Pardon the delay as I left town after posting, but thank you for the supportive comments.
Originally posted by Greyser What shutter speed and other settings do you use for BIF?
If you click on the photos, I think the Flickr page reveals all the settings. I shot the harriers and owls at two locations over a two day period of rare Pacific Northwest sunshine. Settings were from 1/1250-2000, spot metering, AF.C, AF(M), continuous shooting High, mostly wide open and TAV. I had planned on switching to manual but the exposure turned out so well the first day I remained in TAV the second (different location). On the second day I had more trouble with dark birds and next time will manually set my exposure. I absent mindedly left the shake reduction on the first day. If I were to shoot again tomorrow with the luxury of good sunshine (we are back to rain), I would not shoot wide open. My shots at 6.3 were markedly better than 5.6.
There was a lot of high powered glass out there. Almost all were shooting on tripods, but I think I would have missed half my shots if I had done the same (I did have it with me). Still very much a work in progress.
Originally posted by RKP Chennai Fantastic BIF shot. Did you prefocus it or was it a scanning shot..
All birds were followed in the viewfinder, using back button for AF. #18 Hold AF status on 3-4, still trying to figure out what I like best. More than once I would lose the bird and focus into infinity, having to aim at something on the ground to get back in range. I also had a few times where I'd have the bird perfectly in my lens but not in focus and the back AF button seemed to do nothing (I suspect that was when I had hold AF status on 4).
Switching subject now from handheld back to a tripod shot, just to keep my post from being too boring. Here is a long eared owl with its nictitating membrane partially closing in the left eye. I like any excuse to use the word nictitating.