Originally posted by normhead There's good reason there are many good BiF big bird shots but almost no images of Warblers and songbirds in flight. The bigger the better. Catching the little guys is a lot more hit and miss.
That's why I said practice on larger, and slower birds. I didn't, or not much anyway at first, I jumped right in and started trying to get Doves and Cardinals or whatever flew by...later on concentrating on larger birds like Hawks, Egrets and Herons to get more proficient. I got lucky a few times, but usually way out of focus and/or loads of motion blur...
Ducks are some of the hardest to catch in flight, they fly so fast and often come out of nowhere, and around here I have lots of trees to deal with too, once I see them I have to hope they fly into an open spot...Most of the time they are also pretty far away, anything close is unusual.
This pair gave me a good opportunity. Enough light I was able to shoot at 1/750 shutter speed, and at ISO200.
I don't get many small birds in flight, but I do get lucky now and then. I watched this Bluebird fly around the area and tried several times, finally got one decent shot. And it's cropped pretty heavy...
This is one of my best efforts, I had to look a bit for it...Carolina Chickadee shot with the K-x a few years ago, 200mm Vivitar M42 lens, The bird was originally perched a foot or two away and I snapped as it took off, and just crossed my fingers. If I remember correctly it was about 30 feet away, I never dreamed I'd actually get a decent shot, my mother was with me out looking at a couple of my favorite bird locations in North Louisiana when I lived there. She was as amazed as I was...I never get these guys in flight...And trust me, this is definitely a lucky shot, not a lot of expertise involved...I was far from proficient at birds in flight when I snapped this one.
This is how and where I got most of my practice, a couple of lakes in north Louisiana where I'd find Egrets, Herons and Bald Eagles hanging out.
Green Heron coming in for a landing on a lily pad
Red Tailed Hawk circling not far from the lake.
The main issue with the larger birds like these is getting close enough to get some detail. Most birds don't like getting close to humans, strangely enough I find the smallest ones, Hummingbirds, Tufted Titmouse, Chickadee, Sparrows will come a lot closer than any of the Hawks or Herons ever will.
Fortunately the main lenses I've used, Vivitar 200mm M42 and the Makinon 135mm I use a lot now, do pretty well with focus confirmation, I could always depend on the 200mm to be in good focus when the K-x or K30 would beep ( I turned confirmation beep off afraid it would spook ducks, I now use just the visual confirmation). The 135mm Makinon is usually very close too, so I didn't have to go into fine tuning the camera to the lens. That may be an issue with some lenses, especially if you try using auto focus. The only auto focus lens I have is the 18-55 kit lens, so almost all of my bird shots are manual focus lenses.