Short and sweet

from Photo Insights January 2023

Camera settings for birds in flight

1. When using long lenses, movement is greatly magnified. I took this Egyptian goose with a 700mm focal length. Birds move extremely fast. Even the flick of the head is enough to cause blur. Therefore, use a faster shutter than you think you need to guarantee sharpness. I used 1/800th of a second here. 2. I took this picture through not-so-clean glass on an upper floor of the Hyatt Airport Hotel in Boston. I used a medium telephoto focal length, and the shallow depth of field made the imperfect glass irrelevant. I purposely used a large lens aperture -- f/5.6 -- to minimize DOF and eliminate any evidence of the dirt.

3. Always be on the lookout for strong silhouettes. Here I was in a Masai village in Kenya and, when I looked toward the sun, I saw this wonderful image of two people simply sitting and talking. I used a Canon 500mm f/4, handheld, for this shot, which means I was shooting from a fair distance away. 4. Snow storms produce great photo opportunities. If you live in a cold climate, when a blizzard dumps many inches -- or even feet -- of snow in your area, don’t hide indoors. Take advantage of the dramatic and beautiful photo opportunities. I photographed this cabin near Crater Lake in Oregon. §