show you how to capture birds in flight. Hi! Im Adam and welcome to First Man Photography
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on how to capture perfect exposure every time. Okay, lets get into this.
Wildlife photography is an extremely popular
area of photography and capturing birds in flight is one of the most challenging and
rewarding pictures you can ever capture, particularly, because, usually, theres no second chance. In this video, were going to look at some
of the gear youre going to need, were going to talk about the camera settings you
want to use and well also go through a couple of techniques that will maximise your
chances of capturing those beautiful shots. Any modern DSLR is capable of capturing birds
in flight and people talk about crop factor. That gets you close to the birds but I really
don't think thats the limiting factor when it comes to capturing the great shots.
More appropriate will be to find a camera
that has a great autofocus system whether thats full frame or cropped, it doesnt
really doesn't matter because getting close to your subject, if you can, is going to have
a much bigger effect. So dont worry about the crop factor. If youve got a full frame camera, youre
good to go. Having a good long lens is an absolute must
for capturing birds in flight.
These can get expensive, which is not always
great, but they are very good quality, they focus fast and often they have tracking image
stabilisation which will help you keep that bird in your frame where you want it. Cheap kit type lenses like the 70-300mm often
just don't have the fast focusing capability to be able to capture those birds in flight
on a consistent basis. Something like this Canon 400mm will be absolutely
perfect. Its light is not going to break the bank
entirely and you can check out my review in the link down below for this lens.
This, actually, doesn't have image stabilisation
but that isnt, actually, massively important because when we go through the setting were
going to use a really high shutter speed which will freeze the action anyway. So any sort of shake in your camera wont
make a massive difference. If you have a bigger or heavier lens, you
can use a tripod, monopod or a beanbag something like that to take the strain off your arms. I, personally, prefer to handhold and that's
what this 400mm lets me do because it just gives you a bit more versatility to get out,
get into the location where youre going to capture those birds flying and then, when
we come to talk about technique, its easier when youre handholding.
Lets talk about the settings were going
to use. The first thing you need to do is to go in
to the autofocus setting and change it to continuous autofocus. In the Canon camera, this is called the Servo
AF mode and its something like AFC on the Nikon. So go ahead and set as that and that will
continually track the focus on the focus point that you select rather than locking it in
like you do on one shot focus.
Some people will use the AF button on the
back to use the autofocus and that takes the focus away from the shutter button which then,
basically, lets you have the best of both worlds, one-shot and the servo AF because
as you focus with the back button you can then release that and the focus will lock
just as it does in the one shot. For me, I don't like that, I dont know
why, because, when Im handholding, tracking the birds, its just the way I grip the
camera because when Im pressing that, Im pressing the shutter button at the same time. I feel like I lose a little bit of smoothness
in my arm so I find it more difficult to track. That's just a personal thing but that works
for a lot of people.
When you're tracking the bird, you need to
keep the bird over the focus point you have selected. I, generally, just use the very centre point
but thats personal preference. Play around with your autofocus system. Some people use the five centre autofocus
points.
It really depends on your camera and how many
autofocus points and settings it has. Have a play around. Start off with full auto, if you want to,
and then narrow it down to the focus point that works for you. Go ahead and try for yourself.
The next thing we'll do is switch to manual
mode and this may sound scary but it's really not as bad as it seems once we start talking
about some of the settings were going to use. The most important thing to set first is shutter
speed. You want to have a shutter speed of at least
1/1000 of a second or faster because that's whats going to allow you to really freeze
the action of the birds. Any slower than, you might that start to get
blurring and its going to get much harder to capture those sharp shots.
For the aperture, when youre capturing
birds in flight, you probably want to stop down to something like 7.1 Or F8 because that
just increases the chances of capturing sharp shots because of increasing the depth of field
a little bit. If you are in dark conditions, that can be
you will have to balance that out with ISO. If you're on a nice bright day, you might
be able to keep your ISO lower but the last thing, obviously, is the ISO and were going
to use that to balance our exposure in certain situations. I'm very often going to ISO1000 something
like that.
I really try not to go over that but in a
lot of conditions that will work for you just fine. Especially with the good noise handling of
modern cameras. So ISO1000 is the maximum and try anything
underneath that depending on your light conditions. So let's now talk about the technique.
Like I said, I'm a big fan of handholding
and that's what this lens and camera lets me do. So, when I'm tracking, I will try and watch
where the birds are going, plant my feet nice and firm, with slightly bent knees and bring
the camera up to my face and then it's just a case of twisting at the hip. A little bit like capturing a panoramic landscape. So youre going to start and then just pan
around as youer shooting.
The camera is up to your face, looking through
the viewfinder, you can then just track the bird around nice and smooth because you want
to be able to keep that bird on the focus point, like I said. This is where IS can help, image stabilisation,
because it lets you track the bird a little bit easier taking some of that movement out
of your pan. So again, you bend your knees, look through
the viewfinder and then pan around and then start pulling the shutter as soon as you get
the bird under that focus point. Have it on continuous shooting so you can
capture a few frames at once.
Don't go too crazy because when you come to
post-processing you will just have too many shots to go through but do use continuous
firing because there is somewhat of an element of luck. Youre not going to be able to see exactly
if you've got a great shot at the time. Another technique you can use is to use a
tripod. Ive got this tripod here and this is just
a standard travel tripod, in fact, but I find that it is good enough to hold this lens if
I have hold of it as well.
Just lock your lens onto your tripod like
this. Then once thats done, you can then just
leave it, if youve got a ball joint like this one does, just leave it loose and then
you can just use it to pan around. Thats an option, if you don't want to be
hand holding your camera all day long. You can also use a monopod like this one here.
Again, youre going to track around with
that as well. Its going to take the weight. You can also, if you don't have a monopod
and you don't want to invest in one separately, just use your tripod in the same way and bring
the legs together like this. You can track around as you would with a monopod
and then you don't have to go to the extra expense of buying that monopod.
The premium option, when it comes to tripods,
is to use a gimbal head like this one attached to a nice big tripod to have that firm base. Youve got lots of movement, in that tripod,
to then to go up and down, left and right, to track those birds. Again though, I really recommend first trying
handheld. I have had the most success and the best images
that I've captured have come from handholding.
If you get a lens like this one it isn't too
heavy and it gives you the ability to go out and be bit more mobile and really get into
some much more interesting locations not have to faff about putting a tripod up before you
start shooting. Its not always easy because youve got
to get into the right places. That sometimes takes some local knowledge,
a bit of research to find out where those birds are going to be especially if you want
to shoot some really interesting birds like birds of prey. Youre going to have to do your research
work or, like me, find a friend who does that for you and then go out shooting with him
or her.
I hope you enjoyed that. Please leave a comment down below and let
me know what you thought of the video. Have you tried it yourself? Are you now going out to try it? Id really like to hear from you. If you haven't subscribed to the channel already,
please do so.
There are videos going up on a Wednesday and
a Sunday. Ill see you on another video very soon. Im Adam! This is First Man Photography Out!!!.
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