I attended a bird show at the Crocoseum at Australia Zoo. It was difficult taking flying birds shoots with a manual focus (push-pull-turn) zoom lens. All shots K20 and Pentax-A 70-200/F4 @ F8 & ISO 200. In retrospect, a better strategy might have been F11-F13 & ISO 800 to maximize DOF & reduce focusing problems. Shots taken in Av mode, hence the variation in shutter sheed.

1/350s




1/350s





1/60s




1/750s




1/125s




1/180s





Final 3 shots: 1/500s

[Sigmoid]

I have a similar lens (Tamron 80-200 f4.5) and have faced this problem with birds in flight. I agree that stopping down the aperture and compensating by bumping up the ISO may have been a productive strategy. I notice that the green seats in the final frame appear to be sharper than the macaw in the foreground so the extra DOF would have helped.

Since I usually photograph (hate to say shoot) wild birds at a considerable distance, I usually choose focused-but-noisy over soft-but-noise-free.

By the way, does "Australia Zoo" usually feature so many western hemisphere birds?

Sig