BIF with K50 and DA18-135

There have been many postings about the difficulties of capturing birds in flight and it is something I have struggled with.
Things seem to fall into two camps as I see it - either you go out specifically attempting such shots or you happen to see something when out walking.

For what it's worth I'll show an example I got recently when on holiday in Oban, just generally wandering around with my 'travel kit' of DA18-135 on the K50,
When we got to the harbour there was the usual activity of gulls swooping around quite quickly.
I therefore put the K50 onto Tav mode and selected 1/1000s to try to freeze movement and f/8 to give me a reasonable DoF.
I tried several times and eventually got the following image. This is a crop of Actual Pixels from the camera JPEG with no PP.

I'd be grateful for any comments or suggestions.

Thanks
Peter

Well, I don't think you can complain about it, however you aquired it

I'm certainly not complaining, David - simply amazed at what I got and yet another great performance from my DA18-135 !
Just curious as to what settings some others use ?

Peter

It's a great result, testimony to both the equipment and photographer skill !

The use of TAV mode makes good sense here, as you wanted a short exposure time as well as a reasonable depth of field. Out of interest Peter, what ISO did you end up with for this one?

I'm been wondering myself about the significance of the autofocus technology on the success of these BIF shots ... Here you've got the DC type, which as I understand it is a more energy efficient type of motor, and quieter .... Is it faster and more accurate though, I wonder, than the older screw-drive types? Perhaps it depends on each individual lens more so?

I'm certainly enjoying the benefits of my DC motor in the new D FA 28-105mm.

The one thing my eyes have trouble assimilating is the 'black cap' the bird appears to be wearing...actually the underexposed underside of its left wing...it just grates and spoils the whole image for me...sorry.

Karlo

Nice capture and I am definately a fan of that little lens; as regards autofocus;

A couple of points in response to Nigel's queries:

1. On very fast small birds I have all autofocus and automation off generally and track the bird as a blurred image, only releasing the shutter when it becomes momentarily sharp in the prefocussed area as it is passing by.

ie; Don't give the cameras automation a lot to do at the point of capture so prefocus preset and shut it all off,

2. A second technique is more or less the same except everything is preset and the autofocus is initiated as the bird is closing in on the prefocussed zone, but only works if the bird is a bigger image in the veiw finder and the entry point of the prefocussed capture zone is ahead of the bird in its flight path.; the AF button can really improve the result too

3. When the image area of the bird is large and the flight path is a little longer distance then autofocus tracks it nicely, as is the obviuos case with large birds with pendulous flight;.

My own experience as a tormented BIF photographer has been the same with Canon, Nikon and I must say , to a lesser degree with the K3's and definately TO A MUCH LESSER DEGREE with the K1 because the increased viewing area (window) of the FF makes it easier to keep up with the bird and the AF system has evolved positively.

The key success criteria for me are flying speed, distance, size of the bird and contrast;
Ie.
1. the relative speed of the bird passing through the potential capture zone

2. That is affected also by the shooting distance ; easier if the bird is further away but the image is smaller

4. The area the subject takes up in the veiwfinder; when it is fairly large as a proportion of the view finder area then the AF system tracks it.

5. The difference in the cintrast between the bird and the background is significant in the capability of autofocus to lock on.

However BIF Is a " moving feast" but a couple of sessions on puffins is good because the birds are oassing by all day; at their size the puffin need to be within 30 metres to be trackable, passing through a very narrow capture zone at almost 50mph will lead to option 1 above , giving the best keeper rate. Autofocus can't keep up.

A day on those " feathered missiles" will definately hone the skills of the would be BIF photographer

Finally in my experience with birds in trees , particularly small birds,the very animated scanning process they engage in to, continuously check for predators or danger will need to be taken into account with a high shutter speed as those minute movements, particularly of the head of birds such as tits will result in " everything sharp except the head." The worse news is that often you don't notice it until you are reviewing your capture on the desk and see the " smudged facials"

These are Just some thoughts from a very slowly improving, "not quite there yet" BIF photographer.

Hope this gives food for thought and generates some commentary that will help me too.

Regards

Daron

And there was me thinking it was some kind of exotic 'black crested something ' species !!

It's an unusual effect, and I suppose could be reduced ... Perhaps some lightening of that shadow area, or even cloning in some of the sea or feathers (then darkening them a little) might work. In any case I don't see it as distracting from the overall image quality .

Thanks also to Daron for his detailed and informative words on focusing this type of shot. .... I'll certainly try and use some of those ideas in future.

Many thanks for all the comments

1: For Nigel, it was ISO640

2: Special thanks to Daron for some great tips - I think these need taking out and kept as a Note somewhere ?

3: Karlo - I did point out that the image is a 100% crop of the untouched camera jpg, so the shadow under the wing was how the camera saw it.
For the record I'll post below a 100% crop from a processed RAW file - the shadow is still there but I think the bit of sea in between is now clearer ?




Thanks again
Peter