx 4 minutes a shot) and adobe Elements 7 will not ID files!
Will I lose much in pictures quality going down to Medium Raw which don’t take long to download and edit in the Canon DPP software.
John
I would suggest using a different editing program like Lightroom 3 which B&H photo is offering today only for $69. With this program, you have many more tools to edit your images and is very good at managing your entire collection.
Love the tips! I don’t have the proper camera nor lens, but I still enjoy photographing birds. How do you work with the autofocus? Do you use an af lens? I have problems with sighting the bird in the sky. Sometimes I lose focus. Then I lose precious seconds trying to focus in on the bird again. Any tips for that? Thank you!
@ John, I would not recommend using anything but Large Raw. I use PS Elements 10 for my RAW conversion and it works fine.
@ Mac, excellent suggestion, I actually ordered Lightroom 3 from B&H the other day because of that sale!
@ Judy, what camera are you using?
Vic, I am using a Canon Rebel T3 with a 55-250mm IS lens. I am just practicing. Sometimes I can get a good shot, but mostly they’re too far away for my lens. I hate it when I’m tracking a bird in the sky and lose focus. I’ve managed to get a couple of nice shots of a bald eagle in the state park near my home, but out of 25 shots, there was only 1 real good one. The rest were all blurry or missed because of the focus. I’ve been searching for sites that can help make the most of what I have, and I was lucky enough to stumble in here!
Judy,
Your camera is capable of taking very high quality photos. However, the focal length of your zoom falls a tad bit short for most birds in flight. Larger birds, like the Bald Eagle you mention are fine, but even they need to be close to you.
As for the focusing issues, it is very difficult to stay on a bird that maneuvers around in the sky. Just try to anticipate the direction the bird is going as best as you could. No one gets every shot in focus.
Thank you for your time Vic! I went to the park this past weekend, and tried your tips you mentioned here. I managed to get quite a few nice shots off! I had been shooting in RAW, and changed it up to jpeg and used the settings you mentioned. I was able to get quite a few nice shots off of a few birds that were flying close to where I was! So I am pretty stoked! Thanks again!
Hi Vic,
Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful pictures and this very helpful advice. It seems that some photographers advocate for using the “center point” autofocus as opposed to alternatives such as “zone” or “expanded” autofocus points for bird in flight photos. The argument seems to be go ahead with the latter when the background is uniform such as sky as more focus points will make locking on the bird easier. But when the background is cluttered the camera may tend to get more easily confused and alternate between focusing on the bird or background. What are your thoughts about this?
thanks,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Thanks, glad you liked the post! On my Canon 7D I’ve used both the center point and the central array points (expanded) for birds in flight. Both work fine, however, I have noticed on occasion that there may be a slight lag in getting the bird in focus on the expanded AF points. I prefer to use the back focus button and the center point. Once I get the bird in focus (and on the center point) I take my thumb off the focus button momentarily and shoot a burst of photos.
Vic
This is a great website for nature shooters. I wish I had found it sooner.
Thanks Patricia! Glad you found it and glad you like it. Steve has lots of great tips to share and plenty more to come!