Description
Birds in Flight Photography Course
My Birds in Flight Photography Course is rewarding and exciting, but it takes a lot of patience and practice to get the images you desire. If every bird in flight were a slow-flying, high-contrast Osprey against a clear blue sky, the task would be easier. But try photographing a puffin flying 50 mph against a dark cliff in flat light! Camera and lens capabilities, birds’ flight styles and speeds, plumage effects on autofocus performance, quality of light, and variable backgrounds—all of these factors and more can make photographing birds in flight challenging and frustrating. But don’t despair! Try these tips and best practices—they’ll get you started photographing birds in flight.
Setting the Stage
Put the Wind and Sun at Your Back: If you are going out specifically to shoot flight, try to do so at a time and location when you have both the wind and sun somewhere at your back. Birds generally fly into the wind, and when they are flying toward you at an angle, they are in the best position for pleasing flight images: underwings showing and their heads in the lead. Birds fly much slower into the wind, which makes them easier to track, and having the sun at your back illuminates them nicely.
Identify Predictable Flight Paths: Using your knowledge of bird behavior, identify places where birds fly, preferably in good numbers, giving you many opportunities to practice and make the perfect image. Flight photography is often a numbers game, so the more shots you can get off, the better. Is there a particular spot the Brown Pelicans or Canada Geese always fly over on their way to roost every evening? Is there a ridgeline that hawks follow during fall migration?
Shoot Against Clean Backgrounds: Your autofocus system will perform best when you shoot against a clean background with little contrast, like the sky or still water. If this isn’t an option, remember that the farther away the background is, the better. A distant forest is much better than trees right behind the bird. Source
You can learn all this and more in my My Birds in Flight Photography Course.
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