Show your Bird Portraits

[Click]

I love your Osprey CTJohn. 

[jrista]

Everglades Osprey dining.

Awesome shot! Love the sharpness and clarity of the bird...I love Ospreys, beautiful creatures!

[jrista]

American Kestrel brunch

Nice shot. Might want to heal/clone out the bits of the leaf that encroach on the bird...otherwise, he's a beauty.

[serendipidy]

#1 Heron Bad Hair Day
#2 Heron trying to hide in an Octopus tree

[serendipidy]

From today: Brazilian Cardinal and Red Northern Cardinal on a chain link fence

[IslanderMV]

Yellow Warbler - Martha's Vineyard
60D with 100-400mm
A very tiny bird.

[Northstar]

Everglades Osprey dining.

Cool shot CT

[Pugshot]

Here are a few:

[cdn_photog]

7D with 70-200 f4 IS + 1.4xIII at 280 mm. 500 ISO, 1/400 sec, F5.6.

[TheDinoMeister]

Hi everyone!  Here's a photo I took of a baby bird in Central Park.

[serendipidy]

Trying to learn the skill of BIF photography on my 7D and 100-400L or 70-200LII/2.8. Have been practicing on several herons that frequent here. It's a lot harder than I expected. Most of the shots (>90%) are totally worthless OOF blurs Starting to get a few almost acceptable shots which I will post for C&C. For those that are proficient, what settings do you use? Things like (on a 7D) AV or TV mode, what autofocus settings (zone, AF point expansion, etc), metering setting, etc? I try to limit ISO to 400 but that means wide aperture (shallow DOF-blurry) and/or slow shutter speed (again, blurry shots). Maybe I need a 5D3 or 1DX Thanks for any suggestions. Here are some of my better ones from past 2 days.

[CTJohn]

Trying to learn the skill of BIF photography on my 7D and 100-400L or 70-200LII/2.8. Have been practicing on several herons that frequent here. It's a lot harder than I expected. Most of the shots (>90%) are totally worthless OOF blurs Starting to get a few almost acceptable shots which I will post for C&C. For those that are proficient, what settings do you use? Things like (on a 7D) AV or TV mode, what autofocus settings (zone, AF point expansion, etc), metering setting, etc? I try to limit ISO to 400 but that means wide aperture (shallow DOF-blurry) and/or slow shutter speed (again, blurry shots). Maybe I need a 5D3 or 1DX Thanks for any suggestions. Here are some of my better ones from past 2 days.

I use a 7D TV mode,  with shutter speed set to 1/800th or faster and Auto ISO with a limit of 800.  I also use back button focusing in Servo.  I'll usually use evaluative metering, but sometimes switch to partial or spot if there's a lot of contrast in the scene.  I love the 7D's fps capability.  With a fast flying bird, (assuming I can get it in the frame!) I get around half as keepers, and probably 20% I'd consider good.  Agree, it's harder than I thought it would be.

[bjd]

Seven of our thrushes (six of them are being sat on by the mother here).

Cheers Brian

[rpt]

Trying to learn the skill of BIF photography on my 7D and 100-400L or 70-200LII/2.8. Have been practicing on several herons that frequent here. It's a lot harder than I expected. Most of the shots (>90%) are totally worthless OOF blurs Starting to get a few almost acceptable shots which I will post for C&C. For those that are proficient, what settings do you use? Things like (on a 7D) AV or TV mode, what autofocus settings (zone, AF point expansion, etc), metering setting, etc? I try to limit ISO to 400 but that means wide aperture (shallow DOF-blurry) and/or slow shutter speed (again, blurry shots). Maybe I need a 5D3 or 1DX Thanks for any suggestions. Here are some of my better ones from past 2 days.

Ok, one more time. Yes, I posted a long response and the connectivity gods decided my post needed to be rewritten! 

So here goes.

Feb 24 I went to this place that migratory birds come to to get pics of BIF. I have posted pics on the forum. In the two hours I was there, I took 2000 pics. It was a great experience. The birds I photographed in flight were Flamingos, Egrets, Painted Storks, Ibis - including Black Ibis, Sandpipers, Gulls Terns and a few more.

I shot with my 5D3 and 100-400L mostly at 400mm. My settings for the shooting were:
Manual mode, shutter speed 1/800, f6.3, ISO Auto, AF center point with 8 way expansion, first shot shutter priority, subsequent shots focus priority, AF case 1, lens IS was on, focus limiter was on so 6.5m to infinity.

I expected more keepers. By keepers I mean that they are sharp even at 100% view in RAW.

My learning from the analysis I did was:

• The shutter speed should have been in excess of 1/1200 probably around 1/1600 or 1/2000
• The f stop should have been 7.1 or 8 - I intended to set it at 7.1 but obviously I mucked up
• I would have loved to ETTR - I just do not know how to do that for BIF; in M mode one can't set EC; if someone can advise me that would be great
• The card I used was a 400x; note to self - get a 64GB 1000x soon - see the buffer filled up and I got upset - that added to the shake I am sure

You have the 7D and some of these settings will not translate but this is the best I can do.

Hope this helps.

To the Gurus on this site, please advise if you have the time.

Rustom

[florianbieler.de]

Did my first BiF last week, 5D Mark III w/ 70-200 2.8L IS II