question for Brett or Harlen

You have to shoot MANUAL turn your shutter speed WAY up. Mine at about 2500 of a second. This is key in order to 'freeze the wings' in flight.

Then the ISO must be turned up to about 800 in most cases for me to have proper lighting.

Yes Don, getting them to focus or track them during flight is an absolute pain. Smaller birds nearly impossible.

I tried to get some shots of Green Winged Teal a much smaller duck of course and it was 2-3 times as hard as Mallards and they aren't easy by any means.

Bummer you have no ducks in the area to practice.

Not sure what to tell ya, I simple get as close as possible and yes do some belly crawling at times and hunched on all fours also. I track and focus as they come up and shoot, track focus shoot, track focus shoot, as fast as possible.

Sometimes I'll only get a couple of good shots per outing.

A common occurrence in this example, simply couldn't get focused on the mallard...

That's about what I though but boy is this tuff. Pigeon's dart and turn! Been shooting manual focus at 1600 ISO and shutter wide open. Shutter speed has been running from about 1/2400 to 1/8000 sec.

This is far and away the best so far:

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o277/DonFischer/Pigeonsinflight004.jpg" alt="" />

Hey Don,
Harlan has been out of town at work, but I'll make sure to let him know to check out the forum so he can help out.
Hopefully, you guys haven't forgotton about us!
Talk to you soon!
Ann

How are you doing Don?

I'm not sure what camera you are using, but I'm thinking it was a canon. Some of your settings may be different on your camera. I never use manual focusing, when shooting birds in flight. I shoot so fast that I never know if I got the shoot until I reveiw the shots. Use AL SERVO or track focusing. Your camera can focus much faster then a person ever could, as long as your using it wright. Lets just say, you have a duck coming at you and you shoot 9 shots at three frames per/sec. You would have had to fosus nine times in three seconds, if you could do that you would be Data, on Star Trak. Maybe not, But the point is, your camera can, most of the time. This is where your AF points comes into play. If your subject is really close you can use all nine points and let you camera do the rest, But if your subject is smaller in your frame like the pideons, you will need to manually select a AF point and keep it on your subject during tracking otherwise your camera may focus on the background.

I hope this helps, good luck

Harlan

Thank's Harlen,

I tried manual focus but will go bach to focus track. It's a Nikon D70. They are so fast, it's really hard to keep them in there and then if they get to close, they'll dive on me. Got some nice shot's of nothing! #-o

Look's like I might get sun again today so going out to try again.

wow

those are some great pics !! so harlen, you ever get a pic of a banded duck????????

I've never photographed a banded duck. I can't stand all the tags and bands they put on wildlife. I have great photos of fox, coyote, geese, mule deer, elk, and even muskox, with tags and collars, but it seems to take away from the essence of the image. This is not to say I wouldn't like to actually shot some banded ducks/geese with my gun!

Harlan

that second pic you posted on this thread, the mallard drake, is awsome! but look at that big ol leg, now wouldn't that look awsome with a shinny little peice of jeulery dangleing from it??? oh ya !!! [ just funnin' with ya they are awsome pics none the less]