-= 70D owners unite! Post up pics and discuss!

I know about the speed most of the time you are way behind, unless you have the advantage of distance and a tele 400 to 600 mm on your camera.
Manual prefocus is great if you know the flight pattern is at a constant distance away from you. In this case it is.

Thx for the tips and advice Mick_R.

Nice series on London.

evelakes wrote in post #17461633
Nice series on London.

Thanks!

This ladybird ventured forth out of the rockery mosses for about 10 minutes - no doubt drawn by a bit of warmth (the sun is weak, watery, oddly bright but not right if you know what I mean).

I soon discovered that when something moves quickly, on my knees in a a corner where under my knees are stones and pebbles (ouch) that make a path to the rockery, in natural light that is changing with every rapidly passing cloud, and trying to focus manually, at different apertures, and swapping ISO's to see if it helps, is all in all, a royal PITA.

But I persevered and eventually got two half useable shots.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.pauliddon.c​o.uk

This is our resident male frog in the small pond in my garden. I call him Arnold.

You can see him taking in a bit of sun here, and in the second one, I'm there in the eye...

Mick_R wrote in post #17460455
You're spot on about the shutter speed being good enough and missing focus. Being at 90 degrees to the diving bird means the window of opportunity to capture the bird within the frame is tiny, my guess is around a second, 2 seconds at most. Increasing the angle will help give a longer window to get a photograph as it could easily double the time that the Kite is in frame and it will produce a much better photograph if the Kite is more face on rather than side on.

I wouldn't like to try and pan with a bird in flight that close, you would probably break your neck (not literally).

Pre-focusing with the lens in manual would be my second choice (after re-positioning) and go with as much depth of field as possible and just press the shutter button when the Kite approaches. They are really fast when they approach food because they want to get to it before other birds get a chance.

evelakes wrote in post #17460101
It''s not the shutterspeed but the focuspoint that bothering you. If you can focus in advance on some scraps then try to focus lock on that spot with the BFB.
Or otherwise try to pan with the subject and lock it when you have in focus. It's a great moment you have there.
You know they will come for it, so it's a great way to practice (pray and spray)
I see some great images with BIF on your Flickr page, but you working with small apeture numbers is there a reason for that??

Thanks for the feedback

The focus point was on the scraps. I have also tried using manual focus, pre-focused on the shots. I just haven't captured one yet!

Panning might be hard because they cross the frame so fast, and I am indoors so have little chance to follow their approach - and if I was outdoors I don't think they would come.

As per the question on small apertures, do you mean F2.8 - 4.0? I try to shoot as wide open as possible to get a good balance of high shutter speed and low ISO.

I guess I need to practice, practice, practice... and be more patient.

I have thought of getting a laser trigger trap so I can position the camera more face on to them and do it all remotely, so it doesn't matter that I am indoors.

Yes f 2.8 or 4.0 is a little bit short on the focus if you want the whole bird sharp. At a distance it's hard to get it sharp when it flies at a wider apeture. I personaly tend to go
5.6 to f-8 (the bigger they get in the scene the closer te apeture) . to get the right shutterspeed i limit the iso to 1600 on the auto ISO.

Nice article about the subject.

http://digital-photography-school.com …graphing-birds-in-flight/

lozw wrote in post #17463321
Thanks for the feedback

The focus point was on the scraps. I have also tried using manual focus, pre-focused on the shots. I just haven't captured one yet!

Panning might be hard because they cross the frame so fast, and I am indoors so have little chance to follow their approach - and if I was outdoors I don't think they would come.

As per the question on small apertures, do you mean F2.8 - 4.0? I try to shoot as wide open as possible to get a good balance of high shutter speed and low ISO.

I guess I need to practice, practice, practice... and be more patient.

I have thought of getting a laser trigger trap so I can position the camera more face on to them and do it all remotely, so it doesn't matter that I am indoors.

Your focal point seems to be on the grass behind the Kite and your depth of field doesn't help as it seems to be quite shallow. If you increase your depth of field you will have more of the photograph in focus. I would guess that you can get away with ISO 4000 if you're not going to crop the photograph, I've used mine at 6400 and it was quite easy to clean up the noise. Test out your settings by putting something on the grass which is roughly the same size as a Kite and see how far you can push your ISO before it goes past what you're happy with.

Blowing a gale today in Preston, a fly on the bird table I couldn't get sharp on due to the wind even with flash and 1/250sec.

So got on the floor and found a wolfie sat in the sun on one of last years fallen leaves.

First is uncropped at 1:2 (0.79 feet according to the lens markings). Just look at the circular bokeh on the highlight on the right hand side...

IMAGE LINK: http://www.pauliddon.c​o.uk

IMAGE LINK: http://www.pauliddon.c​o.uk

After sunset in a dreamy scene, not forgetting to take a picture.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/rvE1​JF

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/rsAa​Jb

^^^I really like the second one!

Here's one of mine, taken today at a fun winter fashion shoot.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qzij​nv

Hooked-up the 60 mm EF-S and photographed a new fluorite crystal that I'd just received from China.

evelakes wrote in post #17463468
Yes f 2.8 or 4.0 is a little bit short on the focus if you want the whole bird sharp. At a distance it's hard to get it sharp when it flies at a wider apeture. I personaly tend to go
5.6 to f-8 (the bigger they get in the scene the closer te apeture) . to get the right shutterspeed i limit the iso to 1600 on the auto ISO.

Nice article about the subject.

http://digital-photography-school.com …graphing-birds-in-flight/

Mick_R wrote in post #17463549
Your focal point seems to be on the grass behind the Kite and your depth of field doesn't help as it seems to be quite shallow. If you increase your depth of field you will have more of the photograph in focus. I would guess that you can get away with ISO 4000 if you're not going to crop the photograph, I've used mine at 6400 and it was quite easy to clean up the noise. Test out your settings by putting something on the grass which is roughly the same size as a Kite and see how far you can push your ISO before it goes past what you're happy with.

Thanks for the tips guys.

Easier taking shots of the small birds that frequent our garden

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qyPc​jP

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/re2k​EE

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/re9J​gt