Landing Sequence (kind of)

Gary what where your settings? Metering,Iso,IS turned on or off etc..
Seems to me like either you had it at a fixed point awaiting the bird to enter
that focus point or you had it on 3d tracking and or matrix where's if the subject moves
from one focus point it will try to lock on to the surrounding focus point.

If your lens has IS/VR turn it off trying to capture birds in flight IS/VR slows down the shutter
in order to over compensate for vibrations introduced by natural and non natural such as your hands etc.. With it turned off you gain faster shutter speeds. Set your lens to it's lowest fstop example F5.6 and good iso 400-800 depending on the scene shutter speeds vary but in bright sunny days 1/1500sec to 1/4000 sec manual mode is what I like to use. But some folks prefer shutter priority.

Post future results would love to check them out and see how you made out
these where almost there.

Lovely series...

Provo wrote: Gary what where your settings? Metering,Iso,IS turned on or off etc..
Seems to me like either you had it at a fixed point awaiting the bird to enter
that focus point or you had it on 3d tracking and or matrix where's if the subject moves
from one focus point it will try to lock on to the surrounding focus point.

If your lens has IS/VR turn it off trying to capture birds in flight IS/VR slows down the shutter
in order to over compensate for vibrations introduced by natural and non natural such as your hands etc.. With it turned off you gain faster shutter speeds. Set your lens to it's lowest fstop example F5.6 and good iso 400-800 depending on the scene shutter speeds vary but in bright sunny days 1/1500sec to 1/4000 sec manual mode is what I like to use. But some folks prefer shutter priority.

Post future results would love to check them out and see how you made out
these where almost there.

IS is off, matrix focus is on, ISO400, 1/500, continuous autofocus. I think the problem here is that the smaller birds are MUCH faster than something like a goose or heron, so the focus shifts to the branch - the most stable object found. And, these were taken in moderate overcast skies. I'll be shooting again when the sun comes out and the blue jays reappear. Thanks.

chasrich wrote: Lovely series...

Thanks, Chas. Much appreciated.

Nice shots. Anyone know what type of bird this is?

mclayton wrote: Nice shots. Anyone know what type of bird this is?

Thanks. It's a blue jay.

gjtoth wrote:

Provo wrote: Gary what where your settings? Metering,Iso,IS turned on or off etc..
Seems to me like either you had it at a fixed point awaiting the bird to enter
that focus point or you had it on 3d tracking and or matrix where's if the subject moves
from one focus point it will try to lock on to the surrounding focus point.

If your lens has IS/VR turn it off trying to capture birds in flight IS/VR slows down the shutter
in order to over compensate for vibrations introduced by natural and non natural such as your hands etc.. With it turned off you gain faster shutter speeds. Set your lens to it's lowest fstop example F5.6 and good iso 400-800 depending on the scene shutter speeds vary but in bright sunny days 1/1500sec to 1/4000 sec manual mode is what I like to use. But some folks prefer shutter priority.

Post future results would love to check them out and see how you made out
these where almost there.

IS is off, matrix focus is on, ISO400, 1/500, continuous autofocus. I think the problem here is that the smaller birds are MUCH faster than something like a goose or heron, so the focus shifts to the branch - the most stable object found. And, these were taken in moderate overcast skies. I'll be shooting again when the sun comes out and the blue jays reappear. Thanks.

Great tips from Provo.
I normally shoots at ISO 400 but at low shutterspeed i`ll push it up to get a faster shutterspeed...noise can be handled with noise remover.
Keep improving,we are watching......