Birds in Flight Photography

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How on earth do you do it :eek:?

I am hiring a 100-400 lens this week as I have the week off and thought I would try a bit of wildlife photography for fun. I really like the lens and have some shots I like of stationary birds but I struggle to get any "bird in flight" shots. The problem I have is trying to get the lens to focus on a moving bird :help:. By the time the AF has messed about trying to capture it I've lost the bird! It is also really hard to keep a bird in frame at 400mm zoom (with a 1.6 crop sensor), especially as I am doing it handheld!

Any tips? What AF mode is best to use for this? AI Servo :thinking:?
 
AI servo, set ISO to auto for your first try, shutter priority with 1/1000 shutter speed, set the IS on the lens to the panning setting (it only corrects up and down movement then).

Pick up the bird and start to follow it (pan), keep the shutter half pressed to keep the focus active then fire it in short bursts, keep panning so that the autofocus point your using (centre would be best) is on the bird all the time your shooting.

Its better to try and shoot birds flying either from left to right or right to left rather than towards or away from you.

It also helps to prefocus manually, ie if you have been taking fairly close shots, manually set the lens to focus on a more distant object that way the lens doesn't have to travel as far to focus.
 
If you have any large lakes, reservoirs or are near the coast, try and get some practice on seagulls, in general they have a fairly predictable flight pattern making it easier to trakc them
 
Thank you :).

I went out and tried today but there was really heavy fog :(. I managed to get some shots I'm reasonably happy with for a first go. My settings were roughly AI Servo AF, single point focus, 1/1000 shutter speed, f5-f7, ISO 200-800. Thre real problem I have is managing to keep the bird in frame when panning while zoomed in so far and with a big heavy lens, especially keeping the focusing point on the bird :(. I suppose I will just get better with practice?
 
Zoom out a bit, this way you get more room to move with the bird - and you don't loose it out the frame so easily. ONce you get better then start zooming tighter.
 
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