PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS by Dean Hohn

Dean Hohn - White Bellied Sea Eagle

This has been a brief introduction to photographing birds in flight. There is only one way to become proficient at tracking and photographing birds in flight and that is to practice on a continual basis and gradually reducing the size of birds, which as a general rule tend to get faster and more erratic as their size reduces. Camera settings are the next important thing to consider. I used to shoot in Aperture Priority but have recently changed to shoot ing in Manual Mode: AF-C Nikon or AI-Servo for Canon, Matrix /Evaluative metering, Auto ISO with an upper limit set that was appropriate for the camera, Shutter Speed of 1/1000s minimum but preferably up at 1/2500-1/3200s for birds in flight.

Depending on the conditions and light you may not be able to achieve the ideal settings you want, so you have to adapt to the conditions. The next consideration is shooting at the highest frame rate the camera will shoot at in high burst mode. This was a big consideration for me when I decided to upgrade to my latest camera. I went from shooting 7 frames per second to 20. That in itself has been a real game changer in what I’ve been able to capture. Then it comes to Autofocus whether you use 9-point or 25-point, zone focus or 3-D tracking, it all depends on your camera and what type of birds you’re shooting.