Looking for tips when shooting with a longer lens.

I just picked up a Canon 100-400is2 usm for my 6d. This is the first time Ive shoot with anything this long and was bought for an upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands. I will probably be shooting a lot hand held. The one thing I have been practising is trying to find birds in flight and then getting the camera to focus but its not as easy as I thought.

Douglas Conway wrote in post #17603944
I just picked up a Canon 100-400is2 usm for my 6d. This is the first time Ive shoot with anything this long and was bought for an upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands. I will probably be shooting a lot hand held. The one thing I have been practising is trying to find birds in flight and then getting the camera to focus but its not as easy as I thought.

Biggest trick for BIF is acquiring the subject and starting to track it before it's close enough that you want to actually shoot; and, while shooting, pan through your swing smoothly. Don't just swing partially with your subject.

Otherwise, it's just practicing handholding technique. Brace your elbows in against your torso; feet apart, smooth breathing. Also, at least to start, do your best to keep your shutter speeds up above the reciprocal of your focal length (i.e @400mm shutter speed >= 1/400)

congrats on the new lens; it's a great one.

Keep your elbows in and braced against your torso, and move your torso as one whole unit. The goal is to make the lens and camera part of the largest and most stable mass you can. If your elbows are up and flopping around, then you're going to have more shake and less control of the lens.

When panning, start panning before you take your photos, keep the subject in frame and make your panning motions as long as possible, and take photos in burst mode. I find bursts of at least five tend to be the start of the sweet spot where I'm probably able to get a decent image out of the set.

Practice and get familiar with your kit before heading out on a real adventure with it.

Also stay away from coffee and plenty of sleep.

Kolor-Pikker wrote in post #17604296
Also stay away from coffee and plenty of sleep.

Rephrasing, because English is fun: Get plenty of sleep and stay away from coffee.

Also a mono-pod can be helpful and a major aid over just straight up handholding. Letting it carry the weight of the camera and lens while your hands steady things means you aren't getting tired from simply supporting the camera.

Probably personal choice, or a lack of any real training in photography, but I use the centre focus point only when tracking with my 100-400.

STIC wrote in post #17605659
Probably personal choice, or a lack of any real training in photography, but I use the centre focus point only when tracking with my 100-400.

Same here, and that center point often wanders off the target, so I need to change my ways or improve my tracking.

Before you go practice! Then practice, practice, practice..............​.
General rule is to keep your shutter speed up, this is not normally a problem for flying subjects especially in somewhere sunny like the Galapagos. Turn IS off as it will be useless at high shutter speeds and can interfere with AF tracking, I don't have your lens but on my 300 F2.8 and 800 F5.6 IS is a menace for flying subjects.
If there is nothing in the background then you can afford to stop down a bit so that the AF does not need to be quite so accurate. Please don't take this the wrong way but make certain that you are using Servo AF.
Another technique to try is to acquire your subject at shorter focal lengths (200/300mm) and then zoom in to get the framing you want. I found this very useful when I had the 100-400 Mk1.

Forgot to say - have a great time!

Go to a intersection of a county and state road park on county road set camera at slow shutter speed 1/60 and shoot high speed traffic on state road.
When you start get sharp images at the slow shutter you will find a bird at half that speed and with a fast shutter to be easy.
Also try shooting at a race track get at the end of a long straight and use slow shutter.
When you can get a car at over 100 mph BIF's are no problem.

Good luck and enjoy.

Back-button focus is also a good idea. This separates the shutter from the focus, which makes it easier to track a moving subject than trying to hold the shutter button halfway down.

Really appreciate the comments, thanks.

Douglas Conway wrote in post #17603944
I just picked up a Canon 100-400is2 usm for my 6d. This is the first time Ive shoot with anything this long and was bought for an upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands. I will probably be shooting a lot hand held. The one thing I have been practising is trying to find birds in flight and then getting the camera to focus but its not as easy as I thought.

Heya,

Biggest tip is simply to practice.

Beyond that, here's some generalized tips for shooting with long focal lengths (regardless of camera & lens, etc):

Be generous with ISO to ensure a fast shutter. If that means shooting ISO 1600 in good light, so be it. Do not be afraid to push that ISO. You want a fast shutter. Even on static stuff. IS is great and all, but you still will want a fast shutter to account for movement. This is especially true when you're on something moving, shooting something moving. It compounds everything. 1/2000s is nothing to fear, make it a goal, it will work for almost anything, and your camera's ISO will ensure you get there easily. In poor light, don't be afraid of ISO 6400 or more. The higher ISO you use, consider exposing to the right more, I expose as much as 1 to 1.5 stops, as it greatly helps with noise control.

Wildlife exposure is pretty different from normal subject exposure. Look up some stuff, but a general rule of thumb I've learned and put into practice from some great wildlife shooters on this forum, is to expose to the right. Again, as before, I over expose my subject by a good 1 stop to 1.5 stops, over what the meter will ever tell me. Sometimes I manually check exposure in Live View, see the histogram, and push the exposure to the right until I see the highlights approaching clipping off. And shoot in RAW of course.

Tracking is done with your center point. I find it's a lot easier, with a zoom, to zoom out to 100~200mm, find your subject, focus, then creep the zoom in to 400mm, while tracking your subject and focusing. Keep AI servo engaged. Track your subject and keep it in your center point for a second or two, then begin your shots. AI servo is predictive, so if you practice tracking (panning, following, etc) and let AI servo get a good lock, you'll get better shots in general.

Brace yourself on something when you can. Anything that adds stability is going to help you.

Look up some youtube videos on techniques for holding a long lens free handed. It can differ from what you'd do on a tripod greatly. Practice stances, it makes a difference, that you will see in videos. Again, stability is everything. If you're jiggling and have limited motion because your legs and knees are locked together tight and you're panning and leaning forward with a heavy setup, you'll be looking at a mess.

Learn your subjects. Do not just go some where and "shoot birds." Learn about the species. Learn their habitat, habits, when and where they should be, their feeding habits and preferences. I'll save you a massive load of time, and tell you that if you research species now, and go where they should be early and just camp out and wait, you'll get better, closer shots, than trying to walk up on them and get pictures of them flying away.

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I shoot handheld with a 600mm lens, on APS-C & APS-H often, so it's really long. I push ISO as high as I need it to go, to get as close to 1/2000s as I can in whatever light I'm in and I even stop down to F8 often for sharpness and for a little more depth of field (I creep very close to small subjects, so it may seem weird, but I actually need more depth of field because at 600mm, DOF can get super thin real fast and I like my subject in focus, not partial focus).

Here's an example where I went to the beach early, and got on my belly and waited for my subject. I pushed my ISO to whatever it takes to get close to my 1/2000s goal on shutter to ensure sharp, crisp captures, while also over-exposing by about 1 stop (shooting in RAW and bringing exposure down a bit in post). I was able to get very close to a small shore line species bird that typically picks through oysters and barnacles. Even in good, bright, afternoon light, I still had to push ISO 800 to get my goal.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/rnc5​Q1

crank the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast.

I have been practising, the hardest thing is to find and focus on birds in flight for me anyways.