Why they call them Chimney Swallows

Canon 7D Mark II, Tamron 150-600mm, 428mm, ISO 1600, 1/3200 at f/10, Tripod, fixed focus, remote shutter release. Not so much meant as a serious image, but more out of my curiosity as I watch these little "bullets" in the sky swoop around gathering insects and then literally shoot straight down into my neighbors chimney. It happens so fast that it "appears" that the little birds dive in head first when you are watching them so I set up the camera and held onto the remote release and when I saw them starting to approach the house I would just depress and hold the release until I saw the bird drop into the chimney. Since the 7D shoots up to 10 fps this Triptych would represent .3 seconds! So I concluded from this shot that they are actually using their wings to break their decent which means they are flying even faster upon their approach! Edit: Title should be Chimney Swifts, not Swallows!

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Warren: I like this as it shows real bird behavior! Just curious, were these three separate(d) images, or three images right in a row? I mean, was this photos 2, 5, 7 in your series, or photos 5,6,7. Just trying to gauge how fast these guys are moving!!

Can I ask you how you set up the three photos into one photo?


Thanks for this!


AP

Very nice image sequence, Warren! I like the behavior a lot! Did you consider overlaying all three of them in one image rather than making it into a triptych? I think that would be a pretty neat one, too!

It's hard to tell from 1200 px wide image but with fixed focus it's kinda spray and pray the bird will be in focus, right?

Thanks Andrew and Anika, glad you enjoyed this one! Andrew, these are 3 consecutive shots, each representing about 1/10 of a second between as I had the camera set on the highest rate which is 10 fps. To get all onto one I processed and cropped each to the same size (luckily the sky was clear so no moving clouds, etc, although I doubt there would have been much movement in that short of a timeframe). I then opened up a new file in PS CC and made it a little over 3 times the size of each individual shot, and then simply copied each image and pasted it onto the blank file and arranged them, then added a little more canvas for the black border.

Adhika, great idea on putting them all into one so I copied the two subsequent images, pasted them onto the first of the sequence and then simply made the blending mode Darken for each bird position to show up, pretty cool! As to the focus, I manually focused on the top of the chimney and went with f/10 hoping that would give me enough DOF for the bird to be not too fuzzy. It seems they drop pretty much straight down so a lot of luck having all 3 in with pretty good sharpness.

I should mention that when they are flying through the sky their tail feathers are pretty much closed which is where the term "Flying Cigar" comes from when describing these little speedsters. Again this demonstrates the breaking technique they use coming in for a landing!

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What a neat idea, and great execution of it! Both presentations are wonderful. This might fit well in the Story Sequences forum.

The middle frame looks like he is using the now-spread tail for directional control.

How well does the chimney draw in winter? Guess it needs cleaning every year.

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Originally Posted by Diane Miller

What a neat idea, and great execution of it! Both presentations are wonderful. This might fit well in the Story Sequences forum.

The middle frame looks like he is using the now-spread tail for directional control.

How well does the chimney draw in winter? Guess it needs cleaning every year.

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Thanks Diane, good observation on the tail! I'm not sure my neighbor ever uses her fireplace. I actually think I remember mentioning that she had these in her chimney years ago and she once had a cap on it, not sure why it is off now but it sure is fun to watch! I haven't checked out the Story Sequence forum, I'll have to check it out!

This is indeed interesting. I bet they can cause a lot of problems if you were to stoke up the fire place! You have captured the action so well in both lots of images. I might give that idea of consecutive shots a go. I really like what you have done there.

Well done Warren!

Thanks Glennie, this has also given me some different ideas for trying to catch other BIF shots, although it's hard to picture a scenario like this one where you know exactly where the birds are going to be to set focus!

Hi Warren! My preference is the RP. Great sequence. Not sure if you could lighten the shadows on them just a tad.... regardless... great going to get these fast flyers!

Thanks Sandy!