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I took Alfred's advice and increased my shutter speed for this subject. My settings were 1/2000 sec, f7.1, ISO 400 with fill flash -1 2/3. 100 to 400 IS Lens set at 330 mm, on a tripod. I think is can still use more shutter speed to truely freeze the motion of this incredibaly fast bird.
Love the bug in its beak David. I don't think your photo is lacking in shutter speed here. The entire bird is slightly OOF. I think it speaks more to the fact that it's hard to maintain focus while tracking a swallow in flight. If anything I would increase ISO and increase DOF; you are asking a lot of f/7.1 to get this kind of pose in focus with that aperture. Thanks for posting, and good luck getting that photo you're striving for!
I agree with Doug, it does not seem to be a problem of shutter speed. It looks as if your camera focused on the bird's left wing or even in front of it and the DOF was too shallow to get the entire bird in focus.
Photographing swallows is about as hard as it gets when it comes to birds in flight, even if you are in front of a nesting box.
Nice captur Dave,
Agree with the techs. mentioned. I like it..keep them coming...:cool:
