One of the things that I’ve learned in the little bit of wildlife photography that I’ve done is that you can only deal with one rapidly changing element at any given time – at least when you are starting out like me. That means, you either set your camera to Manual and stick with one setting and then if you catch something out of the corner of your eye, you hope it works, or you let the camera take over (P) and try to pay more attention to your surroundings to get a better shot as things move all around you.
I did the latter when I was out shooting on the weekend. I did a few shots in manual, but it was getting frustrating trying to get the settings just right for the changing light, so I stuck it in P and had much more fun paying attention to what the birds were doing.
I caught this one while I was stalking a duck that had just landed. Out of nowhere, this guy/girl exploded over the lake and I whipped around in just enough time to get the shot. Another second and it is likely I would not have caught enough of the bird to get any detail, and had I been looking to catch this one, I could have got a series.
BIF (Bird In Flight) shots are tricky because birds and their wings move fast, so unless you have great light, you’ll have to hope you dial things in (F8 1/500 I would assume is safe) and hope the light stays and you can keep your framing as the bird takes off. But of course, because they are so tricky, they are very fun and rewarding when they do turn out.
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