Trogon Photo Tours

June 2014 - This month's article on bird photography shows techniques and images used to capture birds in flight when you know where the bird will be landing, ie prefocusing on a particular spot.  I will list the amount the image is cropped as well as the distance to the subject as they are both relevant in this situation.  Getting the depth of field correct is one of the critical elements to pulling off this type of shot.

Northern Cardinal, female - November 2009, Pond at Elephant Head, Arizona.  Canon 1D3 500F4 1/5000 F6.3, iso 640, Gitzo Tripod, Wimberley Head, Blind, Distance to subject 10.1 meters, image is about 60% of the original frame.  Bill Forbes's place in Southern Arizona is really the first place I started to do this type of photography.  Numerous birds would drop down from a tree which was above my setup perch with feeding cup below it.  I figured if I prefocused on the perch and then switched the autofocus to manual this would be a more effective way to get images of these small birds in flight.  Note that you need both a fast shutter speed and a fair amount of depth of field for these shots to work.  Rather than keeping my eye behind the viewfinder I kept my eyes outside and when a bird looked like it was dropping down to the perch I would fire off a round of shots.  To help keep the lens and camera steady I drape my left arm over the top of the lens.  Another more efficient way to do this is to use a remote release to take the shots.  This particular image was in the NANPA Showcase a couple of years ago.   

Gambel's Quail - November 2009, Pond at Elephant Head, Arizona, Canon 1D3, 500F4, 1/3200 F7.1, iso 640, Gitzo Tripod, Wimberley Head, Blind, Distance to subject 10.1 meters, image is almost full frame about 85% of original.  While I was shooting at Bill's I noticed the Gambel's Quail would fly short distances to get up onto perches where there was food.  I figured if I had 2 perches with food I could get images of them flying from one perch to the next.  I placed them about 4 yards apart.  I quickly figured out that to make a good image they had to be precisely parallel to each other to get the depth of field right.  Even then I used a little more depth of field for this shot than the previous Cardinal image largely because this is a bigger bird. It's been a few years since I have photographed at the Pond at Elephant Head, we are looking forward to going back there next spring and leading a workshop. 

Green Jay photographed March 2013 at Santa Clara Ranch, TX.  Canon 5D3, 500F4, 1/3200 F8, iso 800, Gitzo Tripod, Wimberley Head, Distance to subject 8.7 meters, almost full frame - about 85% of the original image.  At Santa Clara Ranch the back of the waterhole is a little bit closer than at the Pond at Elephant Head.  Here we placed the setup perch about 1 yard behind the waterhole to give us a bit more depth of field.  Even then at F8 we were having a tough time getting the birds sharp, while this is a nice image the perch is sharper than the bird, when I processed it, I selectively sharpened the bird more than usual.   The birds were coming from a tree in the back, obviously the farther the bird is away from the perch the more depth of field you need.  Another option is to use a  smaller lens to get more depth of field.  On my most recent photo workshop one of my participants was struggling to get flight shots using this technique with her 500mm, I convinced her to switch to her 300mm and after that she managed to get quite a few solid flight shots using the prefocusing technique. The trade off when using more depth of field or a shorter lens is that the background is more in focus. 

Northern Cardinal and Pyrrhuloxia - photographed June 2014, Santa Clara Ranch, TX.  Canon 5D3, 500F4 1/3200 F6.3, iso 1000, distance to subject 7.6 meters, image about 75% of the original, Gitzo Tripod, Wimberley Head.  As in the first cardinal image there is a feeding cup below this setup perch with feeding cup below it.  One thing that I am doing differently now than in 2009 is rather than focusing on the bush and changing to manual focus, I am using the back focus button to focus on the perch and then since I have the focus deactivated on the front shutter button the focus stays on the perch.  One big advantage of this is that if something else is going on in a different area of the waterhole I can quickly move my lens, refocus with the back of the camera and start shooting again.  This is much quicker than changing the button back to AF from manual focus on the lens.   One thing I have discovered with most if not all Nikon bodies and back button focus is that to deactivate the front focus button when you are in AF-C in addition to having the AF-ON button set correctly the autofocus needs to be set to release priority rather than focus priority. 

Lilac-breasted Roller photographed August 2013, Chobe, Botswana area.  Canon 5D3, 500F4 , 1/1600 F6.3, iso 800, manual exposure (because birds were moving from being against that light gray sky to tan colored backgrounds), Handheld, Distance to subject 20.7 meters, image is about 35% of the original.  Feeding stations are not the only place where you can do this type of photography.  Rollers and hornbills were using the top of this perch to hunt from so I prefocused on the perch with the back of my camera just like in the previous 2 images.  Sometimes I think I wished I had had my teleconverter on when I took this so I didn't have to crop it so much.  The bird was quite a bit farther away as you can see from my techs and I might have been able to pull off the shot - although to be safe I probably would have had to go to F8 and iso 1250.  In the end I guess I should just be happy I got it as the opportunities are not as frequent in a situation like this and this was my only real keeper from the short session.  

Eastern Kingbird - photographed June 2011 near Bozeman, MT, Canon 7D, 500F4 1/2000 F7.1, iso 500, handheld from car window,  distance to subject 15.3 meters, about 60% of the original image.  Flycatchers with their propensity to return to the same perch make excellent subjects for this type of photography.  I noticed a pair of kingbirds hawking insects in a small park near Bozeman so I positioned my car where I might be able to catch them landing on a favorite stalk and prefocused on that stalk.  This was by far my best image of the session.  Although this one worked out well, The 7D with it's poor iso performance isn't a great camera for this type of photography, let's hope the new version comes out soon.