Shooting Wildlife?

[Nature_00]

I have an A70 and theres a photo shoot i dont wanna stuff up.

Theres a problem in austrlia with excess birds in the city, so naturally they bring in a hawk to scare them all off. Its worked too. So they let this hawk just fly round in the city and the gardens.

So basically, what should i have my camera on?

I dont know how long this bird will be round so i wanted to try to get a good shot.

I was thinking fast shutter mode, but should i change the White Balance mode? What about the other settings?

Or should i put it on manualy with a fast shutter?

Any advice?

[stduc]

I would take some test shots of where I roughly expected the bird to be at the location on the day. I would then take a view on whether I could use a manual setting or aperture or shutter priority. I would imagine you will want to use as small an aperture (lagestest f no.) and fastest shutter you can get away with. You may want to consider accepting additional image noise to achieve these by upping the ISO rating. The one thing you can do is use manual focus as you won't want to miss a shot because the camera is focusing whilst your subject moves in and out! of range!!!. To get a shot exactly when you want however you will have to sit there with the button half pressed - so you will probably need to have the LCD display off to conserve battery power. I would also use multi-shot mode and press the button and hold it down! (So turn review off as well!)

Best of luck. You are attempting the most difficult photography of all.

[Nature_00]

Glad to know i have an easy subject.
I have pics of the bird on the ground, very easy, but in the ait will be a chalange.