Please help with these BIF photos.

Hello everyone, please help me with these photos. I have some photos of birds with shutter very high and the photos are static but okay. I have been trying to make photos with the background blurred and the BIF sharp. These 2 are the best I have made to date. I used the shutter speed of 1/41 second, the F number of 20 and the ISO of 200.
Any help you can help me with, I thank you.
Joe M

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Bring your shutter speed WAY up; 1/40 is way too slow. You want to get up to 1/400 or higher

Open your aperture WAY up; f/32 is too narrow of an aperture and you're going to be suffering from some pretty heavy diffraction at that small of one. f/5.6 to f/11 is a good range to work in with this lens.

Also, what sort of AF settings are you using?

Hello Snydremark, Thank you for your help.
AF setting is Spot Metering and the Shooting Mode is Shutter Priority and the AF Mode is AI Servo AF.

Again,, thank you for your help.

I have nothing to say but'nice' and 'cool.' Your photos are like art.

If you want to capture the bird with no blur, then up your shutter speed to above 500. I shoot at 1000 - 2000th sec use ISO of 1200 to 1600 and open up that lens to f8 or bigger if you need to and let single point focus AF get your focus from switching AF to the back button, but again, I like your pics and you might want to preserve some of that 'motion' by leaving a little motion blur in the pics you do.

It all depends on what final result you want your work to portray. There is no right or wrong.

Ken

Metering is different than your AF settings; do you mean that you selected a single AF point? If so, that's what you're going to want. Those settings I gave you will help you get a sharp bird; I'd work on that first if that's what you're going for; once you have that down and are comfortable with it, you can start dropping your shutter speed and panning with your subject. That part will get you the blurred background (motion blur); but you'd want to get down around 1/160-ish or so (setting the IS to Mode 2)

Joe,

I think you've probably done as good a job as is possible with those birds. The problem is that they don't fly particularly fast, so you do need a very long shutter speed to show the movement. And that's going to give you problems getting a sharp image.

You might get better results with birds that glide at a higher speed - gulls flying downwind might be a good subject. Decreasing the distance between you and the bird, while increasing the distance between the bird and the background, will also increase the amount of motion blur in the background.

But it's all going to require some practise - make sure you let us know if you find a way to improve the results.

To all of you, thank you. I have learned from all of you. I will be going there in the next few days to make more photos of BIF. I will show the results.
Thank you,
Joe

Keep 'em coming Joe. I'm thinking you have a knack for this BIF stuff. Stay with it.

Ken, thank you.

Boy Oh Boy, with the info you all sent me, the photos came out great. I did not do well with the panning so I will work more with that. The photos I included I love.
Thank you for your help.
Joe

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Hey, congrats, Joe! I like the landing pattern of the cormorant shot, there

Hi Joe M
Here is a photo that maybe will help. I hope it does.
F8 1/2500

earlybird7,
thank you. It is a big fish. Everything works to learn.

Snydremark,
That was cool to see it so close.

Here are 2 more.

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Wow you have really caught on

Now you are going to get hooked on BIF shots. It is great fun.

Great progression. Well done.