Capturing birds in flight is a very rewarding and challenging area of nature photography. It is often frustrating and exhilarating at the same time. With the arrival of excellent autofocus systems, digital sensors replacing costly film, and the ability to use very high ISO’s, successful flight photography is now possible. Despite the technological advances however, flight photography is still a difficult field. There are technical challenges as well as physical skills the photographer must learn in order to get consistent results. In this article, I will discuss what I consider to be the essential components of successful flight photography. I will discuss equipment, including camera, lenses, and support systems, optimal camera settings, light and wind, and location choices.

    Choice of equipment is very important. To get the best results, you need a camera with top tier autofocus such as that found in Canon mark 2 and mark 3 cameras, and in Nikons D300, D700, D3 series. When a bird is flying towards the camera, the distance is changing rapidly (and the amount of focussing movement that is necessary increases as the subject gets closer).  Without the best autofocus, you will not get consistent results. Now, I’m not saying that you cannot get good flight shots with the middle or low end cameras, just that your success rate will not be as good. I have some very good flight images taken with a Canon 10D, which is not a fast autofocus camera, so it can be done.

    When photographing a bird in flight, the “window of opportunity, or amount of time the bird is large enough in the frame, without being too large, is actually quite short. For this reason, the camera ideally should have a fast frame rate to get the most out of your opportunity. I personally find 8 fps to be ideal. Again, you “can” be successful at lower frame rates, but really fast rates offer advantages. When you fire a burst at 8 fps or better, you will capture the wings in a variety of positions. Sometimes they will be down, sometimes up fully, and other times, in between. Some wing positions such as fully up or down, are much more pleasing than in between positions. With a slow frame rate like 3 fps, the number of images you capture during this short window of opportunity will be less than half of the fast camera and subsequently, you will have fewer choices.

    Autofocus settings are also an important part. Generally, it is best to use the center focus point for flight photography. This is the most sensitive and reliable autofocus point on any camera. There are however, custom/alternative settings that are quite helpful in certain situations. Most midlevel and higher cameras will offer a custom function that allows you to make use of the other autofocus points, as “assist” points. The exact nature of the helper points varies, but the goal is to provide additional autofocus information when the selected point is presented with difficult situations and the camera can’t focus properly. What this means for the flight photographer is that when you fail to keep the point on the bird, and the point drifts off to the background, the surrounding points (theoretically one of them will be on the bird) will provide information to the camera.  Therefore when you are struggling to keep the point on the bird, the camera has enough information to get the focus right and you still end up with sharp images.

    So far, this sounds like a panacea right? Well, like everything else in life, you can’t get something for free. This expanded point system has an Achilles heel. If the background is even remotely in focus, like a bird flying above the waves, the system fails and the autofocus will usually end up on the background. Situations where it really shines are where the background is quite out of focus or against the sky. In these situations, the background information from the extra points doesn’t confuse the AF system and it works exceedingly well. 

To recap what I’ve discussed so far, use a fast frame rate, select the center AF point with expanded AF points ( if the situation warrants it), and use a top tier autofocus camera.

    The next critical piece of equipment is the lens. The optimal lens is a balance of the need for long focal length versus the awkwardness and bulk of very long telephoto lenses. The “sweet spot” in this balancing act is the 400 mm range. A 400 mm lens, whether using a 300 mm with a 1.4x teleconverter or a straight 400 mm like the Canon 400mmf5.6 is an ideal flight photography lens. If you move up to a 500 mm prime lens such as a 500f4, you get a lens that is 2-3 times as heavy and much more bulky. The problem with weight and bulk is that you simply cannot move it as easily and as quickly to follow a rapidly moving bird. There are times however, when you need the reach of the longer lenses and must use them.  In those cases, a specialized tripod head such as the Wimberley, is a great help as it balances the lens and allows panning to be done very easily. An additional problem with very long lenses (500 mm plus or minus a teleconverter), is their narrow field of view which can make it hard to find your subject in the viewfinder. I don’t recommend zoom lenses in general, as they are usually substantially slower to autofocus. 

    The next consideration is support of the camera and lens. You can either handhold the combination or use some kind of external support such as a tripod or monopod. Handholding provides more flexibility in moving the gear and in trying to follow a flying bird. With the lighter 400 mm lenses, handholding is possible for extended periods of time. The bigger lenses such as 500f4’s are very difficult to handhold for long periods of time, but if you are strong enough, it will be easier to track birds this way than with a tripod.

There is a specialized piece of equipment called a shoulder mount which is quite helpful in stabilizing the camera and lens when handholding. Bush hawk is a company that makes shoulder stocks to work with most cameras. Shoulder stocks work best with smaller lighter telephotos in the 400 mm range.

My recommendation is to handhold unless the weight is too much for you. Working from a tripod can be a hassle as you pan from one side to another following a flight path as the tripod legs are always in the way. Additionally, you are better able to maneuver the lens left, right and up and down when you are not tied to a tripod/monopod.

    Now that we’ve gotten our equipment considerations looked after, it’s time to consider some technical details such as shutter speeds. As a general statement, you can never have too much shutter speed (unless of course, you are looking to do some type of artistic blur). I find for the really fast flyers like ducks or swallows, you need to shoot 1/2000 sec or faster. The slow lumbering birds such as egrets or herons, you can get away with slower speeds, such as 1/500 sec, but you’re better off staying higher until you gain experience. To get this shutter speed you will need to shoot with the smallest f-stop or aperture (bigger numbers mean less light), shoot on bright days, and/or bump the ISO up. On dark, cloudy days it may not be possible to get a sufficiently high shutter speed.

The beauty of digital photography is that you can experiment with slower shutter speeds and see for yourself what works best for you. If you are able to get the high shutter speeds, turn off image stabilization as it may improve the AF speed(I can’t honestly say I’ve seen an improvement, but some argue that it does depending on the lense in use) and is of limited benefit with the high shutter speeds.

Another consideration is light and wind. Having the sun and wind coming from behind you is ideal. The direction of the light illuminates the bird nicely, and the bird flying in to the wind slows it down giving you and the camera more time to locate and focus on it. Additionally, birds will often “hang” on the wind before landing (especially small ones like swallows), making autofocus much easier. 

   

    While I am waiting for an approaching bird such as waterfowl, I will prefocus the lens at a specific distance (the beginning of the “window of opportunity” that I discussed above). This is the distance that the bird will be large enough in the frame for the sensor to be able to lock on to properly. For example, if the bird is quite small in the frame, say wing tip to wing tip is only the width of the sensor, the odds are quite high that the camera will end up focussing on the background and not the bird (exceptions are against the sky where the background doesn’t confuse the AF system). By the time you get the camera to “find” the subject, it is often becoming too large in the frame. I then watch the approaching bird and as it reaches this distance, I will then press the shutter button to begin autofocus. This way the risk of a jump to the background is minimized. I will typically fire a one second burst, continue tracking, fire another burst, and so on, until the opportunity passes trying to avoid filling the buffer in the camera too soon (and therefore no more images possible until it can clear). 

    The challenge is to keep the autofocus point on the bird as you track sideways, following the birds path. Some birds have a definite flight path, such as waterfowl that are following the shoreline, but others like swallows are extremely erratic. If possible try to identify a flight path otherwise tracking will be very much a matter of hit or miss. Even swallows will follow a reasonably predictable path to and from a nest. Waterfowl will typically fly along the shore line at a distance. If however, there is a spit or pier, they will usually fly around it versus over it. Often when they are skirting this point of land, they will be much closer than usual. Winter time can be very good as well as ice formation will sometimes force birds to congregate in a small area.

    While it is desirable to have a frame filling flight shot, the reality is that this is difficult to achieve for several reasons. Firstly, it is very hard physically to keep the bird in the frame as it gets close unless it is a slow flyer on a predictable path. Additionally, the camera must move the focussing element greater distances as the subject gets closer, and for this reason, flight shots of birds flying directly at the camera are the most difficult. To better understand this, look at the distance marker on your lens. The amount you have to turn the barrel to go from 500 feet to infinity is quite small compared to how much you must rotate it to move from 15 feet to 50 feet. Therefore target your tracking efforts in the “sweet spot, where the bird is a quarter frame to half frame filling. Closer than that will challenge your camera and you! I

  

  

The theoretical goal bird flight photography is to put the AF point on the bird, then press the button and maintain it as the bird approaches and flies by. The camera locks on and accurately predicts where to focus as the shutter is released. The reality is, however, quite different. The bird is moving in three dimensions, you are moving your arms and body to track it, and thus, the AF point will be tough to keep on target. Throw in an erratically flying bird and it’s a small miracle to keep the autofocus point where you want it!

A  technique that is useful in these cases, is to release the autofocus button when the point is off the bird, then press it when the point is on the bird. This “on” and “off” of the autofocus is hard to learn as you have to do it frequently during an approach, but it is quite helpful with erratic flyers where it is hard to keep the point on. The key advantage being that the focus doesn’t change when the AF point drifts off target(doesn’t jump to the background), and it is then much easier to reacquire. This technique does take practice though!

    Try to make it a habit to check your images in the field, not just to see if you got a keeper, but to analyze the sequences. If you regularly see the bird in radically different locations in the frame(i.e. Dead center at the start, then in the bottom half, then top, etc), it’s an indication that you are struggling to maintain the focus point on target. Then it’s a matter of more practice, learning the “on again, off again” technique, or taking a look at equipment choices (switch to smaller lighter lenses).

Remember to check your exposure as well. A dark bird against a light sky will always be underexposed, so remember to adjust your exposure accordingly. If you see much blur on the wing tips, then you will need more shutter speed if you expect to “freeze” the action.

    To summarize, to get consistent results, you need top level autofocus, fast frame rate, and a light and long focal length lens in the 400 mm range. Strong arms are a benefit as well as they can get sore taking flight images of birds!