House Finch pair?

[Michael Yessik]

I was trying to see if I could focus on one of these fast-moving small birds, and finding it very difficult. Also, the light was low, so I bumped up the ISO to 800, went to manual mode, and set the shutter speed to 1/1600 to try to capture a BIF. There was no way I could follow one of these flying, so I set focus to manual and tried to guess where one of them might show up. I snapped a few shots and didn't realize there were two of them, until I went back and looked.

Very interested in comments considering missing some of one of the birds, and image quality not as good as I'd like, but I really like the composition. I'm not sure if there's some king of "behavior" here or not. Maybe a bird expert could weigh in on that.

Thanks.

D300, 500mm, f4, 1/1600, ISO 800. With fill-flash, but they were a little far away to make much, if any, difference.

[Desmond Chan]

It was a good try any way you look at it. I like the colors and the details of the male finch. Too bad it couldn't be sharper and that part of the female finch is missing. But it's difficult - at least for me - to shoot small bird in flight to begin with without using some kind of sensor/remote control (at least you used flash). Most of them fly only for a short distance between trees and so not much air time to track them. That's why I think the swallows are easier to deal with because they spend a lot of time flying. Photographing Humming bird hovering is another easier one.

Still, if it were mine, I will keep it until a better one comes up. That may be a long wait though since here's a shot with two finches interacting in the air.

Congrats!

[Alfred Forns]

Fully agree with Desmond on all points !!!

You did a lot of interesting things here and correct in my book !!! Predicting behavior, going manual for exp and manual for AF.

If I can't lock the AF will certainly try manual. I have been trying house sparrows recently popping out of hedges with my D3 on AF and have been succesfull ... but did have lots of light.

One suggestion that I have is using a shorter lens and getting closer, the dof will be much greater. With the 500 you are talking hardly anything.

Behavior wise we do have an expert :) Check with John in the behavior gallery !!!

[Gus Cobos]

I like the capture here Michael,
A difficult composition at that...very good advise given by Daemond and Mr. Forns...just keep on practicing and don't give up...looking forward to your next capture...:cool: