A question about flying geese and better photos.

The Snow geese are flying south. I will be there on Friday to see them again. You will see one of the photos I took last week and I feel it could be better. I am new to the DLSR, I bought a 50D in October.
When I focus on the geese in the sky, should I bring the aperture to F18 or F22 and AI Servo so everything is focused.

I am also thinking about A-DEP because of the land, the geese and the sky I would like to be in focus.

The info on this photo is: f11, 1/640, ISO 100.

Any help you can offer me would be great. I thank you all for your help.
Joe M,

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You're really trying to accomplish a lot with that picture. Very wide dynamic range and a lot of elements. You might try narrowing your subjects a little to just the flock in this case. Checkout the link below, it has tons of critique examples of bird shots (and includes camera settings).

For a flock shot, I'd suggest around f11 and try to focus about a third in if capturing things at many different distances.

http://www.birdphotogr​aphers.net/forums/foru​mdisplay.php?f=7

How's this...?

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I think that you need to be able to draw the main subjects closer if you want a more effective image. I would recommend that your next purchase be a 1.4 teleconvertor. It's a very useful addition to your kit.

Another technique which will give you improvement, is to crop the image to increase the size of the main subject.

A combination of both the above ideas will transform your photography.

I usually shoot in aperture priority (typically f4 to allow focus on main subject and blurring the rest) with between a 200 and 400 lens on a 1D MKIII. I adjust the ISO as appropriate to get a fast enough shutter speed. I don't have any geese shots but plenty of gulls. See attached.

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Everyone, I thank you for all of your info.

Luke Cern - I am looking into the 1.4 teleconvertor to see of it will work with my lens.

Mark Theriot - I joined the birdphoto forum.

kitacanon - I see what you mean in the crop.

The Geese flew overhead a few moments later and I shot this one. I see what you are talking about.

Everyone, again, Thank you.

Joe M

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You might try to call them in also.
I've never hunted Snow Geese so I don't know if you can turn a flock of them, but it works on Canada's.

peter nap wrote in post #9711814
You might try to call them in also.
I've never hunted Snow Geese so I don't know if you can turn a flock of them, but it works on Canada's.

No chance....

Snows, but nature, roost in flocks measured by the thousands. Without hundreds of decoys and a lot of people calling, you probably wouldn't even be noticed.

The best bet is be where they want to be!!

I took some shots like these while living on a wetlands in Oregon. Try mounting your camera on a tripod and zooming in on just a few birds. Shoot at sunset/sunrise for more dramatic lighting, and deliberately underexpose the shot to get more saturated colors. The birds should become silhouettes and you will get some motion blur from their wings if you time it just right:

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/briann/64635771​/

Hi Joe,
I like the second shot you posted!

You could even try darkening the whites in the lower right corner or maybe even cropping a little tighter there. I think the tree actually adds to shot as it gives a sense of depth and scale.

Mark

This blog/article makes some recommendations for setting up the 7D for birds in flight. Maybe some stuff that is applicable to the 50D too.

http://www.deepgreenph​otography.com/blog/?p=​226