What am I doing wrong?

[Jim Neiger]

Another thing I should mention is to avoid using teleconverters until your skill has been developed a bit. The TCs make it more difficult.

[blonde]

i have been using Jim's technique for all my in flight shots and i can tell you that it does work and i can also tell you that he is 100% correct about the use of the TC. what people don't understand is that shooting birds and especially birds in flight is a skill that you need to develop. you can't just pick up a heavy combination and expect to master it in a matter of days. if you are serious about improving, you will need to practice a LOT. i started with tracking the bigger birds and then slowly moved to the more difficult birds.

with that said, a lot of people seem to focus a lot on the gear and even on the technique but don't pay enough attention to the value in knowing your subject. once you really observe the bird and know how they behave, this gets MUCH easier. most birds (except for those damn swallows) are VERY predictable and have very unique flying styles. most experienced bird shooters can tell you exactly what a bird is going to do before it actually does it so they know how to anticipate.

[Shockey]

Jim is obviously an acknowledged expert at this.

It is probably obvious but the smaller the lens and magnification the easier this is.
With a 500 and the kind of magnication and weight involved is the application I made my first post in reference to utilizing the wind, angles and the tripod with appropriate ball head.
Yes normally tracking birds in flight is easier with out using a tripod....except with a huge lens and huge magnification....or after LOTS of practice perfecting the technique with smaller and lighter lenses....once you get it down, then graduate to heaver lenses with more magnification.

[Jim Neiger]

Originally Posted by Shockey

Jim is obviously an acknowledged expert at this.

It is probably obvious but the smaller the lens and magnification the easier this is.
With a 500 and the kind of magnication and weight involved is the application I made my first post in reference to utilizing the wind, angles and the tripod with appropriate ball head.
Yes normally tracking birds in flight is easier with out using a tripod....except with a huge lens and huge magnification....or after LOTS of practice perfecting the technique with smaller and lighter lenses....once you get it down, then graduate to heaver lenses with more magnification.

The longer lenses are always easier hand held then tripod mounted for BIF. The biggest advantage of hand held is the ability to do the initial acquistion as I described. You can't pop the camera, lens, and tripod up to your eye to line up with your line of sight. The difference hand held vs tripod is HUGE. I spend a lot of time shooting with some of the best tripod shooters out there. When it comes to BIF shooting hand held is many times more productive and much easier.

[CameraMan]

Originally Posted by Kevin Hall

Huntersdad is correct, there is technique developed for hand holding 500 and 600mm lenses to make birds in flight images. The guy you need to look up is Jim Neiger and either read as much info that he has offered online as you can or take one of his Flight School workshops.

I just checked his web site. Looks like an interesting thing to look into.