1 April 2001

I've already written about my trip to Homer Alaska last month so I'll try not to repeat that story here. Instead I'll talk about what it's like to shoot under those conditions. There's a whole technique to making images of in-flight birds. All of my skills were needed during this trip and on first impression, it appeared making great images of Bald Eagles flying was like shooting fish in a barrell. Not so fast! There can be too much of a good thing. Birds flying around by the dozens is a confusing scene. It can be so bad that if you're not careful, it's very easy to lose track of any particular bird in the swirling action. It becomes difficult to even point the camera at anything. So, conscience effort has to be made to stay focused on individual birds. In Homer, the feeding frenzy was amazing. Birds and feathers flying everywhere. I distinctly remember just standing there with a broad grin on my face totally frozen. Wow! Thinking that I was losing images finally jolted me to action and I finally got to work.

How did I finally get my shots?

It starts with preparation, keen observation, and a lot of luck. First, how did I prepare? It began with chosing my gear. This particular shoot, I used two F5's. Each had a different film--one with Kodak E100SW for color saturation, the other with Provia F pushed 1 stop for increased speed. Since the birds were so close, I limited my long lens to a 300mm f/2.8 AF-S. The other primary lens was my trusty 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-S. In both cases, I took full advantage their superfast auto-focus capabilities. Almost as fast as blinking, these lenses would lock into focus and stay there--swirling action or not. The 300mm f/2.8 AF-S was setup on my Gitzo 410 with Kirk BH-1 ballhead and Wimberly Sidekick. This configuration was properly balanced on the Sidekick pivot so the lens wouldn't flop over when left unattended. I wore my Kinesis harness system complete with associated lens pouches for easy access to film and a TC-14e. Though I didn't use the this teleconverter much, it was immediately available when necessary. On top of this, I strapped the other F5 with 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-S over my right shoulder using it's neck strap. Unlike some photographers, I leave my neck straps on my cameras and long lenses. Sure, there's a danger of camera shake when they blow in the wind. But more importantly, I can immediately change bodies from the tripod to over the shoulder without worrying about straps. I think the benefits far outweigh the possibility of camera shake due to those things. I carry my over the shoulder camera reverse from most people. I position it so the camera top is next to my body. I do this for several reasons but mostly to keep the lens from sticking out when walking around. The only danger with this is there's a small chance of accidentally depressing the shutter button and inadvertantly shooting unwanted images of the ground. It hasn't happened to me much but, since it has I'm much more aware of what's pressing against my camera to avoid those situations.

This type of setup is very flexible. I can be eye glued to my tripod mounted F5 and shooting images while a handheld camera is available for immediate use over my shoulder. Multiple times in Homer, I found myself waiting at my tripod mounted long lens for the action to develop when a bird would approach the near-by perch for landing. Before the bird got too close, I'd swing my shoulder camera into action and fire a few frames in a matter of seconds--quick response. Mostly I kept my higher speed film over the shoulder while the slower stuff was on the tripod. If conditions were bright enough, I wouldn't care about film speed so much as the color characteristics. The morning of my Homer shoot, the sun was eventually bright enough to allow me to disregard film speed as a factor for choosing bodies.

The next step is how do you aim your camera, compose the image, and shoot? As you may know, I routinely leave my camera in continuous mode and it's always ready to shoot at 8 fps. Even if I'm a bit heavy on the shutter button, a couple extra images would turn into in-camera duplicates instead of waste. I definatly don't mind shooting an extra image or two. I've deactivated AF initiation with the shutter button. I explained my reasoning here. The point is, careful consideration has to be made to squeeze the AF-On button to initiate AF instead of just depending on the shutter button. I once considered changing the active AF sensor from the center to a lateral sensor. The idea was it would help keeping my subjects slightly offset and improve my compositions. I discovered well before this trip how futile this approach was and how depending on the center sensor made composing images of in-flight birds challenging enough. For this trip, I exclusively used the center sensor and cropped the images slightly in Photoshop to enhance things.

With my first observation of how confusing swirlling birds being a factor, I survey'd the situation and tried to find a location--a direction--I wanted my bird images made. Usually the light and background were the most important considerations. Wind direction is another big factor. Shooting birds flying into the wind is much easier because they're slower than when they're flying downwind. Once I identified the location, I positioned the tripod for maximum access and looked for birds that were flying into my "shoot zone". I checked the exposure in my chosen direction to make sure that wasn't going to be a problem. And then, I waited for something to fly into my zone. I looked for birds in the distance moving in my direction. "Was it coming my way?" Sure, I looked for birds that may have happened on, but mostly I waited for some to fly into my zone.

When a bird flew into the zone, what did I do? Did I just lay down on the shutter and fire away? No, I aimed for a certain composition and when it began to materialize, I began to shoot. Ususally, I didn't fire more than three frames for a given situation. Rarely, I fired up to four. Only under the most extraordinary circumstances did I shoot more than four. The mechanics when like this. I'd find a bird approaching my shoot zone. I'd swing the camera into action and squeeze the AF button. As the bird approached the shoot zone, I tracked it to keep a smooth pan going. When it finally approached my desired range, I squeezed the shutter button, fired a few shots and kept following through. I tried to be as smooth as possible. Just like shooting a gun. More info on my pan technique can be found on my article on Long Lens Technique.

This month's image was taken in just such a way. I scouted a nice direction and noticed this immature Bald Eagle approaching from across the bay. I following him for couple hundred yards and he approached directly to a perch in front of me. As he got into position, I fired away as planned and shot about four frames before he broke into a full flare and touched down next to the other eagle. The whole event took about 10 seconds with only about a second spent on actually shooting.

I think the key to taking effective in-flight birds shots is pre-planning. That may mean thoroughly planning out the gear I use and prepositioning it to maximize the opportunity with a chosen direction. These secrets aren't that mysterious but they do make the difference.

Cheers,

Tom