So many birds, so little time…

Most people prefer wildlife action shots to portraits, and I’m no different. I also spend a lot of time on safari, so I end up taking quite a few pictures of African birds in flight. Even the most beautiful bird looks better on the wing than on a stick, so it’s worth the wait!

Here are a few tips to help you get the best possible results—depending on the size of the bird.

First of all, though, let me just make a general comments.

You should never use single-shot drive mode. Birds fly very quickly and erratically, so you always need the highest possible frame rate to capture all the possible positions of the bird and its wings.

Your best autofocus settings depend on the type and brand of camera that you have, but these are probably your best options:

• If you have a Nikon DSLR, use single-point AF-C 3D.

• If you have a Canon DSLR, use single-point AI Servo.

• If you have a mirrorless camera with Eye Detection, switch it on and choose the Zone focus area.

Some people use nine-point, 25-point or a similar array to increase their chances of acquiring focus. The danger is that the camera might focus on the wrong part of the bird, such as the wingtip, but feel free to play around with all the possibilities. Whatever works for you…

Fast Pan

This is the approach most people probably take. All you have to do is choose your widest aperture and a fast shutter speed of around 1/3200 of a second, wait for a bird to appear and then follow it (ie ‘pan’), taking a burst of shots at the highest possible frame rate as it passes to make sure you get a good selection of wing positions. I generally shoot in Manual with Auto ISO, and the light level in Africa is usually bright enough that you don’t have to worry about noise levels or high ISOs.

Just a couple of things to watch out for:

• Make sure you only take pictures while the bird is flying towards you (ie at no more than 90° from your line of sight). The image will lose a lot of impact if the bird is flying away. Nobody likes ‘butt shots’…!

• When rating and editing your images, look out for wing position. Birds generally tend to look their best when their wings are either fully up or fully down.

• Try to make sure the background is interesting. That generally means shooting birds while they’re flying low so that you get land rather than sky. A blue sky can look perfect, but it can also look a bit boring!

Pros

• You’ll generally get a sharp image without any motion blur.

• Your hit rate will be quite high.

Cons

• Depending on where you are, you might have to wait a long time for a bird to fly overhead at just the right height and in just the right direction!

• It doesn’t work if there are too many trees.

• The bird will look a little ‘static’ because the fast shutter speed freezes any movement.

• Wing position will vary, so not every shot will be a ‘keeper’.

Slow Pan

The slow pan is one of the hardest types of shot to pull off, and your hit rate is going to be extremely low—probably less than 1%—so it’s worth taking a few ‘safety shots’ beforehand. However, if it works, it’s a great way to create an outstanding wildlife photo.

The problem with a fast shutter speed is that it freezes the action. That means you lose any sense of energy or movement. Imagine photographing a Formula One car doing 200 mph on a long straight at 1/1000 of a second—it would just look as though it was parked on the tarmac!

The answer is to slow down the shutter speed but pan across to keep the bird in the same relative position in the frame. That lets you keep the head sharp while leaving the wings and the background blurred. The contrast in sharpness provides the drama. A good slow pan shot should leave you in no doubt that the bird is flying at speed!

Pros

• You’ll convey more of a sense of energy and movement.

• You get more chances of a great shot rather than just a good one.

Cons

• It’s incredibly hard to master, so your hit rate will start out very low and won’t improve much over time!

• You might miss out on getting any decent shots of the bird!

Take-off Shot

If you see a bird perching on a dead tree on a game drive, it gives you your best chance to control all the variables. You can choose your settings in advance, get into a comfortable position and just wait for the bird to fly away, then take a burst of shots to capture as many moments as you can.

Note that birds generally take off into the wind, so try to position your vehicle upwind of your subject. They also tend to ‘poop’ before they fly, so look out for that, too!

If the bird is uncooperative and just sits there for a few minutes, you can always ask your guide to give it a bit of ‘encouragement’ by slamming the driver’s side door, starting and stopping the engine or even getting out and walking up behind it (so it flies in the right direction).

Bigger birds such as African fish eagles fly more slowly and less unpredictably than smaller ones like lilac-breasted rollers or little bee-eaters, so you might think that you can use different settings or adopt a different technique. However, that’s a dangerous assumption.

If you think you can just wait for an African fish eagle to fly from its perch and still manage to capture the moment of take-off, you’re dreaming! You need very fast reactions to do something like that, and mine are certainly not good enough.

To avoid missing any of the action, it’s best to max out all your settings:

• Highest possible frame rate (even if that means using the lossy compressed Raw format)

• Fast shutter speed (1/3200 of a second, at least)

• Narrow aperture (f/8 or more)

The high frame rate means you’re buying as many tickets to the lottery as you can. The fast shutter speed means you freeze the whole body of the bird—even the wingtips. The narrow aperture gives you some leeway if the autofocus doesn’t manage to follow the bird quickly enough when it takes off.

The only one of those you might compromise on with a big bird is the aperture. Eagles don’t fly as fast as rollers or bee-eaters, so you don’t need as much wiggle room.

If you’re photographing a small bird like the little bee-eater, you should probably try to increase your chances by taking bursts every second or so—or even every half a second. The good thing about bee-eaters is that they generally come back to the same perch after each trip to catch an insect, so you’ll get plenty of chances to photograph them.

However, the bad news is that they take off so quickly and unpredictably that you can’t possibly hope to react quickly enough to keep the bird in the frame—let alone pan across as it flies away! All you can do is take short, sharp bursts of four or five frames and hope you get lucky. You might end up taking hundreds or even thousands of pictures of a static bird, but it’s worth it if you get the money shot.

Besides, digital photographs are free. You don’t need to buy film any more or pay for processing, so you should never worry about taking ‘too many’ pictures—as long as you have enough memory cards!

Pros

• You have plenty of time to choose your settings in advance.

• You can get into a comfortable position to take the shot.

• You can even choose when the bird flies—as long as you have a helpful guide!

Cons

• Birds sometimes stay on branches for ages, so you have to be very patient!

• You’ll still miss more shots than you make when photographing small birds.

• Keeping the eye sharp as the bird flies away from the branch is a problem—even for the Sony a1!

Landing Shot

If you’re lucky enough to see little bee-eaters, you’ll probably get the chance to photograph them when they land. That’s when they spread their wings to slow themselves down, so it’s a great opportunity to show them at their best.

Little bee-eaters catch one insect at a time, so they’re only away for a few seconds. The trick is to focus on the branch after your subject takes off and then take a burst of shots until it re-enters the frame. If it helps, you can ask your guide to tell you when it’s about to come back, but you can’t just wait until you see it in the viewfinder—nobody has reactions that are that fast!

Again, you need a fast shutter speed (1/3200 of a second) to freeze the action and a reasonably narrow aperture (at least f/8) to give you the extra depth of field to allow for the fact that the bird will be a few inches away from the branch.

Pros

• It’s a chance to photograph birds with their wings fully spread.

• You can get into a comfortable position to take the shot.

Cons

• You can’t focus on the bird as it flies towards the branch, so the autofocus system (and Eye Detection on mirrorless cameras) won’t help.

• The gap between the bird and the branch means images will only ever be ‘acceptably sharp’ rather than ‘tack-sharp’—unless you’re very lucky...!

Verdict

I hope you’ve enjoyed this whistle-stop tour of African bird-in-flight photography and that you’ve learned a few things along the way. Some of the techniques in here are pretty tricky, and they require a lot of practice, but it’s all worth it in the end if you manage to capture a shot you can be proud of!

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